Crossing Souls feels like a mixture of Zombies Ate My Neighbors and Earthbound. Those who like games with a strong focus on using real world themes mixed with fictional based ideas will love the setup of Crossing Souls. With animation reminiscent of an old Saturday morning cartoon, Crossing Souls harkens to those who remember the best times of the 80s. Get ready for a radical adventure to be had in Crossing Souls!

The Crossing Souls demo gives players a small glimpse into this 80s themed action and adventure title. Players control a rag tag group of friends who must do battle with rough gangs and random baddies as they go about their grandiose adventure they found themselves in. Crossing Souls feels like an 80s cartoon comes to life with art and music inspired by that era. Did you or do you love the 80s and the various things to release from that time period? Better yet, do you love fun adventure games with plenty of action to be had? Then you’re going to like Crossing Souls when it releases in February.

Chris, his brother Kevin, and their friends Charlie, Matt, and Big Joe are use to having adventures from the smallest things. Despite living in a quiet suburb in California, the friends are never far from getting into some form of trouble. However, when Chris’ brother Kevin finds a dead corpse containing a strange pink stone the crew realizes this adventure might be something huge. Now the friends will have to deal with a paranormal stone and a secret organization hell bent on getting it back. Can these friends ban together and survive this new challenge? Find out in this 80s themed story called Crossing Souls.

Does anyone here consider themselves an 80s kid? Do you remember the time of waking up early Saturday morning, running downstairs and hitting the TV to see what cartoons awaited on the Saturday morning lineup? If you raised your hand yes, then you’re like many of us here at Honey’s Anime, as we too remember those times well or at least, what they felt like in the early 90s, too. That’s why when we heard of developer Fourattic’s Crossing Souls title, we were instantly jumping up and down to get our hands on the demo that was released on Steam. Journey with us as we preview Crossing Souls and tell you what we thought of this 80s filled game.

Crossing Souls is a pretty interesting game. Players assume the role of 5 kids—Chris, Charlie, Kevin, Matt and Big Joe—who have found themselves in a weird situation after a lighting strike hit their suburban town. After finding a corpse, the gang discovers a pink stone that they find out has hidden powers to see dead spirits. Of course, like any sane teen or kid would do, they decide to go on an adventure in search of Kevin’s recently dead dog. Crossing Souls sounds ridiculous in nature but trust us folks, that is the appeal of this game so far.

Crossing Souls plays out as an action/adventure title. Players will run, jump, solve simple puzzles and fight against various enemies that range from spiders, rats and even ghosts. The demo for Crossing Souls shows off the 5 characters’ and their unique abilities. For example, Chris is able to climb, swing a bat at enemies and jump. Meanwhile, Charlie—representing the sole female of the group—uses a whip that can be used to attack enemies and propel herself over large areas. Each of the five kids—minus Kevin who seems random in every definition—has a usefulness to them that makes them perfect for an adventure title.

Now, in terms of what you’ll be doing with your ragtag team in Crossing Souls is pretty simple. Go about and explore. Just like what regular kids used to do in the 80s, Crossing Souls feels like an adventure straight out of a kid’s head but in this case, there is an apparent story of evil organizations and mystical artifacts to fuel the narrative. The Crossing Souls demo allowed us here at Honey’s Anime HQ to see the suburb and some of the forest area of the game world but we assume this won’t be a small title as we can already see tons of side quests to take and various goodies to be found.

What really amazed us most about the Crossing Souls demo wasn’t just the adventure game themes, fun characters and great dialogue. No, what wowed us the most was the 80s aesthetics that flood every orifice of Crossing Souls. Not only are cutscenes done with an 80s cartoon playing on a VHS—no DVDs or Blu Rays in the 80s, folks—motif but even the music and in game graphics look 80s focused. It might not push your PC to the limits of its graphics card, but Crossing Souls will appeal to those who love the NES or Sega Genesis age. We can only pray there will be even more 80s themed art and music in the full release of Crossing Souls.

Now, if we have any complaints about Crossing Souls—and there’s only one in our minds—it is the keyboard and mouse controls. When you boot Crossing Souls up, it tells you to use a gamepad for optimized performance. This is a very true statement, folks. Crossing Souls plays wonderfully with every jump and action feeling perfect on an Xbox One controller. Though things change with a keyboard and mouse as Crossing Souls then feels clunky. We lost tons of hearts and wasted our stamina meters trying to make simple jumps that were easy as pie with a controller plugged in when using the keyboard and mouse instead. Trust us, play Crossing Fields only with a controller and you’ll be happy.

Crossing Souls really wowed us here at Honey’s Anime. Not only does Crossing Souls feel like an 80s cartoon/movie but it plays incredibly well in the process. The fun action/adventure style of gameplay mixed with fun dialogue and tons of references to various 80s concepts just makes Crossing Souls a nostalgic title. Even if you aren’t from the 80s and are just looking for a fun game, Crossing Souls will appeal to you as it is fun personified. We can’t wait for the full release this February 2018 and we hope you guys will join us by giving this game some love that it deserves.

While the Crossing Souls demo wasn’t incredibly long. what we did get we thoroughly enjoyed. The amazing cartoon visuals and themes that gush 80s just hearkened to the fun elements of a yesteryear. We are so pumped for the full game to release and we hope to bring you a full review of Crossing Souls as soon as we can. What about you guys and girls out there, are you excited now for Crossing Souls? Tell us how you feel in the comments down below! For more gaming previews, reviews and news be sure to keep stuck to our hive here at Honey’s Anime.