Zoo’s new music game Beat Souls is a great time
I really like Zoo Corporation, and I find it kind of fascinating how they’ve evolved over the years. From publishing a Super NES puzzle game with Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov’s name on it (despite it having absolutely nothing to do with him) to eroge and onwards into a variety of casual-friendly Japanese indie games, one gets the impression that the people working behind the scenes really enjoy what they are doing. And this absolutely comes across with their newest title Beat Souls.
In fact, Beat Souls is particularly praiseworthy because, like their other recent release Cake Invaders, it demonstrates that Zoo Corporation is willing to do more than just (admittedly excellent) mahjong solitaire, Texas Hold ‘Em and Gals Panic clone games featuring anime girls drawn from their back catalogue of eroge. Nope, Beat Souls is an all-original, all-new work that is, at heart, a music game of sorts — but it has some fun twists on the usual formula.
Notably, Beat Souls is not a “tap the buttons in time with the music” sort of music game. Instead, it’s more of a dexterity-based action game in which the music determines the rhythm and pace at which the stage elements appear. As such, if you enjoy the idea of playing music games but find the actual musical proficiency required to succeed at titles like the Hatsune Miku Project Diva series and Groove Coaster a little offputting, this one is definitely worth your time and attention.
Each stage in Beat Souls essentially unfolds as a sort of “boss fight” between your selected character and an opponent. Your character sits at the end of a series of lanes, and the “boss” hurls things down these lanes at you. There are three main things that you need to pay attention to: upright “Noise” obstacles, which you’ll simply need to move from side to side to avoid; flat “Noise” obstacles, which you’ll need to jump over, and Souls, which you’ll need to collect with the “Otomo” spirits that float either side of your character.
It’s this latter aspect that makes Beat Souls so interesting to play, because it adds another dimension on to the movement aspect of the game. Not only do you have to move your character in such a way that they avoid the incoming Noise, but you also need to make sure they are positioned in such a way that their Otomo can capture the Souls.
Initially, this is a relatively straightforward process, with the Souls being positioned in such a way that simply ensuring your character is in a safe position will also nab the Souls. But as Beat Souls progresses and the difficulty escalates, some additional elements are added to the mix.
Firstly, you’ll find Souls arranged in different formations. Early in the game, they’re arranged so that there is a gap between them, which is where your character goes. But after a certain point, you’ll find arrangements of Souls where they’re clustered together. This is where you’ll need to use the shoulder buttons to shift both of your Otomo to one side or the other of you — and your character then passes down the left or the right side of the Souls arrangement.
Secondly, much further in Beat Souls, you’ll encounter differently coloured Souls. You don’t have to match their colour, but you’ll get more points if you do — and cycling through the available colours is just a tap of a button away; surely you can handle that?
Essentially, the further you go through Beat Souls’ wide range of levels, the more complex, challenging and rewarding it gets. What initially feels quite straightforward, particularly to music game veterans, becomes seriously frantic and immensely satisfying as you dodge and weave your way around the Noise while simultaneously nabbing all the Souls in their various, increasingly awkward arrangements.
As with most games like this, in Beat Souls you’re scored based on how long you can keep an unbroken combo going — with the combo in this case being determined by the Souls your Otomo grabbed. Reaching the end of a stage without taking any damage and without missing any Souls nets you special awards, and there are various unlockables according to how many stages of each of the “boss” characters you’ve cleared, and how much you’ve advanced in “level” simply by continuously playing the game.
Of particular note is the “Hell” mode, which is an infinite mode where you simply try to survive as long as possible. There are three versions of this, based on the three boss characters, and they each have their own unique music tracks that are separate from the main stages. These start relatively challenging but gradually amp up their difficulty the longer you survive — it’s here that most players will likely find the most longevity from Beat Souls as they pursue ever-increasing high scores.
The game is presented very nicely, with some wonderfully colourful and lively imagery that keeps the on-screen action feeling vibrant and interesting without interfering with visibility. The menus look great, too; the whole thing is held together with a brilliantly consistent, colourful visual aesthetic that really works well for the game.
Despite this being a music game, I’d perhaps argue the weakest aspect is actually the soundtrack. It’s not bad by any means, and for sure there are some absolute bangers among the complete lineup — the electroswing-inspired numbers of the second boss character are a personal favourite — but there are also a few tracks that feel a bit uninspired and uninteresting, particularly early in the game.
This is perhaps down to the fact that the majority of the soundtrack appears to have been handled by one person; doubtless after a certain point, they just got a bit fatigued with the whole thing. If Zoo decides to make a Beat Souls 2 (or, indeed, a Pretty Girls Beat Souls or something, which I absolutely wouldn’t say no to) it would almost certainly benefit the project to draw the music from a wider range of sources. Given the anime-inspired art style, it would be amazing to see some VTuber collaborations such as those we’ve seen in Groove Coaster — though whether or not Zoo has the budget for such efforts remains to be seen, of course!
One nice touch worth noting is that you can filter the available songs in various ways and even set up your own playlist, so once you’ve unlocked everything you can more easily pick and choose your favourite tracks and leave the ones you don’t like so much behind. This is a great customisation feature that should be a standard inclusion in all music games.
The relatively mediocre soundtrack is less of an issue than you might think, though, because Beat Souls is not a music game about “playing along” with the music like the aforementioned Groove Coaster and Hatsune Miku games, and as such the actual music itself is of secondary importance. Rather, it’s a game where the things you’re avoiding and collecting just happen to come in time with the music. And thus, the majority of your attention will be on the visual side of things, anyway — at least until you learn the levels off by heart and can complete them instinctively, of course!
I don’t want to sound like I’m being too harsh on Beat Souls here, because it really is an excellent, compelling and highly addictive game that is very much worth your time, attention and money. And if it does well, perhaps we’ll see Zoo take the opportunity to try again with another similar game — after all, their past track record has certainly shown they are definitely not afraid to iterate on a formula!
So give it a go. Zoo Corporation is a developer worth your support — plus, as always, props to eastasiasoft for porting and localising these games and allowing a wider audience to experience them.
Beat Souls is available now for PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4/5 and Xbox blargittyblarg. Thanks to eastasiasoft for the review code.
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