Young Souls is a 2022 Hack and Slash Action RPG from 1P2P, published by the Arcade Crew.
Troubled twin youths Jenn and Tristan live a dull life in a small town with their Absent-Minded Professor guardian. But that all changes one day when the professor is kidnapped by the gobbons that dwell Beneath the Earth.
Young Souls contains examples of:
- Action RPG: Like Dragon's Crown, it's an action RPG with Beat 'em Up combat.
- Adjustable Censorship: There's a "language filter" option to blank out the frequent profanities.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Dinkoy and Tetcha spend much of their screen time insulting each other as a result of their conflicting research fields. However, when he finds out the twins killed Tetcha, he at first goes into denial over her being dead before swearing vengeance. When he confronts the twins the second time around, he's incensed that they never bothered to remember Tetcha's name.
- Beneath the Earth: The action except for the final boss takes place in large dungeons far beneath the surface.
- Gratuitous French: The gobbon soldiers are called "Soldats" despite coming from a non-human culture. The devs being French probably has something to do with that.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: Gobbons explode into swirling purple smoke, undead gobbons explode into bones and dark energy, and ghost gobbons burst into wisps.
- Delinquents: Jenn and Tristan have this reputation around town, but seem like good kids, just kind of grumpy and foul-mouthed.
- Distressed Dude: The plot is kicked off by the Professor's kidnapping.
- Drill Tank: The Drillers are a combination of this and a Spider Tank.
- Fanservice Extra: The buxom "Provocative Customer" who can be found in various stores. The pawn shop owner and gym instructor could also count.
- Final-Exam Boss: Shinjo attacks by taking the form of prior minor bosses and enemies, requiring the player to use their knowledge of their attack patterns in order to evade or parry his attacks.
- Heal Thyself: When a twin tags out, they regain health depending on how much damage they did while they were active.
- Heroic Sacrifice: When the driller shows up earlier than expected, the just-rescued Professor is forced to set off the bombs before he can get away from them.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Fighting the Gobbon Driller is next to impossible. Being an actual war machine made for combat, the twin's current weapons can only deal minimal amounts of damage to it (for reference, it possess double the hit points compared to the Final Boss).
- In Medias Res: The game starts out at the end, then switches to "A few weeks earlier."
- Mirror Boss: Before the proper boss fight with Shinjo, he'll warm the twins up with a couple of shadow-clones.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: Ghost enemies (which are fortunately only encountered in one area) require a Cursed weapon to hurt them, which unfortunately turns the twins into this. And yes, you do have to use them in a boss fight.
- Our Goblins Are Different: Gobbons look like traditional goblins, but act more like dwarves. They're also Not Always Evil, which turns out to be a plot point.
- Parental Substitute: The Professor is one for the twins after their parents died. They finally start calling him "Dad" right before he gets killed.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: Jenn and Tristan have the exact same abilities and base stats, and can use the same gear.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Both of the twins, to the point that this is a very rare example of a game being rated M just for language. No gore, no nudity, the heroes are just a couple of potty-mouths.
- Suddenly Voiced: Shinjo speaks lines that are intelligible to the player a grand total of once, which is during his Breaking Speech to the twins preceding his battle with them.
- Red-Headed Hero: Jenn and Tristan both have poofy red hair.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: In the overworld, you can have the twins get run over by passing cars for no reason other than for amusement. They, surprisingly, take a small amounts of damage from being struck by a moving vehicle.
- Villainous Friendship: For as much bickering as they do Dwarvegobben and his generals seem to be a legitimately close group. Tetcha's death sends the remaining members on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, and every general afterwards calls out the twins for killing her.
- Virtual Paper Doll: There's two forms of currency in the game; gobbon gold, which is used to buy equipment, potions, etc, and human money, which is used to buy clothes which are simply aesthetic.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Dwarvegobben wants to lead the gobbons back up into the surface world they were driven from...and massacre the descendants of the ones who did it. The Mayor, meanwhile, wants to prevent this by destroying the entire gobbon kingdom.
- What Measure Is a Mook?: Jenn and Tristan are troubled whenever they kill a Gobbon general, but not over the hundreds of mooks and dozens of non-story-important bosses they've slaughered.
