For decades, gamers have been teaming up with friends to tackle the challenges of 2D beat 'em ups, taking out one screen of enemies after the other and mastering the moves of their chosen character. 2D beat 'em up games remain popular to this day, with Streets of Rage 4 earning rave reviews and the recently released Young Souls drumming up quite a bit of interest from fans of the genre as well.
Young Souls was once a Stadia exclusive game, but just recently made its way to other platforms this past month. A day one Xbox Game Pass game, Young Souls is a 2D beat 'em up that mixes the genre with action-RPG elements. Players are able to level up, improve their stats, acquire new weapons and armor, and more. It's a challenging, fun game to play with a friend in local co-op, but it has one big drawback that's holding it back from reaching its full potential.
Anyone needing a new local co-op game to play should certainly consider giving Young Souls a go regardless, but they may be disappointed with how the game's camera works. Young Souls likes to keep the action zoomed-in and focused on the first player, which can result in some serious camera problems and disorientation for the second player.
For whatever reason, the Young Souls camera doesn't zoom out when players get too far apart, and it doesn't restrict players so that they must stay together. It will instead let the second player go off-screen, which can result in cheap hits from enemies. Young Souls is a fairly challenging game with some tough boss fights, and since every hit counts, getting beat up because the camera won't cooperate can make for an especially frustrating time.
For larger areas in Young Souls, the camera problems are understandable, but they're bizarrely present in static arenas where boss fights and the like take place. Since players are confined to a specific place anyway, one would think it would make more sense for the camera to take in the full scope of the area instead of being zoomed in and leaving the second player vulnerable to falling off screen.
Young Souls' camera problems are definitely an issue, but the game is otherwise quite engaging and very difficult to put down. Besides the camera problems, there's very little else to complain about, with Young Souls offering a sharp sense of humor and fun fights that should keep local co-op fans busy for hours.
Young Souls is out now for PC, PS4, Stadia, Switch, and Xbox One.