Warning this is going to be a rather long blog review post. Please take as many breaks as humanly possible while reading all of this.
Don't worry I'm going all in when the time comes. In the mean time I hope those about to read this review entry enjoy. You can tell I really wanted to play this compilation game. I figured to literately go in all reviewing it purely out of fun.
I also wanna confirm I didn't just buy it for that one game. This had a rather interesting lineup of games. Swords & Souls Legacy Collection came out mid July on Steam. It's a collection for five classic flash games made by two cousins. The same publisher as Decision Legacy Collection being Armor Games Studios.
Swords & Souls (2015)
I figured to take my sweet time reviewing each game within the collection. I knew exactly which game to kick things off with. Swords & Souls has to be among not only the greatest flash games I ever played. But among the very best games I played period!!! I also will confirmed I did find the original flash game version through Newgrounds website.
It took me a long time to fully completionist that game. I never expected I would do the entire process again. Neither did I expect to do it way faster in comparison. We're talking within twenty fours of my purchase I checked. For me I'm not used to a game that's heavily centered on training.
Usually I find it boring to a degree. Although I do recall some fun similar experiences. Somehow each training section done just right. I personally felt I struggled the most with strikes. You also get to join money to unlock stuff. Some aspects of this reminded me of a game I reviewed earlier this year through GOG.
Chicken Assassin: Reloaded except it's not a clicker style game. Every training section has a few similar variety that's all done incredibly differently. You also can take on the arena for thirty waves. There's a Survival section to keep you replaying the section. You also got to do well enough to unlock the true final boss.
Strength is heavily striking apples at faster paces. Block is using your shield to block apples from hitting you. Accuracy is using a bow for target practice. Dodge is literately all about timing to avoid taking hits. Critical tests your patience to deliver critical damages. I should mention Critical is mostly done through your mouse unlike most of them.
I simply love each training section has different style of controls. Which ended up being a rather unique experience. It's also possible to quickly knock out Combo challenges if you have enough combo build up prior to getting them. I really love the style of using an bow in this as well. Which sorta reminds me of Rambo 3 on Sega Genesis when you face the bosses.
You literately look like you're using a bow in this cool first person style. Hard to believe all those training sections occurs in the same room right? I will confirm some will take a little longer getting a bit better at than others. You just don't know how incredibly addicting these training sections are. The best part is you can do terrible at challenges to still gain experience for those stats.
If you're new to the game you wouldn't know who it is. What if I told you he's been with you the entire time!!! No really this Scarecrow that training you is the real final boss. You also go through several forms of currency as well as equipment. I love there's a few sections to check out what you unlocked. You can buy stuff for your home as well.
My favorite being your equipment that's a rather long room. The controls for the most part are quite decent. I actually don't have a single major issue at all. Even considering at times lag inputs to a degree. It's not entirely game breaking either. I also loved they reference some of the other games within the collection.
Unlike Decision Legacy Collection, they added in a link to Swords & Souls: Neverseen. It's presented on the map screen on the right. I also noticed some animations were notably sped up a bit. It took some time getting use to the speed within training sections. Later unlocking the option to use Turbo Mode for faster variations of them.
You also can use money to include your total bank earnings. When you nearly bought every equipment. At the store there's an option for experience points. Which you'll get for every ten thousand coins. A very large amount of experience points. Although you could get much more through collecting clovers. Clovers often pop up through training.
Clovers among feeding em to a mushroom whose your pet. Randomly gives you stuff with popped animation means nothing. Ideally you can get a lot of free stuff you could use in the arena. You also get quickly get money as well as experience points. Let's put this way a ridiculous amount of clovers. There's a huge chance you'll fly through a few levels at best.
A lot of your enemies seems to be from Rogue Souls series. Including Rogue himself among many opponents. I also noticed a particular hat belonging to the guy in The Soul Driver. The money earning is quite decent for the most part. Personally here's what I recommend to truly get started. Trust me this will be somewhat time consuming but worth it in the end.
Quickly unlock all five training sections. Try to spend a lot of your time training hard. Even if you kept failing challenges. Your additional experience from these sections still helps you out. There's no true ending to the game for anyone wondering. It's mind blowing how truly great this game turned out to be. They really went the distance with this!!!
This by itself earned enough respect it's much more than an flash game. No it's a game you really should play before you die. If it's not on your list you may wanna consider adding this soon. I really can not say much more about the game that already haven't been said thousands of times. Seriously if you don't believe please consider giving this a try.
The Soul Driver (2011)
This was SoulGame Studio's first flash game. This was a short but fun driving game. Very quickly some aspects reminded me of other games. For examples, you are mostly getting from point a to point b. But you often deal with cops & mobsters. There's a lot of hazards on the road to test your driving skills. You can collect coins to upgrade your car to a degree.
There's ten levels with the last being easily the most difficult by far. This level goes on a lot longer with the game throwing everything it's got at you. If you do finish the final level be proud. I had to replay this one level a couple times. Luckily they were kind in selecting the five achievements. Don't expect em to be that easy to get though.
A handful of them I took several attempts to get. One in particular I ended up getting during an failed attempt at a challenge. Yes this game also offers an short challenge mode. I just wish they made it clear what the minimum for bronze, silver and gold requirements are? The controls are quite decent with amazing accuracy.
I simply love you get to drive crazy in general. Helicopters drops mines that also can affect other enemies. Huge birds that drops mess in hopes to partially blind you. Considering this was the cousins' first flash game together. It's actually much better than expected. It's simple with just roughly the right level of challenge.
Then again I also felt challenge mode is quite repetitive in comparison. I would have to say my favorite aspect is the animations. Like seeing cop cars crashed into things taking em out is so satisfying. You also get to hit & run people on the road. This would be a great game to start playing the collection with. To me it's more fun than Dash of Destruction.
You know a free XBLA game someone won an Doritos contest to make. Sadly that XBLA game gotten delisted since then. This is notably more satisfying to play. You actually can tell how good some of the upgrades are. I also love you can speed up or use boost. Which you can refill cheap making that a good option.
The Soul Driver is a great time for anyone wanting to cause chaos on the road. The ultimate goal of the game is escape into Mexico. I felt the cousins did a great job designing the game. It may get repetitive to a degree. At the same time get it done will make you quite happy. I highly recommend people check this game.
The Gentleman (2013)
The Gentleman is one of those you gotta adapt to all kind of situations puzzle games. This game will test not only your skills but how creative you can be. Some of these levels with some aspects of the controls taking a little longer getting use to. The learning curve is a very huge one. For the most part you have to unlock doors.
Not like Hotel Mario on CD-i though. Some doors requires keys or surviving until time unlocks em. There's some rather interesting animation. The artwork itself truly stands out within the levels. Can you believe there's fifty levels? Easily one of the most ambitious flash games I ever played!!! Thankfully you can easily use level select.
Which helps regarding achievement hunting this collection game. The gold times are ridiculously shorter than you expect. The most being thirty seconds notably longer than majority of them. This also confirms most levels aren't long either. There also are a few boss levels as well. I am glad these bosses has a health bar.
A rather huge health bar at that to know my process in them. You can easily fail by getting touched. This is more meant for speed runners than anyone else. Yes it can get repetitive but beating some of the harder levels. In all honestly feels truly amazing when you do so. It actually felt like those were well earned.
Without question one of the most interesting games within the collection. Just right level of creativity within the levels. Very few of them felt a bit similar. But majority of them are vastly different experiences altogether. This game kept blowing my mind how great it truly was. The Gentleman is perfect if you want variety within the game play.
Just expect more towards adapting to the levels than anything else. During an 1st playthrough you won't know what may get thrown your direction. Trust me when I say a lot get thrown to see if you have the skills to win or not. I also love the game points at breaking reality jokes. One of my favorites being "an Gentleman doesn't care about gravity."
Some of these levels are incredibly strict. Even doing the smallest thing wrong forces you to try again. Thank god for limitless chances right? The bosses largely defeated by jumped on their heads. In a weird sense you face one boss twice. But the later variation you face a second, smaller bat with em. Some of them has a very notable learning curve.
The final boss is among the easiest I felt. But considering how frustrating the last few levels are. It's almost like the developers felt bad they made those levels too hard. I won't sugar coat this the hardest game to complete in the collection. It turns out the final boss is this cat you kept seeing through out the game.
Now I see where a similar concept done in Swords & Souls came from. This has the most confusing everything controls within the collection. After you go through portals your controls swapped. Which is rather annoying within games. Timing is insanely critical if you wanna get far in this. You are forced in some of the later levels go in with a huge leap of faith.
Hoping regardless what's in your path you somehow made it through. I will give credit the levels that alter perceptive to a degree are rather cool looking. There's a particular level I absolute dislike with a strong passion. Level 47 is an absolutely nightmare to get through. I tried so many times to get through this level.
I didn't skip any levels at all which had a set number how many you could've skip. I nearly had every level done with gold by the time I finished the game. I guess what I have with the game is a love/hate relationship. I love so much about the game compared what really gotten under my skin. For what it's worth The Gentleman isn't a bad game at all.
This game expects absolute perfection nothing lesser than that. I thought games like Contra series was brutal in comparison. Plus you got to constantly learn things during an 1st playthrough. More than you're actually expecting to make it even harder to finish. I would say this is great if you wanna play something different.
Rogue Soul (2012)
The first Rogue Soul is virtually endless hit & run platformer. There is an ending but you can actually continue after first watching that. The controls are quite decent just roughly where you want em. It's a rogue-like experience with the levels even among after using continues changes. Despite that it's a surprisingly shorter length game within the collection.
I do like you can unlock stuff for your room. A feature later done in Swords & Souls. You play as Rogue who wants to be the most wanted man. There really isn't much of a story at all. What you need to know is unless you have armor. You can fail from taking one hit. It's possible to find more armor around the levels.
It's a rather faster pace game not in the style of Sonic the Hedgehog. I would make a joke but Shadow the Hedgehog game already exists!!! You gotta think fast as well as react nearly as quickly. There's a little of a learning curve regarding some of the enemies. You can give flowers to women that gives you additional jumps.
I love the famous Assassin's Creed style Leap of Faith to end levels on. The actual achievement hunting will take a bit of time after figuring some stuff out. It's quite doable to say the least. I also love you can customize your character to a degree. The developers did a great job making you feel like an actual rogue.
There's virtually no bosses at all. If you actually wanna see the ending to the game. You need to score at least 5000 coins. You can then die to trigger the cutscene. Then a paper gets added to your room allowing you to simply rewatch the ending whenever you want. You do need to get that ending if you wanna attempt the challenges.
This is a game among a first look you would think. "There's no way I could play this!!!" After a few hours stuff becomes second nature to you. In all honestly, this is a good beginner game within the collection. It's just right balance of everything. I should also point you there's a huge possibility of dying a lot as well.
Rogue Soul turned out to be a rather cool game. Screw the fact it originally was an flash game. I believe this deserves more respect than it's getting. You also get a few ways to attack enemies. Including the classic jump on enemies trend. I felt this game held up amazingly well after all these years. Without question make sure you play this one.
Rogue Soul 2 (2014)
Despite the similarities in game play from the first Rogue Soul. This follow up step up huge time here. You get a lot of upgrades that betters your chances. You get ten levels with several objectives. I actually completed all ten fully before I attempted replaying level 10 on an faster setting. Not only you get to customize your character being Rogue again.
You also can unlock additional modes to offer more variety within the game play. You get challenges as well as an Survival mode. There's also Arena which I don't currently have in my save. But I'm a little half way there to getting it though. There's some rogue-like aspects to keep the game interesting. Now when you give ladies a flower.
Several power ups could be given to you. All of them notably helps you out. My two favorites if I had to choose has to be Magnet & Infinite Ammo. Magnet for a short period pulls stuff you can collect. Even at a notable distance while you can keep focusing on finishing the levels. There's a few bosses that all differ from each other.
Thankfully all of them has a health bar with their names included. There's an actual story this time around. Rogue takes on an cult with their leader being the final boss. I simply love his name, Dark Zoul is a play on the game series Dark Souls. Some of the unlockables is references to the other games in the collection.
Yes there's a notable learning curve. It's just not The Gentleman level of strict though. Sometimes you get hit when you felt you shouldn't. Then again you do get a particular upgrade. Where among taking hits at random doesn't register the hit. Instead counts it as you dodge em which is kinda awesome. You can tell they gotten quite creative with this one.
Rogue Soul 2 is a worthy successor. I also love additional jumps as well as parachutes automatically given. This also means you can use em more often than in the first Rogue Soul. Changes like this heavily impacted the game in a great way. In all honestly, it was quite amazing they pulled all of this off so well.
I should point out there's three caged old men you can rescue in the levels. Some of them are quite tricky to get though. I simply love among first finishing a level. Any of the objectives you completed stay done. You have no idea how truly annoying some games can be not doing that. I felt this is easily one of the best games within the collection hands down!!!
Now I wanted to do a quick ranking. You already given enough to go on prior. I am aware some people's lists could differ to a degree. Majority of them will have the same exact number 1!!! All I ask for in return is please don't bitch thank you. This was actually trickier to do than Decision Legacy Collection. I carefully analyze each game before the official ranking was given.
Ranking
5. The Gentleman
4. Rogue Soul 1
3. The Soul Driver
2. Rogue Soul 2
1. Swords & Souls
Conclusion
I finally get to talk about the game selection screen. I personally felt this is simply being too great. I know some may point out it's a little weird the order they were placed. They aren't placed by years or genres either. I really prefer the game selection screen more than Decision Legacy Collection's. Which wasn't bad for what it was either.
There's just something I love so much in comparison here. Each game has an added return to game selection screen option. It's hard to believe I waited for months to play this. I can honestly say I'm quite satisfied with this collection. I know the usual criticism of you could possibly play these on websites free.
Some even felt it's price is a little too much. A little much wow oh okay. It's $9.99 or $10.49 the same as Decision Legacy Collection. If we went by two dollars a game that's great value right there. There's not much actually added though. Let's be honest, the insane amount of content. You simply already happy with you bought.
You can see the amazing level of creativity that went into each of these flash games. This has to be among the best compilation games I played off Steam in years. I am dead serious I didn't find many big issues. The achievements are quite well selected. Occasionally there's a few that's going to piss you off. I officially finished achievement hunting this collection.
The best part is it's perfectly ported that I could easily play this collection for years. Regardless what major changes Steam does to their service as well as computers getting more ambitious in scale. They absolutely knocked it out the park with this. I been wanting to support more indie developers. Thankfully my ranking confirmed my top 3 favorite games within the collection.
Even as great Rogue Soul 2 was it just wasn't Swords & Souls!!! I know a lot of people don't expect much from flash games. These classics are way better than the ones you may know of. All of them I felt held up amazingly well time wise. I also loved we're going from 2011-2015. 2015 so happens to be the year I gotten married.
As of this year, I'll be married to my amazing wife for a decade. Several aspects of this collection felt fitting for my upcoming tenth wedding anniversary. Swords & Souls Legacy Collection is a must within your Steam collections. I would buy this again on GOG as soon as I had the chance honestly. This is easily one of my favorite 2025 games I played this year by far!!!
