Wayward Souls is an action-adventure roguelike (or roguelikelike) with similarities to The Legend of Zelda. In this game, you progress through dungeons and upgrade a clutch of heroes as you discover each of their backstories. Gamezebo’s quick-start guide will lead you through the valleys of permanent death and constant upgrades.
Wayward Souls is an action-adventure roguelike (or roguelikelike) with similarities to The Legend of Zelda. In this game, you progress through dungeons and upgrade a clutch of heroes as you discover each of their backstories. Gamezebo’s quick-start guide will lead you through the valleys of permanent death and constant upgrades.
Keep Moving: Kiting enemies – that is attacking and then moving out of the way of their attacks – is very important. Since you have but one life to live per playthrough, and there are no health regenerative pick-ups, you want to keep yourself as healthy as possible during a run. That means learning enemy attack patterns. Almost every monster has an audio-visual tell when they’re about to use a special attack, and they only prepare such maneuvers when they’re guaranteed to hit you. So, if you see an enemy readying an attack, move out of the way immediately. Knowing what kind of attack is incoming will determine which direction and how far.
Interruption: Another riskier way to keep enemies from hitting you is by interrupting them. This is achieved just by hitting them before or after they’ve started their attack animation. Almost every enemy is susceptible, and even those that aren’t may be interrupted by items or special attacks. Those that aren’t interrupted for whatever reason usually have a long wind-up before striking. If you’re quick, you might be able to kill these outright with a flurry of attacks at such times.
Power Attacks: You can make a power attack by holding down the standard attack button. It takes a moment for such a move to charge, but the benefits outweigh the risks to yourself. For instance, not only do power attacks do more damage, they usually also hit more than one enemy at a time. This is vital because the most dangerous encounters in Wayward Souls are those when multiple monsters attack from multiple directions. Power attacks can kill, or at least knock back, more than one enemy at a time. That give you the space to disengage and reorient your attack pattern.
Aim: On the subject of power attacks, make sure you don’t attack in the wrong direction. The time it takes to charge isn’t significant, but if you’re facing the wrong direction you might put your back to the enemy. That’s not good. To that end, know that you can actually alter the direction of your power attack mid-charge. Just continue holding the attack button to keep the attack built up and try to turn your character as if you had free movement. You won’t move forward, but you will alter direction any which way you please.
Use Your Item: As an admitted item hoarder in games, I can sympathize with the desire to save consumable items. What if the next dungeon is much harder than this one? What if I’m about to reach the boss? In this case, don’t sweat it. You have a limited amount of inventory space to hold specialty items and ammunition, so not using them could mean wasting pickups later on. That’s not to say you should waste your heavy powers on easily dispatched enemies; just don’t feel guilty using them on bigger baddies that give you trouble in particular (like those giant, stupid robots).
Watch Your Thumbs: If you’re like me, you probably play Wayward Souls with one thumb on each side of the screen. One of the game’s failings, I find, is that it’s very easy to let your left thumb (the one used for movement) slip onto your device’s bezel. There are two tricks to getting around this I’ve found particularly useful. The first is knowing the game uses an invisible, virtual analog stick. So, swiping and holding in one direction will continue to move your character – you don’t have to keep moving your thumb farther in the direction you want. The second tip is to head into the game’s options menu (tap the icon on the top-right of the screen) and turn on “Analog Stick.” This doesn’t alter the way the game is played at all, it just puts up a small, visual representation of the analog stick on the screen whenever you touch and hold. Personally, I prefer the visual feedback, but you may be different. Still, if you’re having problems give both options a whirl and see what’s comfortable for you.
Explore: No level of any dungeon in Wayward Souls is particularly large. Regardless, almost all of them have a forked path or two to explore down. Once you exit a level there’s no way to return, so be sure to explore every path. Since the area isn’t likely very large, it’s not a huge time commitment. The upside is that you may find a forge, side event or stash of gold to provide temporary or permanent upgrades later on. Forges upgrade your character for the duration of a single run, but gold can be used to make permanent upgrades to a character.
Spend Your Gold: On the topic of upgrades, make sure you’re buying them. Hoarding your gold for more expensive benefits doesn’t do much good because Wayward Souls uses a system in which the best goodies are locked behind purchasing the smaller ones. Each character in the game also has their own adventure and storyline to complete. If the Mage is your favorite class, for instance, and you’ve maxed out her abilities to the extent of your current funds, try beefing up a less-played unit. You might discover that, with a few enhancements, you enjoy that the Warrior just a bit more than you thought.
Congratulations! You’ve just completed Gamezebo’s strategy guide to get you started in Wayward Souls. Be sure to check back often for game updates, staff and user reviews, user tips, forums comments, and much more here at Gamezebo.
