Chinese developers Lemcnsun Limited has opened worldwide pre-registration for their Dungeon Crawler Soul Tide. Having had a local release back in 2021 it launched to a lot of fanfare, grabbing the Best Anime Game award from both the Vivo Annual Game Festival and the Game TeaHouse Awards.

Soul Tide is set in a dark fantasy world that is being oppressed by witches, and whose only hope of salvation rests with a group of Evokers, who control powerful creations. The objective of the game is to explore a labyrinth brimming with magical energy that sprung up out of nowhere and stop the witches from harnessing its power.

Having unfortunately fallen out of mainstream fashion lately, Soul Tide embraces the dungeon crawler style of gameplay. After selecting a party of five characters, players explore an ever-changing maze that is littered with over 100 random events, puzzles and monsters to solve or fight through in the journey to the bottom. Battles are played out in the 2D front-facing style of old dungeon crawlers, with the expansive character system adding layers of strategy.

Each of the characters has 8 unique active skills that can be mixed and matched to create a unique combat style or to make strategic synergies between the chosen team in battle. On top of this, there are also several passive skills and item slots to load up. There is also a character progression system that is tied to the player's relationships, which can be increased by spending time with the characters outside of battle.

There has been a lot of work put into bringing these characters to life, with each of the heroines being fully voiced and Live-2D animated. The official website offers profiles for the available characters here, and a few of them delightfully have their own songs to enjoy.

In order to unlock new characters, players will have to partake in the game's gacha system. This is a phrase that is sure to send shivers down the spine and raise cries of cash-grabbing, however, lower the pitchforks a moment. The developers state that every character has the same rarity and potential, so whilst pumping in the money is necessary to collect them all or land the team you really want, Soul Tide is not a pay to win lottery for the best characters, which is a very welcome surprise.

Soul Tide is available for pre-registration on Google Play and the App Store, or you can visit the website here to register online.