I'm guessing there's Dark And Darker Gold some tragic backstory there—Soulstice's developers wouldn't say, but did explain that the relationship between the two factors heavily into both combat and the story.

While you directly control the younger (living) sister, the shade will have contextual abilities you can trigger in combat, and more that Perseo hinted at but wouldn't spill.

A "unity" mechanic will affect what abilities you can use, and I'm curious to see what kinds of actions or decisions feed into it. We need to keep a more realistic atmosphere, monsters, stuff like that, but I don't want to do characters like European studios.

Despite the obvious inspirations from Japanese action games, both developers stressed the need for Soulstice to have its own identity—also a point of pride for a game studio in Italy, which doesn't have a huge development scene.

"To my team at the beginning, I said remember, we are not Japanese," says Pagetti. "It's all a matter of culture. It's difficult to think like the Japanese people and do the same art. We need to find a more European style, because we are Italian."

Cel shading and big, manga-style eyes were buy Dark And Darker Gold a no. Pagetti's goal is for Soulstice to take the atmosphere of manga like Berserk and Claymore, landing somewhere in between conventional Japanese and European aesthetics.