The end of summer is a beautiful yet bittersweet sensation of emotions – a time to bang out those last-minute summer adventures with friends and family while the sun is still out. It’s a time where the incoming stressors of life and school can be ignored for just a blissful few days more, and you can frolic in the setting sun with the people you love in pure, wholesome fun. 

Then you grow up and have to work all year round, summer and all, really deflating the whole fun factor. Nonetheless, in my final days of vacation, I took the smart and conscious decision to stay in my room and play a game about friends enjoying their summer vacation – that being the whimsical and nostalgia-fueled brawler, “Crossing Souls.” 

“Crossing Souls” is an action-adventure video game developed by Spain-based indie development studio Fourattic and published by Devolver Digital (the publisher of all good games). It follows a charming tale of friends in smalltown 1986 America being witness to a strange paranormal anomaly, setting them on a grand adventure to save the world. 

Now, a description like that immediately reeks of unoriginality. “Crossing Souls” is aware of such and runs with it. From the opening shot to the final boss, the game is drenched in ’80s aesthetic. Ripped straight from kid-adventure films the likes of “Goonies” and “Explorers,” with a pinch of “Stand By Me,” it captures a warm, entering tone that has unfortunately been haphazardly labeled just “Stranger Things” like. It hits all the checkmarks, from the treehouse fort plastered with Star Wars posters to the neon-soaked arcade illuminating the desolate street corner, amplified by the already set sun painting the sky dark blue and orange. But “Crossing Souls” is not style over substance. It packs a compelling narrative that takes the player on a fulfilling 10-12 hour story. 

Normal everyman teen Chris is enjoying his summer with his younger brother Kevin in suburbia, when a storm shakes the town one night, leading Chris, with his posse of teenage friends Matt, Charlie and Big Joe, to venture out of town after hearing reports of a dead body near their treehouse. They, in ‘80s movie fashion, head out to find the body first for bragging rights, only to find a corpse holding a purple floating stone. They confiscate such and discover it possesses the ability to let the holder see the ghosts of the underworld walking among them. Not exactly “Hellraiser” levels of creepy, rather “Ghostbusters” amusement.

Soon after that, the typical ‘80s kids movie antagonist shows up to town, the Soviet Union, who siege the town in search of the mysterious stone, a key component of their rumored super-weapon. The gang then flees to the woods in “Red Dawn” fashion, later finding their town completely occupied. In order to save their captured families, they embark on a quest to stop the Soviets and discover the truth behind the magic McGuffin stone. 

It’s a comfort food plot, aided by an incredibly well-composed score reminiscent of the ’80s works of John Williams and Danny Elfman, filled with triumphant horns and emotional swells of strings. It’s a very unique era of music not often complimented with establishing the era of film it accompanied, overshadowed by the cinematic synth wave of other action-oriented films like “Die Hard” and “Predator.” 

All in all, “Crossing Souls” is a fun romp that achieves nearly everything it sets out to be, a nostalgic adventure starring kids meant for adults. If you’re in the mood, you can’t go wrong with a game like this. 

Crossing Souls is available on PC, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.