Despite a number of balancing issues, Mortal Shell is probably the best of the Dark Souls impersonators to date, making it a must play for fans of the genre.
The Good:
Excellent combat - Challenging normal enemies keep you on your toes - Creative on the fly class switching - Healing system rewards skill - Nails the atmosphere
The Bad:
Becoming overpowered is too quick, makes bosses easy - Harden mechanic is too forgiving - Navigating the main hub can be confusing - All-important parry is not easy to get the hang of
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Recent years have seen a proper landslide of Dark Souls clones, more or less faithful to the formula, ranging from the ocean of amateur stubs (refer to Iron Pineapple on youtube for more), to the multitude of indie 2D ones like Salt and Sanctuary, Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, Death's Gambit and Immortal Planet (just to chip at the tip of the iceberg), boss rush ones like Titan Souls and Sinner, and a handful of fully featured 3D ones, starting with 2014's mediocrity Lords of the Fallen, the better performing The Surge and its improved sequel, and ending with recent efforts like Ashen, Code Vein, the unimpressive Hellpoint and Remnant from the Ashes, made by the same people who had previously turned Darksiders into a soulslike. It's in this context that Mortal Shell tries to break the mold by offering a budget-priced 10-12 hour experience that fans of the genre are likely to enjoy.
The first mention goes to the visuals presentation and art style, which absolutely hit the spot, to the point of being derivative: everything is immersed in the trademark dystopian shroud of dejection and despair that one has come to expect from Souls games. Similarly the sound design features a quality offering of punchy impacts, meaty slashes and chilling death rattles, coupled with the ominous toll of distant bells, growls of nearby creatures and a minimal, oppressive ambient soundtrack that adequately sets the mood. A special mention goes to the voice acting, which complements quality writing (sparse as it is in such games) with grim, convincing performances. It's not original, it's more of the same, so if that's what you've been looking for after the sci-fi and stylized romps from aforementioned games, Mortal Shell will deliver.
The twist in the gameplay department is that leveling is handled differently: instead of stats to dump points into you find and possess a handful of different "shells" (read: corpses) with different skills and fixed attributes. There is a quick one with little life and lots of stamina and whose skills are centered around poisoning enemies with toxic clouds, the brutish one that hits real hard but lacks stamina, the scholar which gains upgrade tokens faster and reaps grater benefits from items, and of course the balanced all-rounder which will be what most people go for. The equipped shell can be changed at the central hub, or even summoned on the fly using uncommon consumables. The ones still to be found are marked at the Firelink equivalent with memories that show you brief visions of where they are located. They are vague enough not to give it too much away, but sufficiently informative so that you'll be unlikely to miss the shells with a modicum of attention. The same happens for weapons: instead of hundreds of similar ones, Mortal Shell features a handful of radically different ones. These can also be tracked down via visions, but they require defeating optional bosses in a dream world before they can be wielded.
All games in this genre need to come up with some gimmick to stand out and here it's that instead of carrying shields (absent from the game) you can hold down L2 to indefinitely harden yourself, petrifying your body and becoming impervious to light ranged attacks and negating the effect of the first melee strike that reaches you while in this state. It's not unlike the tanuki suit from Super Mario Bros 3, only breakable and on a brief cooldown. It also can be used offensively, making your next swing hit harder or slamming on the ground with a plunging attack. This mechanic really makes the game a bit too easy, being too forgiving for its own good. It's too convenient to lunge at the enemy with a staggering jumping slash, then follow it up with a combo and then petrify to interrupt retaliation. Rinse and repeat since cooldown on the harden skill is so short (about 5-7 seconds depending on the shell). It's a good mechanic, but one that would need a bit of balancing, since it makes bosses an absolute breeze if used skillfully, which still requires good timing. Nothing that a good patch can't fix, but in the current state a decent player will have little trouble against foes which should prove to be progress stoppers.
Combat is what you've come to expect from such games: heavy stamina focus, lock on to the enemy, dash and roll dodge, short combos of fast attack and heavy attacks, overhead dashing slashes, enemies deal high damage and inflict frequent status ailments. It's Dark Souls. The equivalents of the bonfire are spaced enough between them that dungeons are tense and exhausting, in the best of senses. You will dread what lies ahead, since death means being sent back considerably. There is no estus equivalent: healing is left to ineffectual and slowly respawning mushrooms you find in specific places around the world, but mostly the game expects you to master and use the parry system, which allows for a quick riposte that heals a latrge (and upgradeably so) chunk of your health bar. The problem is that the parry window is very small, leading you to get smacked in the face and dying when you desperately need to pull a parry off in order to save your hide. It definitely rewards skillfull usage of the mechanic, but were the game difficulty harder as a baseline, this healing system could easily become an issue, leaving the player to rely on mushrooms.
Much like in Sekiro, Mortal Shell features the "die twice" system: instead of being sent back to a checkpoint, the minute your health reaches zero your soul form simply gets ejected from the shell it's inhabiting, at which point you can still fight, but a single hit will finish you off. Your hope at this point is to manage and retrieve your now empty shell for a full health bar and a second chance at survival. This can initially only happen once per life, while later on an expensive skill can be unlocked which allows to replenish the die rebirth token after killing enough enemies.
Unlocking skills requires two resources, aquired by killing enemies and looting chests and shinies: tar (read: souls) and glimpses, which are upgrade tokens of sorts, used to unlock each shell's skill set. Some skills will require only a couple glimpses, while other will demand massive amounts. This brings up another problem: since tar is plentiful and glimpses are initially not, the palyer will be wondering what to do with all this tar they cannot spend to level up until more glimpses are found. As such it will likely be used to purchase items from the (surprisingly well hidden) merchant, which sells rare upgrade materials you will need to boost the damage of your weapons. The problem is that this is supposed to be an expensive solution for superficial players who missed out on collectibles around the dungeons, but in practice it makes your weapon way too strong way too early. This means that bosses will be cut down way too quickly unless one has been spreading upgrade resources over too many of the multiple weapons available.
The final issue is tied to the design of the main hub of the game world: while not poorly designed by any stretch, it suffers from a lack of signposting, making it difficult to find one's way around, especially at first. It's nowhere near as infuriatingly mazelike as Hellpoint and the issue eventually mitigates itself with a bit more familiarity, but it's definitely there for a good chunk of the game. Maps are a no-no for this genre, of course, so the smart player may want to drawn one or, for the laziest among us, google one. There is no fast travel of any kind either, not until endgame anyway: once a single shell is maxed out, the NPC used to level up will tranform into an engame shop that trades directly in glimpses. Among other things, the shop sells an outlandishly expensive mask that allows for fast travel to every unlocked safe area in the game (a dozen in total). The alternative is using a tarnished mask, which sends you back to the last visited safe area, but at the cost of all of your glimpses, which is a nasty trade off.
In conclusion, Mortal Shell is definitely worth playing, despite being a bit confusing to navigate and a tad on the easy side for people used to games like Bloodborne. It's entirely possible to discipline oneself to not exploit the harden mechanic too much, and there is a monument in the game which allows to renounce all shells and play in spirit form for the ultimate challenge, so the hardest of the hardcore will find something to bite into even here.
The Good:
Excellent combat - Challenging normal enemies keep you on your toes - Creative on the fly class switching - Healing system rewards skill - Nails the atmosphere
The Bad:
Becoming overpowered is too quick, makes bosses easy - Harden mechanic is too forgiving - Navigating the main hub can be confusing - All-important parry is not easy to get the hang of
---------
Recent years have seen a proper landslide of Dark Souls clones, more or less faithful to the formula, ranging from the ocean of amateur stubs (refer to Iron Pineapple on youtube for more), to the multitude of indie 2D ones like Salt and Sanctuary, Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, Death's Gambit and Immortal Planet (just to chip at the tip of the iceberg), boss rush ones like Titan Souls and Sinner, and a handful of fully featured 3D ones, starting with 2014's mediocrity Lords of the Fallen, the better performing The Surge and its improved sequel, and ending with recent efforts like Ashen, Code Vein, the unimpressive Hellpoint and Remnant from the Ashes, made by the same people who had previously turned Darksiders into a soulslike. It's in this context that Mortal Shell tries to break the mold by offering a budget-priced 10-12 hour experience that fans of the genre are likely to enjoy.
The first mention goes to the visuals presentation and art style, which absolutely hit the spot, to the point of being derivative: everything is immersed in the trademark dystopian shroud of dejection and despair that one has come to expect from Souls games. Similarly the sound design features a quality offering of punchy impacts, meaty slashes and chilling death rattles, coupled with the ominous toll of distant bells, growls of nearby creatures and a minimal, oppressive ambient soundtrack that adequately sets the mood. A special mention goes to the voice acting, which complements quality writing (sparse as it is in such games) with grim, convincing performances. It's not original, it's more of the same, so if that's what you've been looking for after the sci-fi and stylized romps from aforementioned games, Mortal Shell will deliver.
The twist in the gameplay department is that leveling is handled differently: instead of stats to dump points into you find and possess a handful of different "shells" (read: corpses) with different skills and fixed attributes. There is a quick one with little life and lots of stamina and whose skills are centered around poisoning enemies with toxic clouds, the brutish one that hits real hard but lacks stamina, the scholar which gains upgrade tokens faster and reaps grater benefits from items, and of course the balanced all-rounder which will be what most people go for. The equipped shell can be changed at the central hub, or even summoned on the fly using uncommon consumables. The ones still to be found are marked at the Firelink equivalent with memories that show you brief visions of where they are located. They are vague enough not to give it too much away, but sufficiently informative so that you'll be unlikely to miss the shells with a modicum of attention. The same happens for weapons: instead of hundreds of similar ones, Mortal Shell features a handful of radically different ones. These can also be tracked down via visions, but they require defeating optional bosses in a dream world before they can be wielded.
All games in this genre need to come up with some gimmick to stand out and here it's that instead of carrying shields (absent from the game) you can hold down L2 to indefinitely harden yourself, petrifying your body and becoming impervious to light ranged attacks and negating the effect of the first melee strike that reaches you while in this state. It's not unlike the tanuki suit from Super Mario Bros 3, only breakable and on a brief cooldown. It also can be used offensively, making your next swing hit harder or slamming on the ground with a plunging attack. This mechanic really makes the game a bit too easy, being too forgiving for its own good. It's too convenient to lunge at the enemy with a staggering jumping slash, then follow it up with a combo and then petrify to interrupt retaliation. Rinse and repeat since cooldown on the harden skill is so short (about 5-7 seconds depending on the shell). It's a good mechanic, but one that would need a bit of balancing, since it makes bosses an absolute breeze if used skillfully, which still requires good timing. Nothing that a good patch can't fix, but in the current state a decent player will have little trouble against foes which should prove to be progress stoppers.
Combat is what you've come to expect from such games: heavy stamina focus, lock on to the enemy, dash and roll dodge, short combos of fast attack and heavy attacks, overhead dashing slashes, enemies deal high damage and inflict frequent status ailments. It's Dark Souls. The equivalents of the bonfire are spaced enough between them that dungeons are tense and exhausting, in the best of senses. You will dread what lies ahead, since death means being sent back considerably. There is no estus equivalent: healing is left to ineffectual and slowly respawning mushrooms you find in specific places around the world, but mostly the game expects you to master and use the parry system, which allows for a quick riposte that heals a latrge (and upgradeably so) chunk of your health bar. The problem is that the parry window is very small, leading you to get smacked in the face and dying when you desperately need to pull a parry off in order to save your hide. It definitely rewards skillfull usage of the mechanic, but were the game difficulty harder as a baseline, this healing system could easily become an issue, leaving the player to rely on mushrooms.
Much like in Sekiro, Mortal Shell features the "die twice" system: instead of being sent back to a checkpoint, the minute your health reaches zero your soul form simply gets ejected from the shell it's inhabiting, at which point you can still fight, but a single hit will finish you off. Your hope at this point is to manage and retrieve your now empty shell for a full health bar and a second chance at survival. This can initially only happen once per life, while later on an expensive skill can be unlocked which allows to replenish the die rebirth token after killing enough enemies.
Unlocking skills requires two resources, aquired by killing enemies and looting chests and shinies: tar (read: souls) and glimpses, which are upgrade tokens of sorts, used to unlock each shell's skill set. Some skills will require only a couple glimpses, while other will demand massive amounts. This brings up another problem: since tar is plentiful and glimpses are initially not, the palyer will be wondering what to do with all this tar they cannot spend to level up until more glimpses are found. As such it will likely be used to purchase items from the (surprisingly well hidden) merchant, which sells rare upgrade materials you will need to boost the damage of your weapons. The problem is that this is supposed to be an expensive solution for superficial players who missed out on collectibles around the dungeons, but in practice it makes your weapon way too strong way too early. This means that bosses will be cut down way too quickly unless one has been spreading upgrade resources over too many of the multiple weapons available.
The final issue is tied to the design of the main hub of the game world: while not poorly designed by any stretch, it suffers from a lack of signposting, making it difficult to find one's way around, especially at first. It's nowhere near as infuriatingly mazelike as Hellpoint and the issue eventually mitigates itself with a bit more familiarity, but it's definitely there for a good chunk of the game. Maps are a no-no for this genre, of course, so the smart player may want to drawn one or, for the laziest among us, google one. There is no fast travel of any kind either, not until endgame anyway: once a single shell is maxed out, the NPC used to level up will tranform into an engame shop that trades directly in glimpses. Among other things, the shop sells an outlandishly expensive mask that allows for fast travel to every unlocked safe area in the game (a dozen in total). The alternative is using a tarnished mask, which sends you back to the last visited safe area, but at the cost of all of your glimpses, which is a nasty trade off.
In conclusion, Mortal Shell is definitely worth playing, despite being a bit confusing to navigate and a tad on the easy side for people used to games like Bloodborne. It's entirely possible to discipline oneself to not exploit the harden mechanic too much, and there is a monument in the game which allows to renounce all shells and play in spirit form for the ultimate challenge, so the hardest of the hardcore will find something to bite into even here.