Children of Morta is hack and slash game with that takes places throughout eight main stages and three smaller story focused areas with the central family of character attempting to fight back the corruption of the land stemming from an angry god. Beautiful artwork that can quickly go from horrific and eerie to warm and inviting. Six characters that are unique to play with runes to be found in dungeons that effect how their attacks perform, further separating them. Outside of story events the house/hub areas has a lot of character building moments from seeing what each member of the family is thinking, seeing them live their lives, and seeing the houses filled with the souvenirs of their adventures. They might gather to eat a meal or play a board game, train together, the largest son carries around the youngest on his shoulders, oldest daughter has her hair brushed by her mom or might be sitting on her bed playing her violin, character will comment on the side events that you can run into in the dungeons, etc. The base gameplay is enjoyable and fast paced with the different characters likely stopping you from replaying similar areas to gather more money and experience. Side events can be found in the randomly generated dungeons that have you meeting new characters, fighting with another family member, collecting scrolls to learn more of the games world, or possibly an events that will gain you future members of the households. While it is primarily going to be a single player game (two player local co-op is available, with no one to try that with I have no idea how that would be balanced) each character eventually unlocks an ability where they can briefly spawn in to help the controlled family member during certain situations (block fatal damage, knock back enemies when surrounded, etc) which was a nice way to feel like they are fighting together.
There is a fairly limited number of enemy types. Each of the eight main areas of the game has four floors to them, three larger sections followed by a boss room. The eight stages are broken up into three different areas of the world with some unique enemies and hazards but some are still reused, some are never present in the earlier stages, and even with all of them their just isn't much variety. Even the powered up enemies you occasionally run into just have the same bonuses of having more health, spawning enemies, or dropping AoE attacks from the sky to stun you. Each character has what will end up being an extremely linear skill tree, by the time I beat the fairly short game I hadn't even gotten any of the six characters to reach their final two abilities by hitting level 20. The game makes for a poor roguelike even though it in many ways seems to be set up to be one and is descried as a roguelite. It prevents you from going any further than three floors and a boss, there is no penalty for death, you will find randomized buffs, runes, and abilities but some of these are so uninteresting or so poor for certain characters that you are able to do little more than hope you get what fits your character and playstyle with your run being over so quickly or you finding so many of them that it won't mean much, and the layout of the floors is randomized but will be populated by the same enemy and hazard types.
While the story and character moments in the game is often on the stronger side, the finale of the game gives you terrible reasoning for your antagonist's actions followed by a poor and very easy boss fight. The endgame is made worse by your character likely just being too powerful for any of the dungeons to really pose any challenge, and seeing as I had only hit level 17 with my strongest characters it could only get easier.
A fun and beautiful looking game while it lasts that ends on a fairly dull note and doesn't have much to get you to come back to it when a lot of similar styled games would give you reason to keep playing. Maybe this will be improved with future updates or if new content is added as the game seems to be selling quite well.
Edit: Has had some updates and free content since I last played, should only have gotten better.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1175627370620809218
There is a fairly limited number of enemy types. Each of the eight main areas of the game has four floors to them, three larger sections followed by a boss room. The eight stages are broken up into three different areas of the world with some unique enemies and hazards but some are still reused, some are never present in the earlier stages, and even with all of them their just isn't much variety. Even the powered up enemies you occasionally run into just have the same bonuses of having more health, spawning enemies, or dropping AoE attacks from the sky to stun you. Each character has what will end up being an extremely linear skill tree, by the time I beat the fairly short game I hadn't even gotten any of the six characters to reach their final two abilities by hitting level 20. The game makes for a poor roguelike even though it in many ways seems to be set up to be one and is descried as a roguelite. It prevents you from going any further than three floors and a boss, there is no penalty for death, you will find randomized buffs, runes, and abilities but some of these are so uninteresting or so poor for certain characters that you are able to do little more than hope you get what fits your character and playstyle with your run being over so quickly or you finding so many of them that it won't mean much, and the layout of the floors is randomized but will be populated by the same enemy and hazard types.
While the story and character moments in the game is often on the stronger side, the finale of the game gives you terrible reasoning for your antagonist's actions followed by a poor and very easy boss fight. The endgame is made worse by your character likely just being too powerful for any of the dungeons to really pose any challenge, and seeing as I had only hit level 17 with my strongest characters it could only get easier.
A fun and beautiful looking game while it lasts that ends on a fairly dull note and doesn't have much to get you to come back to it when a lot of similar styled games would give you reason to keep playing. Maybe this will be improved with future updates or if new content is added as the game seems to be selling quite well.
Edit: Has had some updates and free content since I last played, should only have gotten better.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1175627370620809218