Yeah, I know, everyone’s sick of the term “Souls-like,” but few games are more like Dark Souls than Mortal Shell. It tries so hard to capture the precise tone and feel of Hidetaka Miyazaki’s vision that I think a better descriptor for it would be “bite-sized Souls.” This particular Souls-like condenses the idea of games like Bloodborne and Dark Souls into a compact but worthy package that should only take around 12 to 18 hours to beat, and it manages to introduce just enough smart new ideas to avoid feeling like old news to Souls veterans.
It’s both a compliment and a criticism when I say that because Mortal Shell is either fiercely loyal or slavishly derivative, depending on how you look at it. Its fealty to Dark Souls is apparent in the moody landscapes, vague story, and creepy NPCs muttering spooky lines, and it’s especially evident in the enemies that come close to killing you with a single hit. Most differences are cosmetic: instead of “souls,” you collect “tar” and “glimpses” you spend on upgrades, and of course you’ll have to run and pick them back up if you die. In the first couple of hours, it can be brutally difficult to find your footing. And just in case you doubted that this is anything other than an obsessive love letter to FromSoftware’s games, even the interface looks a little too familiar in some spots.
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But there are some clearly unique aspects as well, and Mortal Shell’s name points to a big one. You start off as a wraith-like creature who can barely take a hit, so survival depends on hopping into the corpses of four dead warriors you find scattered across the landscape like a necromancer hermit crab. It’s a cool idea, as it allows you to switch between very different builds and alter your desired playstyle without spending ages carefully building stats. Shells also allow for a welcome second chance in combat, as “dying” will knock your wraith form out of your shell. If you can get back in before enemies chop you down, your health will fully restore.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=I%20had%20much%20more%20fun%20when%20I%20found%20my%20personal%20favorite%2C%20Tiel%20the%20Acolyte.”]You start off with Harros, a regular knight with balanced stats. He’s a dull chap, though, with balanced stats and dull perks. I had much more fun when I found my personal favorite, Tiel the Acolyte. He’s a roguish character with a massive stamina pool for dodging, which is essential to my playstyle. He got even better when I customized him by fleshing out his perk trees. My second favorite was Eredrim, whose health bar seems to stretch on forever (but who has virtually no stamina as a result). And just to round things out, there’s Solomon, who has a longer “resolve” meter for unleashing the special skills you’ll get from upgrading weapons.
If you find yourself struggling as I did early on, upgrading these shells can really pull your fat out of the fire. Mortal Shell didn’t really click for me, for instance, until I upgraded Tiel’s shell so that sprinting no longer depletes stamina and incoming blows sometimes chop off stamina instead of health. After that, encounters that were maddeningly tough the first time sometimes became trifling, taking this from what I thought was one of the toughest Souls-likes I’d ever played to one of the easier ones in its latter two thirds. And, in a neat twist, you can loot vials that allow you to switch to one of the shells on the fly, which is helpful when you run across a boss who gives you trouble while you’re in a particular shell.
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The four discoverable weapons also allow for substantially different melee playstyles, but not with the same degree of freedom of interchangeability as the shells. Damage upgrades are scarce, and so I found it wise to focus on one and sideline the others, at least until New Game+. Much as I did, you’ll likely find one that fits your style well. Slipping into Tiel’s shell greatly enhanced my enjoyment, but ditching the starter Hallowed Sword for the hammer and chisel did wonders to change my initially mixed perception of Mortal Shell. I’d recommend making sure you find all the shells before you venture too deep into the three dungeons to win the weapons from the boss that attacks you with them at the start of each dungeon. You’ll likely have an easier time when you face the three main bosses, and you’ll certainly have a better idea of what to spend your upgrades on.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Nothing%20sets%20Mortal%20Shell%20apart%20as%20much%20as%20its%20%22harden%22%20mechanic.”]But nothing sets Mortal Shell apart as much as its “harden” mechanic, which turns your wraithy hero to unbreakable stone for the span of one blow. This serves as an indirect “block,” and it’ll sometimes stagger enemies when their blades meet your stone skin. It allows for some strategies that are unique to Mortal Shell, too, like hardening in mid-swing and then completing the attack after a boss’s blow glances off of you. Harden does have a short cooldown so you can’t spam it, but it’s swift enough to encourage a touch more recklessness than I’m used to from the Souls games themselves.
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The only problem is that I find it also encourages a very predictable playstyle where you run in, hit an enemy a couple of times, harden, and jump back out. Get good at the timing, and equip a weapon and shell that suits you, and Mortal Shell’s punishing difficulty can start to seem too easy and a little tedious.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=I%20struggled%20with%20the%20parry%20timing%20in%20a%20way%20I%20never%20did%20in%20Sekiro.”]Speaking of timing, Mortal Shell also encourages parrying, as you can follow up perfect parries with a devastating riposte that also restores a goodly chunk of health. It looks cool and it’s immensely satisfying…when it works. I personally struggled with the timing, and in a way I never struggled with parrying in Sekiro. Even after practicing for a whole hour, I was maybe 20 percent better, but that wasn’t a problem as Tiel and his dodging carried me to the end. Fortunately, parrying isn’t the only means of healing, so it’s not essential. Instead, I busied myself with stockpiling the mushrooms scattered about each zone, which boost health over time when you munch on them. They also respawn every five minutes, and I was happy to realize I could accumulate a pile of them with a little patience.
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One place where Mortal Shell draws inspiration from outside the genre is in its exploration, which gave me a Zelda vibe. You have to venture into three distinct zones and beat their bosses to collect items that unlock a final battle. Ultimately, Mortal Shell is about venturing into three distinct zones in order to kill a boss, rip out a gland from a monster, and bring them all back to home base so you can trigger a boss fight. All of these zones are wonders to behold, filled as they are with hidden merchants or upgrades for the weapons. My favorite zone, a titanic obsidian fortress with portals and a simple puzzle, leads unexpectedly where reality appears to be unraveling at the seams. Elsewhere, I ventured into icy caverns and claustrophobic catacombs where men pulled swords from their chests and ripped off their own poisoned heads and tossed them at me when death was near.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=All%20of%20these%20zones%20are%20wonders%20to%20behold.”]The beginning, unfortunately, gives little hint of what’s to come. You start off in an oppressively grim swamp that connects these three zones together, and while it nails the Soulsy mood, it’s a samey place where it’s easy to get lost and discouraged when you’re first slipping into Mortal Shell’s rhythms.
Sometimes, though, the world itself is devilish as any boss. On several occasions enemies would get stuck on the terrain, preventing me from baiting them to a safer spot, and twice I got stuck in a lock-on animation even though no enemies were around. I couldn’t fix it without a restart. On a more deliberate note, Mortal Shell is a little too fond of sticking hidden enemies in ambush spots, and I quickly found my annoyance overpowering my fear. As a counterbalance, though, Mortal Shell runs ridiculously well, and I had no issues reaching 60 to 70fps at 1080p on a GTX 980 (yes, I’m due for an upgrade when the new generation of GPUs comes out).
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Mortal Shell also encourages exploration of a different kind in its “familiarity” system. Essentially, the idea is that you can’t identify an item until you use it, and using it more reveals additional effects. In one notable example, a type of mushroom will poison you when you first try it out. Eat more, though, and you’ll quickly gain and immunity. It’s a neat way of rewarding the adventurousness needed to play this kind of game, although gratification is seldom delayed with the system. That poison immunity? You could get it in three or four more bites if you kept munching.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=It%20can%20be%20bitter%20and%20distasteful%20at%20first%2C%20but%20it%20quickly%20becomes%20more%20appealing.”]But that’s a lot like Mortal Shell itself. It can be bitter and distasteful at first, but it quickly becomes more appealing the more you familiarize yourself with it. And unlike some games in the Souls-like genre, it has the good sense to close the curtain before it wears out its welcome.
