Mortal Shell has sadly made the same mistake Lords of the Fallen did which is if you screw up you might as well not bother because most of your health is missing now. Most monsters you’ll find in Dark Souls don’t actually hit for very much, what they do is punish your mistakes with either multiple attacks or resetting the pace of the fight in their favour. A lot of developers have made the mistake of thinking that all monsters hit for huge amounts of damage and are relentless in their pursuit of crippling your poor character. Mortal Shell just felt oppressively unfair and like it just didn’t want you to progress. Other Souls-Likes are usually described as ‘tough but fair’ in terms of their combat difficulty. This issue, in my opinion, is not necessarily a problem if you haven’t played any other Souls-Like. So leading on from the weapons to the actual feel of combat in Mortal Shell I’m once again a little disappointed. Sadly I didn’t get that feeling from Mortal Shell’s arsenal. Which would be forgivable if there weren’t so few, every time you get a new weapon should feel like a big deal, such as it did in Bloodborne, getting a new weapon in that game felt like learning to ride a bike all over again and could possibly completely change how you play the game. Each weapon feels fairly similar to the other. You’ve got your three-string light attack and your three string-heavy. However, the actual combo variety of each weapon is relatively small and also not that exciting. This move-set can also be combined with your character’s natural abilities in order to string combos together and just all-round smack your enemies about. In the game, there’s a set of four weapons for you to use and each one has a different move-set. While I do not have anything particularly bad to say about the game I don’t have many fantastic positives either. Unfortunately, that’s kind of where my praise ends for this game. You are but a tiny insect fighting against things much bigger than you and you’re trying to navigate their world, not yours. It’s an area that’s very easy to get lost in and that adds to the helpless feeling you have throughout any good Souls-Like. It also manages to be incredibly hard to navigate but in a good way. The dense fog that fills the area and obscures your vision, the creaking trees that loom above you and the gentle croaking of frogs all creates this haunting feeling that you are trapped. The first area you’re going to be spending your time in is a swamp that is maddeningly realistic. The atmosphere is palpable and oozes from every detail the developers have put into this little title. The first thing I feel needs mentioning about Mortal Shell is just how gorgeous it is for Cold Symmetry’s first title. Now we could debate until the cows come home about if a Souls-Like needs a parry system or to be oppressively difficult but to me I feel the things I’ve listed are pretty core to the genre. An in-game currency/experience that is lost upon death that may be retrievable.
The first is a methodical combat system that rewards patience and a ‘waiting for the right moment’ mentality. So let me preface this review with a few things I think are core to a Souls-Like. Recently the term ‘Souls-Like’ has received some flack as a genre due to it’s kind of vague and nebulous concept.
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