Mortal Shell

The game is pretty much like Dark Souls after you get the lordvessel. You have three bosses to beat before you can face the final boss and a few minibosses here and there. Fallgrin acts like a hub between the three areas. Fallgrin however is no Lordran. There are shortcuts yes but the whole area is pretty confusing. The combat feels good and fair. You dont have the customisation like Dark Souls. Instead you can choose between different Shells with different stats. You can switch Shells at your hub so you can choose different Shells for different scenarios. Once in a Shell you basically have a two life system like Sekiro. If you die once you can run back to your Shell and get full health. You also have a hardening mecanic. Which freezes you until you let it go or takes a hit. You dont have any healing items like Estus. Instead you use mushrooms or other items you find. You can also get health back by succesfully make a riposte and counter. The difficulty is pretty good in the beginning but once you start to upgrade your equipment and characters you pretty much becomes a God. Even if you can choose which order you play the game. The areas are clearly meant to be played a certain order. I chose wrong and the second area I went through was clearly meant to be the first. The bosses are hit or miss. I liked Tarsus and the last boss but the others were pretty weak imo. I finished the game in about 12 hours so its pretty short. All in all I would recommend this for everyone who likes soulslikes. You wont die many times but its a pretty good chill game for fans of Dark Souls

I won't bother going into detail with the things that makes Mortal Shell like Souls-like other than saying it has solid, visceral combat, good enemies and bosses, and a grimdark world that makes for a great atmosphere. I mostly want to point out the differences that I think Fromsoft should be taking notes from. Weapons: Quality over quantity. Like Bloodborne, Mortal Shell doesn't have a dozen of the same type of weapon with slight differences in stats and appearance, they're four different tools of murder that each offer their own unique way to play, and their own style. I think they should have added a couple more weapons, 2 or 3, and then, for the game's length, it would be fine, but otherwise I enjoy their approach to it. Also like how they give hints as to where the weapons are, and allow the player to access to all of them from the start without gating them off with linear progress, thus allowing you to obtain their weapon of choice quickly. A far superior method to Bloodborne's. Hardening: Tactical defense, not simple turtling like Dark Souls, but not defenseless like Bloodborne, and allowing for a nice added degree of consideration to how you dodge and defend. Timing your harden and choosing what position you want to be in when you do is a unique was of giving the player a means of invincibility that I don't think I've seen before. Shells and leveling: Another case of quality over quantity, and giving the player a versatile and flexible form of class system that Souls' games never have. Each shell has their own strengths and weaknesses, and leveling tree's that further defines them from one another, as well as their own stories behind them that make for entertaining delves into the world's lore. I also like how you can switch mid exploration to different shells with limited items, making doing so an option, but not an abusable one. Only major problem I have so far is the parrying, which I think should work more like Sekiro than Bloodborne as it does now.

This game really tries to be a somewhat better Lords of the Fallen game (it has more in common with that rather than the Souls games IMO), but it just repeats the same mistakes. And it feels like this game needs a 50 page essay about everything thats wrong or poorly tuned. Its an okay Souls experience, it can be fun, but its so painfull to play sometimes that it just doesnt feel good. I'll just throw a bunch of things i dislike, you deside if its worth anything. - Everything is very clunky and awkward - Dodge has annoying input buffer - Enemies have no concept of stamina and work on some sort of eldrich cooldown science that sometimes breaks for some attacks, leading to no attacks or nonstop onslaught - Hardening and parry are separate mechanics, but do mostly the same thing, just a bit differently, feels very unnecessary - Hardening feels more like a crutch for heavy shells so that u can avoid damage at 0 stamina, less like a fully fleshed out part of combat. Cooldown is also way to long - Its easier to parry spearmen in demon's souls, even tho most attacks can be seen from a mile away - Game doesnt seem to use hitboxes tied to enemy weapons, ot they are very poorly mapped sometimes, some attacks hit you from the mile away with barely an end of a hilt, some can go right through you with no effect - Healing is very limited, the only constant source of it is parry, but i already mentioned the parry before, so you can guess how well it works for most people - Map exploration is mostly a waste of time, and enemy/healing balance makes this a running simulator. Its too dangerous to actually engage in combat with most enemies, you'll just waste your time or kill yourself for nothing. And you wont be finding much of interest out there. - Starter weapon is prolly the best weapon (that on is heavely biased) There's probably a hundred more small things that drove me insane, but there's no more space left to rant, so yeah... Definetly dont recommend to buy at full price.

Played some hours on ps4 had alot fun, pretty difficult, wanted more frames so I bought it again. Mind that this a drm free souls like, you get to own the game, on pc. Cool huh ?

Looks good, runs good, but I can't stand the controls. Feels like I have no agency over what my character is doing. Inability to backpedal or side-step is confounding.