Mortal Shell

I enjoyed all of the content. The game looks great, combat was fun and satisfying. I especially liked the design of the Eternal Narthax chapter, which to me felt like a mix between a monument and a nightmare landscape -- at any rate, a place not meant for humans. The game is quite short (about 1/5th of the DS3 base game would be my guess). It is light on story (which, in most such games, is mainly there to take you from one cool place to another), but Mortal Shell's story feels even more shallow to me than that of other similar games. There are mentions of religions that focus on pain, but at the end of the game, I knew no more about the nature of the gme world and the Foundling than I did at the beginning. My main criticism is that the boss fights are too easy. One of the main bosses, the Twice-born, I was able to beat on the first encounter -- this should not happen in a soulslike! Imrod took 4-5 tries, the final boss about an hour. The "hardest" battle was against the First Martyr, where I kept dying because I didn't realize that the fog at the edge of the arena was chilling me (I thought it was a special attack that I didn't know how to prevent). After I read up on the fog, I beat the boss on my next attempt. And no, I'm not that "gud". Soulslikes are, to a large extent, about practicing your way to victory. So it makes no sense to have bosses that require little to none of it. Even compared with games like Hellpoint and The Surge (i.e. Dark Souls 3), the game is a bit short and a bit on the easy side, but what it offers is really fun. One final negative point is that the developers don't seem to pay any attention to GOG. On both Steam and GOG, the game was more expensive as a pre-order than at launch, essentially screwing over precisely those who want to support the developers most, but an official apology for the mistake was only posted on Steam. Still, I'd rather give the developers money here than elsewhere...

If you don't have friends, don't have chores, don't have a life outside the basement and don't have money for movies or other games that actually bring a pleasant experience. Lock yourself in the house like it's covid season and play the same game over and over again until you actually finish it. Then try as hard as you can to find anyone who did the same thing as you did and try really hard to have a conversation about this game that actually sounds like you had fun playing it. It's not about being good, it's about wasting a lot of time on something you're TRYING to enjoy. I come home from work feeling like crap just so I can waste my time with this game making me feel the same?

ive played games like dark souls 3 and enter the gungeon and bloodborne but those games are my favorite cuz of how fun they are in terms of challenge! but this game is just not for me at all.. the gameplay is good! the landscapes and ambience is pretty and peaceful but the game feels like not much is going on in it. and i decided that i am gonna try thymesia down the road on here plus the having to turn into rock so they can hit you without damage is kinda hard for me! especially during 2 to 3 enemies at a time and puts me at risk of getting attacked from the others and killed cuz of having to wait for the recharge to use the turn into stone blockage skill. that kinda mechanic in this game is too much for me in terms of having to slash the enemy while the other 1 or 2 could hit me and take away a chunk of my health in it! but in terms of challenge this game is not fun for me in terms of challenge like the other souls like games ive played!

5-6 h of gameplay is waaaay too little

The Good: + best of the Souls/Borne games (yes, even beats the FromSoft ones by far) + fairest of the Souls/Borne games (respawn points before EVERY boss/mini-boss) + does not go overboard with bosses + atmosphere is superb + fog state cranks the atmosphere up even higher + familiarity system + shells as class system is unique + hardening adds tactical combat The Bad: - layout of the levels is very confusing until you've put hours into the game - brigand enemy design is rather bland - somewhat predictable ending - cryptic story - it tries a little too much to be DARK SOULS Bottom Line: MORTAL SHELL is not only the *BEST* SOULS game out there, it is the *ONLY* Souls game worth playing. It does not have the cheap tricks the FromSoft uses (bonfires far from boss rooms) which is far superior design. It nails the dark atmosphere and looks much better than FromSoft's titles. The way that hardening can be used adds tactics to the combat, while FromSoft games simply base their titles on timing and memorizing enemy attack patterns, thus the combat is far superior in this game. The best part of the game is the fog state, which spawns in different monsters and turns the whole world into a gauntlet - this cranks up the atmosphere even more. Oh, and mouse+keyboard controls don't suck like in FromSoft's games! Hey, DARK SOULS, BLOODBORNE, DEMON SOULS & SEKIRO: meet your Master!