Childred of Morta is certainly a game worth playing, and I'd say worth buying at full price. The gameplay reminds me of a mix between more skill intense games like Wizard of Legend and Hyperlight Drifter, as well as older slower paced games like Diablo 2 and other ARPGs of that time. The base gameplay is entering procedurally generated dungeons complete with puzzle rooms, challenge rooms, mini bosses, story encounters, and a variety of enemies. You fight enemies, manage limited health resources, collect currency, and ultimately attempt to reach and defeat the unique boss for each dungeon. Currency is used between dungeons to purchase upgrades which apply to every character. You will also find random items, some passive, some consumable, and some re-usable based on cooldown. This all combines to keep gameplay fresh, fun, and sometimes quite tense. Especially when you stumble into a story-line encounter, you're low on health, but you really want to know what happens if you beat the encounter. (Can be re-tried) Now, that's already a solid game in my opinion, but what takes Children of Morta to the 5/5 rating is the storyline. This story is amazing. The writing is never bad, and almost always above average in my opinion, with several moments being awe inspiring. The family is a great way to introduce characters as new classes, and since each person has upgrades based on their level which benefit every other family member too; it really feels like the family is working together for victory. Each class felt different and was fun to play. The pixel-art graphics are wonderful. I've known some other pixel-art games to suffer from visual clutter, but I found none of that in Children of Morta. Narrator did a good job and sound overall was enjoyable. Though there are no difficulty options, this can sort of be solved through the ability to endlessly replay old levels to earn currency and level up, thus making the rest of the game 'easier' by comparison. Buy it, play it.
