The Souls-like genre has exploded in recent years, with FromSoftware’s Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls games spawning a number of imitators of vastly differing quality. Now, Mortal Shell has entered the ring from developer Cold Symmetry, a small studio of triple-A veterans. And while Mortal Shell has its fair share of troubles, it successfully captures what makes Souls-like games so alluring to so many.
Mortal Shell stays true to the core of the genre, offering a difficult experience with the narrative mostly relegated to text blurbs and lore scattered around the world. Despite its strict adherence to being a Souls-like, the game still brings enough new concepts to the table to separate it from the glut of other options available, like The Surge 2 or Remnant: From the Ashes.
In recent years, Souls-like games have become faster, with FromSoftware speeding things up starting with Bloodborne, and culminating in Sekiro’s lightning-fast combat. Mortal Shell is what happens when developers move in the opposite direction, slowing down combat with lumbering animations and slower movement speed. This can make Mortal Shell’s boss battles feel gruelingly slow at times, especially at the beginning of the game, where fights can feel like an awkward dance of moving in, taking a swipe or two, and then moving out of range of an enemy so stamina can recharge.
Mortal Shell’s enemies share a dark fantasy look similar to other games in the genre, though there are some standouts, like a bipedal bear with blade hands that players will encounter in the first area. Boss fights are integral to the experience, and the duels with Mortal Shell’s sword-wielding foes like Hadern are particularly fun, if a bit aesthetically dull. The faster the enemy, the slower the player is forced to play, though, and in the early hours, that can grind on nerves.
Luckily, Mortal Shell’s gameplay can be sped up or slowed down depending on which weapon and Shell players are using. Essentially, Shells operate sort of like a class, offering players different abilities and stats, like higher health, stamina, or resolve. There are four total scattered throughout the world, each with a unique look. Locating them is one of Mortal Shell’s more interesting aspects, as the game highlights their location in a sort of vision, showing major landmarks players can use to find their way to them.
Each Shell has its perks, but they aren’t all on equal footing. Tiel, for instance, has high stamina but low resolve, a stat used to execute certain special actions. With stamina being integral for both dodging and striking, Tiel felt like the go-to choice for most situations, but this will depend on how players want to approach encounters. Plus, players can swap between shells, so it’s alright to experiment with each one.
Class variety is further accentuated by skills unique to each Shell, which grant new abilities and advantages, like poison damage healing the player, in Tiel’s case. These abilities are purchased with Tar, Mortal Shell’s equivalent of souls, and Glimpses, which are earned from consumable items and enemies. Whenever a player dies, Tar has to be recovered from the location the player took their last hit. Fully upgrading a Shell is quite the investment, so recovering a large amount of Tar is as anxiety-inducing as it gets.
There are abilities shared between each class, too, like the parry, which requires a slightly frustrating level of precision to get right but can lead to powerful riposte attacks, and the ability to harden. Harden is the most enjoyable mechanic on offer in Mortal Shell, allowing players to drastically change the outcome of a fight if used properly. It can be activated almost whenever and blocks damage from an incoming attack, but has a cooldown timer attached to it.
The cooldown only lasts a few seconds, though those seconds feel like a lifetime when swords and fists are smacking around the player, especially when at low health. But Harden can keep players alive through an entire boss fight with just a sliver of health, and when that happens, Mortal Shell provides nail-biting moments more dramatic than even Dark Souls can offer. It’s a simple mechanic, but it makes a world of difference in how the game is played.
Mortal Shells’ environments are well detailed and open for exploration, but some areas can be confusing to navigate. The game makes up for this in a few different ways, though, as stumbling through the world will often lead to chests containing rewards, pieces of lore, or interesting scenes that create a sense of environmental storytelling.
There are a number of small tunnels scattered throughout the world that connect different areas together and lead to secrets. Inexcusably, players can sometimes be attacked while emerging from tunnels, unable to defend themselves due to being locked in an animation. It’s a relatively rare occurrence, but also a fundamental flaw with some of the level design. There’s no jump button either, so backtracking through certain areas with ledges can be needlessly annoying.
Mortal Shell is generous with buffing and healing items, a much-appreciated factor because it doesn’t feature an alternative to the Estus Flask found in the Souls games. Consuming items increases the player’s familiarity with it, revealing its properties and granting bonuses when familiarity is maxed out. It’s a fresh idea that encourages players to experiment with the items they find both in and outside of combat. Not all the effects are beneficial, and depending on a player’s build, the bonuses granted by maxing familiarity may not be helpful either, but that adds to the complexity of the system in an interesting way.
Mortal Shell offers an experience that longtime Dark Souls fans will likely cling to. Its early hours can be painfully slow, and there are a smattering of issues with the world design, but it’s not enough to ruin the experience. Once players find their groove with the right loadout, Mortal Shell’s biggest problems evaporate, and its offering of new additions to the Souls-like formula makes it stand out in an increasingly crowded genre.
Mortal Shell releases August 18 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Game Rant was provided an Xbox One code for this review.
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