By pressing the left trigger, you can assume a statue-like state that absorbs the first hit on an enemy’s attack, allowing you to combo in a hit of your own for a counter, or simply protect yourself from a devastating hit. They’re also used for another part of the play experience via an NPC.Īnother part of combat in Mortal Shell that is unique is hardening. Glimpses, the second item needed for unlocking branches on the skill tree, are dropped by enemies sometimes as well as from consumables. They all have their own talent trees as well, wherein you spend tar, the game’s currency, on new skills, perks, and buffs. Each of them has their own attributes, some favoring stamina over health or vice versa. The movement and dodging in the game is very close to Dark Souls, with the same focus on follow through animation and weight, as well as its cryptic approach to story delivery and ambiance, but it has plenty of its own twists that help set it apart. Gameplay is governed by three meters: the health bar, stamina, and resolve, the first two work pretty much exactly like what you’d see in Dark Souls, with stamina governing how many attacks you can perform or how much you can run and dodge before growing tired, while resolve comes into play when using each of the weapons’ special attack, and it refills as you land hits. At the outset, you can easily find one of these to start out, and over the course of exploring a few more become available, giving you plenty of flexibility as needed.
As a wayward soul that’s taken the shape of a husk that’s barely human looking, you have the ability to inhabit a number of different shells that give you a variety of what you could call ‘builds’, as they used to be warriors who somehow fell during battle. The world of Mortal Shell is one of darkness and perpetual suffering called Fallgrim, where its inhabitants toil their existence in hopes of being saved somehow, or have been overcome by madness just wander about as poachers and bandits. The small team over at Cold Symmetry wears that inspiration in Souls on their sleeve and have crafted a souls-like experience of the highest quality that is both very contained and unique, thanks to some mechanics that are true to its name. Coming out of it having finished its campaign for the first time, I’m positively impressed.
Until I received review code for it, I hadn’t seen anything past the short demonstration that had aired weeks ago.
Admittedly, at first glance during this year’s in lieu of E3 presentations, I wasn’t too impressed by the game at all: it looked way too much like Dark Souls, to a fault, which prompted me not to play its beta. So it comes as no surprise that many other developers have tried making their own brand of Souls games, and up to now, they’re had various degrees of success, whether it’s Team Ninja’s Nioh series, with its own flavor of ninja action in the mold of the From Formula, or even The Surge from Deck13, a brutal futuristic take of it, none have come too close to really emulating the feel of Souls.
From Software’s now iconic and genre-defining series has been incredibly influential and for good reason: they’re some of the best gaming experiences you can have, period. It’s nearly impossible to talk about modern gaming without touching upon the Souls games in some way.