Mortal Shell is the latest attempt to try and take the crown away from the Soulsborne series and From Software. Hitting a lot of the same notes as Dark Souls, it’s what Mortal Shell does differently that make its worthy of discussion. However, the game also makes the mistake of trying to fix what wasn’t broken.
A Shell of a Soul
Our story finds the player in control of a faceless husk in a mysterious land. To survive, you will take over the bodies of four different dead characters to explore. Mortal Shell wastes no time in giving you a different experience compared to Dark Souls that begins in combat (which we’ll talk about next), and grows from there.
Unlike other soulslikes, you are not free to create your own custom character with different skills, weapons, and armor. Instead, you are limited to one of the four shells and one of four different weapons at a time. Each shell is graded in terms of health, stamina, and resolve (which is used for special attacks).
Weapons can be upgraded to do more damage and each one has a special move that can be unlocked by finding its respective item in the world. Speaking of the world, Mortal Shell is smaller compared to other souls likes — clocking in with three dungeons to explore from the game’s central, and swampy, hub.
Progression has also been streamlined compared to other games. Your resources are tar (aka souls) and glimpses that are locked to the shell you’re using at the time. You earn tar by killing enemies and using items, while glimpses are rarer and can also be earned through items. Each shell has a basic perk tree that you can spend tar and glimpses on to unlock new abilities. My main was Tiel who could be upgraded to have infinite running and enhanced poison damage.
Harden Up
Combat in Mortal Shell is slower compared to other Soulslikes. You have access to both light and heavy attacks along with a parry (more on that in a minute). The game’s one unique mechanic is the ability to harden your body into stone — becoming immobile and negating the next attack that hits you.
You do not have access to a block, but the hardened mechanic is effective. Because you can use it any moment, it allows slower weapons to shine as you can harden in mid-swing, take the hit, and then continue your attack while the enemy is stunned. There are only a few ways of recovering health normally: finding consumable healing items in the world, and using your parry to trigger a riposte. Parrying this way requires one bar of resolve which further limits how often you can heal. Because of the open nature of the game, the enemies don’t grow progressively stronger, and everything stays at similar power levels. Each dungeon is aesthetically and architecturally different.
Another difference is that items have a familiarity rating that grows the more you use it. Fill up familiarity and the item will give you more lore and have a boosted effect when used. Some of the consumables are very powerful: such as gaining health when hit while harden, attack and defense bonuses, and more.
Mortal Shell’s MO seems to be taking the soulslike formula and stripping it down as far as the developers could, which may not lead to the fulfilling game that fans have comes to expect from the genre.
Small Souls
What really separates Mortal Shell from the other soulslikes on the market is its length. Compared to every other example in the subgenre, this is by far the shortest game — which once again consists of three dungeons, one hub, and the respective bosses.
There is something intimate about how Mortal Shell operates, with its slower combat and the smaller world I found appealing. However, judging it on the other soulslikes in terms of design and world-building and the game does not compete. Enemy behavior is very basic and is only built on a few easily seen patterns. Because there is no formal leveling or progression curve, you can just run past almost every encounter and it won’t impact how you play. In this aspect, Mortal Shell is probably made more for speed runners than soulslike fans.
The world travel can get repetitive if you don’t use the fast travel items to save time. I did like the idea of “the fog,” which activates once you have beaten a dungeon. The world becomes darker and filled with different enemies and it is possible to find new loot until you return the dungeon’s item to the hub.
Because you need to consume multiple copies of an item to learn about its lore, it is harder to appreciate or understand the world of Mortal Shell. And just like the other soulslikes, hopefully, you aren’t expecting an easy to understand ending.
Ultimately as the first game of this design from Cold Symmetry, Mortal Shell has a great foundation, but it lacks the refinement and growth that other established franchises have reached. The game does more things right than it does wrong and I would be up for playing a sequel if the developers choose to go that route.
If you’re looking for the next great soulslike, Mortal Shell doesn’t quite hit that mark. However, if you’re looking for a good slice of content and don’t mind the length, Mortal Shell makes for a good diversion.
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