The harden mechanic enables you to momentarily become stone and absorb attack damage to remain unharmed, but it's only available every few seconds. There are no shields to hide behind, but you have other ways to defend yourself. Most of the differences are in the combat mechanics. For all of its similarities, the differences make Mortal Shell an interesting game to experience. However, if you come in with a Dark Souls mindset, Mortal Shell will be frustrating. So we venture out in search of these glands so that we can depart from this grim world.Ī lot of what's in Mortal Shell won't be new if you've played Dark Souls before. We also meet a mysterious prisoner, tall as the tower and imprisoned within, who asks us to retrieve three sacred glands so he can extract their nectar and free us - and himself - from this realm. Genessa also serves as checkpoints, or Mortal Shell's version of a bonfire. That's where we met Sister Genessa, who we see throughout the adventure to upgrade abilities and shop for special items. In the first three hours of the game, we had thoroughly explored Fallgrim and found our base in an old, looming tower. If you learn your way around the environment and enemies and figure out the path ahead, you'll make good progress and locate a path forward to find new shells and new weapons (which also come in fours). What initially looks like a labyrinth with a myriad of similar-looking paths slowly becomes a familiar quantity if you take your time to explore. The adventure starts in the hub world, Fallgrim, which is an overgrown forest that's intersected by swamps and enemy campfires. The structure of the game is slightly confusing. Like other Soulslike titles, the journey is fun and engaging enough to make the story irrelevant if you want it to be. There is a story, and if you're familiar with Dark Souls, you'll have an idea of the lengths you'll have to go to uncover the lore. You get the first pretty quickly, but you'll have to search out the rest before you can use them. There are four shells in the game, each with different stats that determine your health, resolve and stamina. Fret not, since our pale protagonist can inhabit "shells," or fallen human warriors. A single hit means instant demise, but it can harden its skin to repel incoming damage for a short time. We start the game as a creature referred to as "foundling," which isn't fit for battle. On the other hand, the trimming of RPG mechanics, short runtime, and gameplay novelties twist the game into a direction that is unmistakably its own. And, in a neat twist, you can loot vials that allow you to switch to one of the shells on the fly, which is helpful when you run across a boss who gives you trouble while you're in a particular shell.Mortal Shell seems to invite the Souls game comparisons with its gloomy color palette, slow and methodical combat, confusing maze-like world, and cryptic item descriptions. After that, encounters that were maddeningly tough the first time sometimes became trifling, taking this from what I thought was one of the toughest Souls-likes I’d ever played to one of the easier ones in its latter two thirds. Mortal Shell didn't really click for me, for instance, until I upgraded Tiel's shell so that sprinting no longer depletes stamina and incoming blows sometimes chop off stamina instead of health. If you find yourself struggling as I did early on, upgrading these shells can really pull your fat out of the fire. And just to round things out, there's Solomon, who has a longer "resolve" meter for unleashing the special skills you'll get from upgrading weapons. My second favorite was Eredrim, whose health bar seems to stretch on forever (but who has virtually no stamina as a result). He got even better when I customized him by fleshing out his perk trees. He’s a roguish character with a massive stamina pool for dodging, which is essential to my playstyle. I had much more fun when I found my personal favorite, Tiel the Acolyte. He's a dull chap, though, with balanced stats and dull perks. “You start off with Harros, a regular knight with balanced stats.
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