Mortal Shell Review

Mortal Shell is the debut game from indie studio, Cold Symmetry and developed by a core team of 15 people. The game started life with the working title of Dungeonhaven before shifting its name to Mortal Shell and being picked up by publisher Playstack. Cold Symmetry claim to be a studio full of previous AAA developers who ventured on their own and if Mortal Shell is the result of their first title, there’s a lot to look forward to down the line as what they’ve achieved with Mortal Shell is an incredible achievement for such a small development team. The story of Mortal Shell takes place in a land called Fallgrim as you awaken to a weak body with no substance in a strange realm. It is not long before you reach the land of Fallgrim and are left to your own devices with nothing more than a short vision of a tower in the distance. As you gain control, you will quickly locate the remains of a body, a shell if you like and upon interacting with it, you will assume control of it, obtaining your first shell. Using the shells of unfortunate souls, you will explore Fallgrim in search of answers to your current predicament with the assistance of the mysterious Sester Genessa who seems to possess knowledge of the world and your shell. It is an interesting enough backdrop to get you invested in the world of Mortal Shell and the story is told via the various people you encounter, much like the Dark Souls series however you’ll also find lore in the way of inscriptions and information on items (more on this later) so there’s plenty of lore to get your teeth stuck into.

The world of Fallgrim is beautiful and playing the game on Ultra settings on PC, I am once again astounded that this was put together by a small team of 15 people. Although limited in areas, what is there is great and you should be encouraged to seek the areas outside of Fallgrim Outskirts, a swampy wilderness, as some of the ruins you visit are breathtaking at times with some excellent level design to boot. It fits the theme of a dark fantasy and although it does remind one of Dark Souls particularly, there is enough of their own flavor here to differentiate from it. Fallgrim Outskirts, the opening area and the game’s hub, although looking great still, is a bit of a letdown for the first area as it’s one that players will see first but persist and there are fantastic areas waiting to be discovered. If there is to be a criticism about the world, it’s that it is a rather small one in terms of areas, just four locales to explore but they are of significant size.

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You’ll need to first discover a shell’s name before you can begin unlocking skills.

As it is clear to see from first look and one the developers are not shy to admit, it takes heavy inspiration from Dark Souls and what better way to judge it than on its combat. To begin with, you have the typical Stamina bar which has become so synonymous with the Souls formula and you’ll earn currency from enemies in the form of Tar (think Souls in Dark Souls) and at a lesser amount, Glimpses. As expected, die and you will lose it all on the spot and you will need to return to where you died to retrieve it. The most important factor to nail however is the weight in the combat, something that most other games that try to imitate the Souls formula often fail at. Thankfully, Mortal Shell nails that feel, combat is weighty and precise along with useful invincibility frames in the dodges. There may be less weapons to play around with than your typical Souls game but what is there feels fantastic and you really feel the impact of your blows on the enemy.

More curiously is the Harden mechanic, one of the key features of Mortal Shell’s combat system and it is an interesting one. With a press of a button, you can cause your character to harden into a rock-based structure as you freeze in place and any enemy attack will deflect off it. There’s a short cooldown that you’ll have to be aware of and this can be extended with certain Shell’s skills that you can purchase but it’s a mechanic that is crucial to master if you want to get through some of the more challenging mechanics. What’s especially great about this mechanic is that it can be used at any moment, be it swinging your sword, leaping into an attack or even rolling away, this opens up numerous possibilities such as jumping into an enemy with a leaping slash and using Harden to deflect the incoming attack before following through with the attack after. Indeed, many of the boss encounters will require you to apply this level of thinking so it’s crucial you quickly get to grips with it. This replaces shields in Mortal Shell and along with a Parry and Dodge, make up all of your defensive maneuvers in the game but Harden is perhaps the most important to master. I found myself not having too much difficulty with the combat once I fully got to grips with it and there are even items that will give your character buffs or health when struck in Harden opening up even more possibilities.

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The Harden mechanic is useful for when enemies ambush you off-screen.

As mentioned above, the dodge and Parry make up your other defensive maneuvers along with the Another Chance mechanic, one that is similar to Sekiro’s revival mechanic. For the first time after visiting Sester Genessa (think Dark Souls’ Firekeepers), when your health is depleted, you will be ejected out of your shell and left in your husk state. This will leave you with just one more hit which will kill you however should you get back to your shell, you’ll be revived with full health. Get killed again in this state and you’ll die outright however there is the possibility to restore this chance by purchasing a pricey skill down the line. Health can be tricky in general in Mortal Shell, you’ll mainly recover your health via Wellcap Mushrooms that can be found lying about and when used, will apply a light health regen. These, aside from a few other healing items, are your primary way of healing and you’ll find these items will respawn on a short timer when you stand over where you looted the item. It means you need to be a lot more careful with how you approach areas and make use of Sester Genessa to restore your health (at the expense of respawning enemies) or alternatively, make use of the Parry system.

Shortly into your exploration, you will meet The Prisoner who will bestow upon you the Tarnished Seal, an item that will allow you to parry and counter your enemies. It is tough to get the timing, you need to time it just before an enemy attack reaches you, but should you be successful, it will replenish a large chunk of your health. You can expand the Tarnished Seal to provide more useful benefits too such as causing enemies to ignite or even stopping time itself so if you get to grips with the system, you’ll really be able to turn the tide in your favor. For my playthrough, I focused primarily on the Harden and Dodge mechanics, but it is clear to see that those who master this will have little issue going forward. The Dodge roll is also incredibly useful due to the invincibility frames it provides however you are at the mercy of your current shell. One shell for example will have little stamina but a huge health pool meaning that you will want to rely less on stamina. Another however will have a large stamina pool at the expense of health making this an ideal shell to focus on the dodge mechanic. I found it useful in my playthrough and relied on it a lot to avoid the enemies, especially when you can often be surprised from off-screen.

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Some of the areas look fantastic and the graphics are impressive.

This brings us to the shells themselves, once of the central gameplay mechanics of Mortal Shell and it is a useful it not limited system. For all intents and purposes, you can think of each of the four shells as classes and they come with their own set of skills to unlock via the use of Tar (think the Souls currency from Dark Souls) and Glimpse, a currency that will occasionally drop from the enemy. Before you can even use a shell however, you’ll first need to locate each of them out in the world and then return to Sester Genessa to learn the name of the shell at the expense of a little Tar. This will unlock their skill trees which will impact on how the shell plays on a deeper level. For example, the first shell you find, Harros, is a more balanced one with equal stamina and health and many of his skills focus on making more use of the Harden mechanic. It is important to focus and unlock these skills to make full use of the shells because outside of this, other than health and stamina, the shells do not vary too much. Some will add some useful effects such as applying a short harden on your dodge outside of the usual cooldown but it is after purchasing the skills where the shells truly shine. The disappointment here is that there are only four to seek out although as there is only four areas in the game, it’s not as bad as it may seem and more than enough to play around with. You are also not locked into your choice of shell, by returning to the tower in Fallgrim Outskirts, you can find a crypt which contains the shells you’ve picked up and change into them at no cost. Better yet, there are unique consumables out in the world that will allow you to shift into another shell there and then opening a lot of combat possibilities.

Speaking of items, the familiarity system is a unique one and one that I personally enjoyed as it encouraged me to make more use of items that I perhaps would not in Dark Souls for example. When you pick an item up for the first time, its effects are unknown, and you’ll need to use it to discover it’s use. After this, you will see a familiarity bar on the item that will increase with uses and once fully mastered, will alter the effects. The Wellcap Mushroom mentioned above for example will increase in healing effectiveness while another mushroom that would usually poison you becomes an item that will offer you poison resistance. It’ll also give out more lore on the item and the world which is pieced together well from both the world itself and the people that inhabit it.

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The Harden mechanic makes the boss battles easier than they should be.

Weapons unfortunately are rather limited, there are only four to find in the game with one ranged item that has limited uses. You’ll begin with the Hallowed Sword which is your basic sword (and one that I stuck with for the whole game) and you’ll find a further three out in the world however to begin with, you’ll need to visit the tower or a statue in an area to change over to that weapon. Each weapon can be upgraded in attack power along with adding two weapon abilities that use up the Resolve gauge (gained by killing enemies and used for Parrying too) and although powerful, it’s not enough to really set them apart. Each of the weapons fulfill a particular category such as a two-handed sword and a mace but it’s not until you find an unlimited consumable which lets you switch over to that weapon while you’re out and about that they become useful. As mentioned above, I stuck with the Hallowed Sword for the entirety of the game and had little problems.

That is one area that Mortal Shell is a little bit of a letdown although it is understandable considering the size of the development team. My first playthrough took me a little over 14 hours and while difficult to begin with, I did feel the game get easier as I got more used to the systems in the game, the Harden mechanic especially. Enemies can be plentiful at times and you’ll often be ambushed off-screen, one element from Dark Souls 2 in particular that I wasn’t a fan of here however once you get used to Harden, even that can be mitigated. By the time I got to the boss battles (which again, there are only a few of them) I found myself fully in control of the game and despite being fun battles, I can only think of one occasion that needed a few attempts to down them unlike the many it would take me on a first playthrough of Dark Souls for example. There are also moments where the camera angles can go against you, for example crawling through holes will cause the camera to change to a different position where you emerge and in some situations, have caused me to die from an enemy lurking nearby as I adjusted. This seems to be the story with Mortal Shell in general, it’s a fantastic game that just feels a little barebones in content but one that I never felt outlived its welcome and there’s always the allure of New Game+ if you want more Mortal Shell action in which you can further increase your weapons.