Mortal Shell is a game that I've been enjoying quite a bit for the PlayStation 5 lately. This is a Souls-like made very much in the style of... well Dark Souls, and it had me impressed from the very beginning. Let's see if I can do this game any justice by typing up my review.
Souls-like to the core
Mortal Shell is a souls-like to it's very core. It's got that unforgiving swing, dodge and black combat that the Souls-games are so well known for. On top of this it also has limited healing options, enemies that respawn when you die, currency being dropped when you die and the well known bonfire mechanic that resets the world when you use it. Seeing these features shouldn't be a surprise to anyone as they're pretty much what makes a souls-like into a souls-like.
Luckily the game does plenty to differentiate itself from the Souls-games. There are some pretty unique features in this game that left me positively surprised.
Shells
One big feature of this game is that it doesn't really have any gear for you to equip. When you start out you're running around as this bony looking being that you can see sleeping in the water in the first picture of this post. As you explore the game you find what are known as shells. From what I was able to gather these are basically dead bodies that you are able to inhabit.
When you do so you get access to their set of skills and your life and stamina increases depending on which shell you pick. There's a total of five shells and they all change up how you play the game. One is heavy on health and low on stamina with a skillset focused on defence. Another one is heavy on the stamina and low on health with a skillset focused on offence. There's other shells that are more balanced as well.
My choice of shell fell of Eredrim, the Venerable. He had a ton of health and enough stamina to not have me completely starved at least in most fights. He was also a good choice for the earlier boss fights that were pretty hard due to not having been able to upgrade my weapons yet. Still, I played them all and I upgraded all of the shells with all their skills. How could I not?
Luckily all of the five shells are accessible early in the game and you're even hinted towards where you find them. This is a very good thing seeing as the game is rather short. It would suck if you found a shell only at the very end of the game when there's barely an hour left to play.
When you start out with a new shell you're rather lackluster on skills but you unlock more using currency you get from defeating enemies. You choose freely from a set of skills until you've unlocked them all and for every skill you unlock you unlock a new piece of lore about your shell. That was a touch I really liked. It makes it feel like you're unlocking the memories of the shells as you level them up.
Combat
Reviewing a souls-like without mentioning the combat would be a travesty. Deep down that's what these games are about after all. I mentioned earlier that combat is mostly about swinging, dodging and blocking.
Mortal Shells approach to combat is a slow one. Enemies attack slowly and so do you, making each encounter into a test of both patience and skill. This is something I don't really mind but due to this game not having a lot of enemy variety some encounters did become a bit of a drag. There's some enemies that just take forever to kill due to having a large health pool while dodging their attacks is really easy.
Blocking is done in quite a unique way. Basically you have the ability to turn yourself rock hard. This pretty much negates all damage for a little while until you get hit. What's cool about it is that you can harden mid swing. Say you run at an enemy, start your swing, harden yourself and tank their attack then you resume your attack as the harden ends. I really likes this as it was quite a unique approach to blocking and it can be used in quite a lot of fun ways. Harden is of course on cooldown for a certain amount of time which further adds to the slow combat.
Outside of this there's not really much more to say about combat. There's no magic or ranged combat. It's all swinging about with different kinds of melee weapons. There's give weapons in total and I just stuck with the starting sword as it had a moveset that was the most suitable for me.
Verdict
All in all Mortal Shell is a good game. It sets the bar for what it wants to be early on in the game and it stays true to that until the very end. My favorite thing about the game is that they've added just enough of their own twists to well known souls-like mechanic to give the game a soul of its own and stay relevant. This is something a lot of souls-like games could learn from.
There is some critique to be given towards combat and enemy variety. Combat is slow. Although that's not a problem to me it simply won't be everyones cup of tea. It's also worth mentioning that enemy variety is a bit on the lower side with each area not holding much more than two or three different kinds of enemies. It doesn't take many hours of playing the game until you've basically seen all the enemies there is.
This does however happen naturally seeing as the game is as short as it is. The game clocked in at around 12 hours for me to finish the main story and do some extra content. Not bad at all seeing as they're not overpricing themselves at $20 for the game. You'll even often see it on sale for around $5 which is definitely worth it.
I myself got it for free through my PlayStation Plus subscription ans as far as I know it's also available through Xbox Game Pass. If you're on the Nintendo Switch you'll have to buy the game for yourself. No matter your platform this game is availale!
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.