Mortal Shell

Based on the 7,508 most recent Steam reviews · updated 2 Oct 2026

• English reviews: 4,678, 18 Aug 2021 – 2 Oct 2026
• Russian reviews: 2,830, 18 Aug 2021 – 27 Sept 2026

• ▼ Not recommended

  6.2 h at review6.2 h total

  20 Aug 2021

  This is a no-BS review about the cons after 6 hours. Enough other reviews mention the pros, read those if you wanna know that the game is pretty. Too many developers take inspiration from games like DS but have no idea what makes them good. This game feels like it was made by executives who watched a playthrough of DS, and not actual gamers. I know that's harsh criticism for the Devs who may be reading this. It is warranted. For reference, I have beaten every souls game including Sekiro and Bloodborne. I have ALSO played most of Nioh 1, a bunch of Nioh 2 (playing it currently), Lords of the Fallen, Salt and Sanctuary, Blasphemous, Pascals Wager, etc. This is to say that I don't think all games have to be exactly like DS to be good, which is a common rebuttal most die-hard fans of this game throw at every criticism. EDIT: This review is my opinion after a healthy amount of play. These problems aren't immediately apparent, else I would have refunded the game and not written the review. If you think my review is bad, make a review highlighting all the pros and let people decide for themselves. Also, profile is now public to prove to the crybabies that I did in fact beat the games I said lol. This game is full of bad game design that makes the game "hard" in all of the most un-fun ways. 1) The first level is large and sprawling, but most areas look the same. Most other areas seem very maze-y and aren't interesting to navigate. Very few landmarks to know where you're going. No map, which only exacerbates the issue. It's not game-breaking, but it makes traversal annoying. 2) No fast travel until later in the game or unless you grind for it. Not gonna spoil it, but this game desperately needs fast travel available form the start due to other poor design decisions, making this a huge pain point. You might be someone who dislikes fast travel and likes to explore instead; unfortunately there is literally 0 sense of exploration in this game. Nothing interesting to be found anywhere outside of main story progression. 3) Besides single-use items or items you have to find in the world or buy from secret shops, the only way to switch your character (shell) OR weapon is to run alllllll the way back to the middle of the starting area. This is so boring and wasteful. Imagine you wanted to change your weapon and armor in Dark Souls, but you had to run from the end of the Sens Fortress to the Fire link Shrine every time you wanted to change or upgrade something. That's literally what this game makes you do. If anyone tells you they enjoy that aspect of the game, they are lying and the rest of their opinion on the game should be immediately discarded. Starting the game with Fast Travel or allowing you to change weapons and armor at the "bonfire" ladies would fix the issue. EDIT: The main rebuttal seems to be "But you CAN change weapons and shells, you just gottta find the items in the world, or unlock a hidden shop then grind for the fast travel item!". Yeah, I know. That's bad game design. The simple act of changing weapons or changing characters in a game all about changing builds should not be locked behind missable/hidden items or crazy farming after you find a hidden shop.That's my whole point. 4) There are no healing items that spawn with you upon resurrection, only single use items you have to run around the world and collect. Issue: they are all on respawn timers, making the act of building up a collection of healing items really tedious. This is compounded by certain boss fights, where you MUST defeat the boss to leave the area. You may burn through your healing items and have no efficient way to gather more, other than literally standing by a mushroom for 2 mins until it respawns, rinse and repeat. EDIT: There is a trash health item you can buy a stock of, except it heals a small amount of health over 40 seconds AND removes your ability to parry or use weapon skills, gimping your combat. This game actively discourages healing, basically. Maybe you like that kind of thing. 5) Stupid progress decisions. Example, at a certain point in one of the dungeons, you are locked inside and prevented from leaving until you defeat the dungeon boss. Issue: No way to change character, weapon, or upgrade weapons without traveling back to the first area, which you are now prevented from doing. Get into this dungeon and realize you need a different character or wanna try a different weapon? Too bad. 6) Shells aren't different in any interesting ways ; It's a rearranging of stats. Choose a balanced fighter, a high stamina/low health fighter, a high health/low stamina fighter, or a guy that can parry more times than other fighters. The skill trees are mainly just passives and there's no reason to choose anyone other than the obvious best shell (stat wise). Pascals Wager does this idea much better, where the different characters all use different weapons with totally unique move sets, this is in addition to different stats. Also, the act of upgrading your shells is somewhat random since one of the two currencies you need to upgrade them is dropped randomly by enemies; this makes things like trying to farm enough to max out your shell THEN grind some more to buy the much-needed fast travel item a monumental annoyance. 7) There are a LOT of small corridors filled with LOTS of enemies. This game literally spams so many enemies at you in certain areas that you will literally get stunlocked to death in a corner if you try to run past them. I would fight them, but the enemies are generally boring and there are so many of them, you end up sprinting past them out of boredom. 8) The recharge indicator for your main defense ability (Harden) is in the bottom left of the screen. Your Resolve gauge, which basically allows you to parry a finite amount of times until it recharges again, is found in the bottom left corner but it is ALSO found on your character model. That is the proper way to do it. There needs to be a visual cue on your character model that says "Ok, you can block again". When you need to keep your eyes glued to the center of the screen, having to keep looking at an icon in the bottom corner so you know if you can block causes lots of frustrations and missed blocks. In this game, you fight boring enemies and lots of them, in same-y looking areas that mainly consists of corridors outside of the starting area. You will fight these boring enemies with boring weapons (some weapons moves are cool tbh but it doesn't fix the issue) that are generally so slow it makes DS2 look like Sonic the Hedgehog. You will use these boring weapons with boring characters that are all slight variations on the other characters with no meaningful or fun differences. You will grind for healing items on timers for no other reason than to waste your time. Out of boredom or frustration, you will want to switch between different characters and weapons, only to be put off by the idea of sprinting allll the way back to the starting area to make those changes. I could see giving this game a thumbs up with a lot of these issues still in place, but the way you can't change your weapon or character without a 3 mile run for a good portion/most of the game and the tedium of collecting healing items on a respawn timer is enough to drive even the most dedicated player mad. I'm glad there are people who enjoy the game, because there are a good handful of pros to be found within the game, but there's no point in talking about the pros when the cons smother them to the point of nonexistence. I doubt I will finish this game. If the game being pretty and having a single cool mechanic is enough to see past all the flaws, then by all means. I didn't exaggerate any of my complaints for dramatic effect. These issues will grate on you. The game starts off strong and quickly shows you how frustrating it is. That's my review. Take it or leave it.

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  769 found helpful · 35 found funny

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  Games owned: 1,288 · Reviews written: 38

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  2 h at review2 h total

  18 Aug 2021

  Ok, I've seen a lot of mixed reviews for this and I genuinely understand why, because I have a lot of mixed feelings about it which I'll try and break down in this. I really think there's a lot to love about this game and for it to have come from a team of just 15 people is super impressive to me, however I am going to refund it because there are some glaring issues in certain elements. Pros: - This game draws on Souls as inspiration but rather than simply copy and pasting Souls mechanics, the devs put in some unique elements such as the "hardening" mechanic which acts as a timed block and I think works pretty well. - The hub in the early part of the game is really cool, providing a workbench with which you can upgrade your weapons with various materials you can find throughout the world. Not only that but here you interact with representations of different "shells" and weaponry which give you flashes of the area they can be found in. - The parry mechanic heals you on a successful riposte, I like this because it rewards good play. Worth mentioning now this will also be in the cons section; like I said mixed feelings. - The setting, worldbuilding, lore etc is really really good, I love the aesthetic and direction of this and will likely watch a playthrough of the game to learn more about it. - Respawning items! There are various healing items dotted throughout the game world that whilst limited in their capacity, do respawn on a timer, so you're never *really* going to run out. - You can pet the cat Cons: - Now I know I put the parry mechanic in the pros but I also have some gripes with it. For one it is kind of inconsistent with the timing being *extremely* tight, those of you with motor or reflex issues beware. Also it isn't very well explained that after successfully riposting an enemy you cannot do so again without use of an item that chips at your health or killing a bunch of enemies, which would be fine if it didn't render the mechanic useless in boss fights; this brings me on to my next point. - I only came across one boss fight outside of the tutorial and oh my god it was infuriating. They could turn on a dime and track you through your dodge and roll meaning you would consistently get hit by attacks. Their attacks had hit boxes that lingered for an unreasonably long time, and the worst offender is that pretty much all of their moves are 3 or more hits which carry it all the way across the arena. It also swings faster than you can recover after getting hit, meaning if you get hit by one of its attacks you're getting hit by *all* of them; when each hit deals a quarter of your health and you have extremely limited healing this becomes a serious problem. - The graphical fidelity and art style are top notch, however, with my older PC I did find myself needing to turn the graphics down to medium in order to get consistent 60fps. This on its own is fine, I'm used to this and it's the nature of games progressing, totally fine. The problem comes in that when I turned the graphics down from High to Medium, it imposed a significant fog effect that genuinely wasn't far off the fog from early Silent Hill titles; this again would be fine if it didn't seriously impair my ability to see enemies and various pick-ups around the world. - The enemy pop-in; holy f*** this was infuriating. I'd be running around minding my own business and suddenly a big enemy would just fade-in out of of nowhere and smack me for half my health before I even had time to react. tldr: Lots to like about this game but also some really glaring issues in some of its design and performance. Whilst I'm going to refund the game I would happily come back to it if the issues with it got fixed. This is honestly a really impressive game for a studio of just 15 to put out, and I'll be following them closely to see what they put out next.

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  489 found helpful · 30 found funny

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  Games owned: 356 · Reviews written: 14

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  12 h at review12 h total

  2 Nov 2021

  The quick and dirty review is that they tried to emulate Dark Souls, but somehow took all the wrong lessons from the game and didn't seem to actually grasp any of the subtleties of what makes it great. Let's jump into some more details on the game's own merit (rather than as a comparison to other games), but first, a note about myself. I'm a long-time player and fan of the soulsborne series, having started with Demon's and with around 5k hours of playtime across the full series. I'm also someone who has an education in game design, for whatever extra nugget of legitimacy that may grant. I was interested in Mortal Shell from early on, but trepidatious at how little hitstun seemed to play a factor in the early footage presented, and now that I've finally spent a solid amount of time feeling out the game's systems, I've come to the conclusion that it has a few fatal flaws and a whole host of inconveniences. I also don't own the DLC, as I'm not interested in the alternate game mode. First, and most importantly, the game rewards the wrong things. This is present in so many facets of the game, but let's focus on combat. The game presents three defensive options in the form of Harden, Parry, and Dodge. Harden is an awesome concept, allowing you to defend against a single incoming blow without sacrificing your offensive momentum. The problem is many enemies are not staggered by it (allowing them to still hit you as a result of multi-attack chains), or even worse, some can outright ignore it and damage you regardless of being Hardened. It is only situationally reliable, and requires blatant trial and error to find out when it won't work. Parry is massively powerful if you have Resolve to spend, but requires timing (which seemed a bit inconsistent for me at times, so the window must be rather small) and doesn't work against most enemies' biggest attacks. Your parrying instrument flashes bright red and makes a brief noise during the startup frames of any unparryable attacks, but you may have trouble noticing that as the ranged weapon on your back completely obscures the visual cue while locked on and the game's ambient music is nonstop violence against the player's ear. Oh, and if you don't have resolve, a successful parry either puts your opponent into a second of stun or puts you BOTH into a second of stun (giving you no reward for successfully executing it), depending on the attack you successfully parried. Once again, situational in usefulness, and has the highest skill requirement of use among the three options. Dodging gives you full invulnerability from everything, costs some stamina, and can be cancelled into a second dodge roll for additional distance coverage. The stamina cost makes it not a terribly reliable option while using low stamina shells, but if you're using a shell with moderate or better stamina, you'll quickly find that dodging out of the enemy's range is completely risk free and almost always gives you an opportunity to punish with your heavy attack (that has significant forward momentum), which can then safely be dodge cancelled again. Interestingly, this strategy works against everything I ran up against - whether mobs of any size or bosses - and also has the added benefit of exploiting every single enemy's paper thin AI process. It isn't even stamina intensive, as there's often enough time between when you dodge away and actually get an opening to punish that your stamina completely refills. The last half of my playtime was spent doing that exact same sequence of dodge, wait for the end of the attack chain, punish with heavy attack, dodge cancel back and repeat. It actively sucks the fun out of encounters when they are all addressed the exact same tedious way with no regard for having to learn anything more than "when are the breaks between enemy attack chains". I learned neat skills, upgraded my shells with new passives, got various bonus riposte effects I could swap between for parries...and yet, the most effective way to play was to actively ignore all of that and just keep using the same old tired pattern that flawlessly worked against every enemy and boss. Why bother with putting in the effort of learning how to play better when you can use the zero effort, zero skill, universally applicable answer to everything? Second, let's talk about the environment layout and pathing. The environments are aesthetically distinct between stages, but often lack obvious landmarks for easy mental mapping within a stage, and frequently reinforce the player with a message of "don't bother with exploring" as there's often either nothing to be found, or a secret item that's just a run-of-the-mill junk item that has little value. The trouble is, they do occasionally (about once or twice per map) have one actually important hidden item nestled in somewhere amidst all the vast emptiness and trash consumables. It sends very conflicting signals, as if they want you to explore every nook and cranny of their world, but don't believe they should actually reward it 90% of the time. The other bizarre aspect is that, for most of the game's stage design being on rails, there are shockingly few shortcuts to reward successful navigation through objectives and encounters. To further stack upon this, enemies can't correctly navigate the stages. They will frequently get stuck on geometry or simply walk themselves into corners because they're trying to walk a straight line to the player instead of actually recognizing the path they need to traverse to reach you. This wildly reinforces just running through the stage, ignoring enemies to quickly rush down objectives without expending resources (such as healing items), which once again encourages player behavior of NOT engaging with the game (which loops back into the first point). The final point is the lack of motivation they give the player. You are presented with a comical quantity of cryptic item and shell lore that seems to relate to various aspects of this bleak and pointless world, but absolutely zero narrative motivation to actually progress through the game content. The most you get is a giant bird-like prisoner asking you to bring it nectar, so that it might get free. That is legitimately your sole narrative direction to keep playing for some sort of implied payoff... except the payoff isn't even for you in the first place? Unlocking the various shells and weapons is only hinted at by a montage of 2-3 visual flashes of environment that you're intended to follow. There's not any narrative binding any of this, falling into the trap of just expecting the player to keep playing for the world lore snippets (which don't paint a particularly engaging story or offer any motivating drive) or the gameplay loop itself (which, we've already established actively encourages the player to ignore most of the content). As a result, I found myself not motivated enough to complete the entire game. There are a host of other minor things that could be addressed, such as enemy poise reinforcing the no-skill combat loop, lack of meaningful difference between weapon movesets, reinforced behavior of spending time farming tar/glimpses/mushrooms, having to use items to find out what they do (including items that have outright negative effects), not being able to swap weapons in the field until you've completed an entire leg of the game, or locking the sole quick travel item in a shop that's only accessible after you've fully mastered a shell. Ultimately though, these are all minor inconsiderations of design and pale in comparison to the big three flaws listed above.

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  381 found helpful · 32 found funny

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  Reviews written: 43

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  36 h at review36 h total

  17 Jan 2022

  ---{Story}--- ☐ Doesnt have (Not counting historical stuff) ☐ Something isnt nothing I guess ☑️ Not greatly told ☐ Average ☐ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ Will make you cry or smile a lot ---{Gameplay}--- ☐ Try not to get addicted ☐ Very good ☑️ Good ☐ Nothing special ☐ Ehh ☐ Bad ☐ Just dont ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☑️ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ Insanity ---{Graphics}--- ☐ You forget reality ☐ Masterpiece ☑️ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Will do ☐ Bad ☐ Awful ☐ Pixel art ---{Audio}--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☐ Good ☑️ Decent ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ Earrape ---{Audience}--- ☐ Kids ☐ Teens ☑️ Adults ☐ Everyone ---{PC Requirements}--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☐ Decent ☑️ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{Difficulity}--- ☐ Just press a bunch of buttons ☐ Easy ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Not so easy ☐ Difficult ☑️ Mortal Shell ☐ Dark Souls ---{Game Time}--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of tea ☑️ Short ☐ Average ☐ Long ☐ Depends on you ☐ Endless ---{Price}--- ☐ Just buy it ☐ Worth the price ☑️ Wait for sale ☐ Maybe if you have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ Dont throw money into a rubbish bin ---{Bugs}--- ☐ Never had any ☐ Minor bugs ☐ Few bugs ☑️ Can get annoying ☐ Ruining the game ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☑️ 7 ☐ 8 ☐ 9 ☐ 10

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  282 found helpful · 9 found funny

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  Reviews written: 135

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  13 h at review15 h total

  26 Dec 2021

  За пределами обыденного лежит порог, что должно переступить каждому. Смертные оболочки отчаянно жаждут узреть смысл, хоть бледный отсвет истинного предназначения (с) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2695209544 Долгое время игнорировала эту игру, так как знакомство с дорелизной версией вышло не самым удачным. Сначала она отказывалась видеть мой геймпад, а потом в принципе перестала запускаться. Поругавшись на криворуких разработчиков и богомерзкий egs, решила подождать её в стиме. И после прохождения могу с уверенностью сказать, что это приключение мне понравилось. 📝О механиках и геймплее: Геймплейно Mortal Shell похожа на "Dark Souls", так как заимствует базовые элементы этого жанра. Исследуем локации в поисках боссов, собираем лут и попутно вырезаем местное население. Но при этом игру нельзя назвать бездушным клоном, так как она добавляет в привычную формулу что-то новое. Например мне показалось необычным, что персонажу нельзя повышать характеристики. Вместо этого, он вселяется в различные оболочки (всего их 4, +1 с длс). Они отличаются количеством здоровья/выносливости и уникальными способностями, которые можно разблокировать. К примеру вор может отхиливаться от ядовитого урона, рыцарь чаще пользоваться окаменением, а танк накапливает стаки за убийства и увеличивает свой урон. Привычный блок отсутствует, на смену ему пришло то самое "окаменение". Работает оно довольно просто: С небольшим кулдауном игрок может принять форму камня и задоджить любую атаку. Применять эту способность можно даже находясь в перекате/атаке/прыжке и по желанию удерживать форму до получения урона. Парирование выступает в качестве приятного бонуса, так как в нём заложен вампиризм. Пользоваться им на удивление удобно, хоть и не всегда хочется играть в рулетку и торговать таблом. Ещё одной интересной "фишкой" является туман, который появляется после убийства сюжетных боссов. Когда после победы персонаж берёт предмет, его нужно отнести в хаб. Задача осложняется слабой видимостью и увеличенным количеством мобов, но в качестве бонуса открывается доступ к ранее закрытым сундукам. 📝О графике, музыке и оптимизации: Unreal Engine хороший движок и разработчики явно умеют им пользоваться. Локации оформлены красиво, персонажей/врагов/броню хочется рассматривать. Для любителей скриншотов есть фоторежим. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2693171224 Звуки окружения тоже на достаточно высоком уровне. А вот с музыкой вышел казус. Оказывается на болотах сидит жаба, которая при беседе с ней включает/отключает музыкальное сопровождение. Я поговорила с ней всего один раз и видимо тем самым лишилась возможности оценить этот пункт. Оптимизация хорошая, никаких лагов и багов замечено не было. Один раз улетела в затекстурье, но это скорее погрешность. 📝О боевой системе и сюжете: Собственно то, за что ценятся такие игры. Боёвка тут отличная, радует красивыми и плавными анимациями. Управлять персонажем и уклоняться от атак удобно (в последнем случае присутствует небольшой инпут-лаг, как в первой DS). Кривые хитбоксы хоть и редко, но встречаются. Видимо как дань великому Хидетаке. Очень понравилось, что в зависимости от выбранного оружия и оболочки меняются ощущения от геймплея. Каждый класс чувствуется иначе, заставляя приспосабливаться к темпу игры и выбранному оружию. Само оружие имеет как базовые атаки, так и свои ультимативные абилки (прокачиваются отдельно). Сюжет тут понятное дело загадочный, нпс общаются в иносказательной форме и на первый взгляд несут какую-то чушь. Но если вникать, то можно услышать интересную историю о падении королевства Фолгрим. Главная интрига (то, кем является протагонист) в игре тоже раскрыта. Так же мне понравилась тема с личностями оболочек и то, как персонажи воспринимают этот мир. 📝То, что не понравилось: Общая за(хyе)путанность локаций. Не считаю себя гением в навигации, но в фромовских проектах у меня редко возникали проблемы с ориентированием на местности. Тут же часто сталкивалась с ситуацией, когда не понимала куда нужно идти и где я собственно нахожусь. Больше всего проблем доставила стартовая (центральная) локация, так до конца и не разобралась в устройстве этого адского леса. Изучение и знакомство предметами. Если говорить простыми словами, то после получения расходника, герой не знает как он работает. И чтобы узнать, им нужно воспользоваться. При этом встречаются редкие (уникальные) расходники, которые могли бы помочь на боссах или те, что вредят игроку. Про золотую маску которая позволяет путешествовать между локациями узнала с wiki, попросту не захотев отдавать увесистую сумму на неизвестную eбyлдень. Странные боссы. Я не могу назвать их лёгкими (хоккеист и хрен с арбалетом заставили понервничать), но у них очень ограниченное количество атак. Если вникнуть в механики и взять удобную оболочку, проблем с ними не возникнет. Это явно не та игра, в которой вам потребуется десятки попыток на убийство босса. Тем не менее, арены, их внешний вид и стартовые заставки мне понравились. Фарм хилок. В этой игре нет ничего похожего на флягу с эстусом, персонаж лечится грибами (которые встречаются довольно редко и возобновляются через 5 минут реального времени) и шашлыками из крыс, которые можно купить у торговца по цене 100 душ тара за штуку. Этот недостаток особенно сильно ощущается на раннем этапе игры, когда игрок только вникает в механики и активно получает по шее. Длительность. Для кого-то это будет даже плюсом, так как игровой процесс не успевает надоесть. Но меня огорчило, что приключение закончилось за каких-то 13 часов. Даже с учётом того, что я полноценно исследовала локации, подобно ёжику звала лошадку в туманном лесу и целый час гипнотизировала грибы, чтобы было чем выживать в бою с первым Гришей. Итог: Несмотря на шероховатости, это отличный результат для студии из 15 человек. Игра получилась атмосферной, интересной и в меру сложной. Если вы любите жанр и игнорируете Mortal Shell исключительно из-за отрицательных отзывов, возможно вам стоит её купить и составить своё собственное мнение. Лично я очень рада, что решила дать этой игре второй шанс.

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  185 found helpful · 6 found funny

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  Reviews written: 53

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  5 h at review11 h total

  18 Aug 2021

  I don't want to outright say don't buy this game but there's no middle ground between yes and no. There's a lot of things I like and dislike about this game. It's impossible not to compare this game to the souls games because this game is trying so hard to be a souls game. From default controller settings, to iframes, even to the loading screens showing you random items in the game with their descriptions. The good: - Good art style - interesting world (especially like the groups of bandits just hanging around in the starting zone) - the second-chance mechanic of losing your "shell" and being able to recover it The bad: - Enemies can turn on a dime. Players of the souls games know that in a lot of situations you can dodge past an enemy to their backside once they start their combo but in this game they just turn around and hit you with the next attack in the combo. It's impossible to actually stay on an enemies backside and you're better off just backing away or hardening during a combo. - The intro starts off like a souls series would where you fight a boss at the end who is far too strong for you. I managed to beat him but only after learning that in order to get a second chance at him you have to hard close the game out, reload the save, do the entire tutorial again and now you get to try fighting him again. This tutorial boss also does this turn-on-a-dime move. He also has a combo of 3 attacks that are just far enough apart for your harden to only block 2 of them attacks and you either dodge or eat the last attack. - There is a painfully easy way of beating almost every enemy in the game. I've used this against 3 bosses already and only 1 of them could do anything about it. Load an attack, harden, let the enemy break your harden and you'll automatically finish the swing. I expect this can be done for the rest of the bosses. The third boss i fought, Imrod had a kick ability but his follow-up was laughable. He either kicks you and literally just gloats for so long you get free hits in on him after standing up or he decides to get in his wheelchair and make his way over to a corpse, light it on fire and throw it so lazily that sometimes it doesn't even make it all the way to you. I do the above method for fighting most enemies and I wish there was a fighting method that wasn't so punishing to play other than this. - The game introduces an ability to parry attacks. You just hit the parry button and after a small delay you are able to parry within a small window. sounds neat, but there's a few problems with it. First, it's based off a "Resolve" meter and this resolve meter can only be filled by fighting, but if you don't fill it all the way then it will start to decay, even during combat. This means that during boss fights if you don't already have any resolve you're pretty much guaranteed to never get any resolve unless you stay really aggressive. So you have this parry mechanic that only works if you've also managed to be aggressive. There's also some abilities you can't parry, which they clearly display but they don't ever tell you that there are abilities you can't harden against. The kick from Imrod makes sense, but there's a stab from Grisha that just ignores harden and almost one-shots you. - There's really no effective way of healing yourself in the game. The simplest way is to eat rat sticks but these have the unfortunate downside of also consuming a resolve bar. so you have to make the choice of losing out on a lot of damage for about 1/4 of your health bar. it's really frustrating having to eat away my resolve just to not die. The other means of healing is with these mushrooms you can find but they have an in-game timer and it's something like a few minutes to respawn, so at best you're probably always going to have just a few of these things which means you might as well accept that your health bar from the bonfire is how much you have to work with. - Progression isn't really there. Each "Shell" you get has their own little talent tree you can progress. You basically loot Glimpses and Tar and use that to unlock abilities for these shells. If they functioned more like talent slots I could mix and match talents with I would love it, but with the 2 shells I have half of the abilities I don't think I'll ever bother getting just because I don't see any value in them. - Weapons. I've been playing about 4-5 hours and I have come across 2 weapons to use. The starter sword and a mace. The main hub area shows what seems to be 4 or 5 weapons you can ultimately choose from but when the light attack of the sword feels almost the same as the mace I start to feel a little bored and would like the option to change things up from time to time. I'll probably come back once I've beaten the game and update my review.

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  148 found helpful · 12 found funny

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  Games owned: 1,145 · Reviews written: 15

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  18 h at review18 h total

  1 Apr 2023

  ---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☑ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☑ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☑ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☑ Average ☐ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☐ Worth the price ☑ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☐ Never heard of ☑ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☑ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☐ 9 ☐ 10 Grab this review template here! 👉 https://vojtastruhar.github.io/steam-review-template/

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  144 found helpful · 13 found funny

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  Games owned: 1,860 · Reviews written: 77

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  21 h at review21 h total

  25 Jan 2022

  Mortal Shell is a gorgeous but ultimately hollow entry into the soulslike canon. Pros: - Beautiful graphics. Fallgrim and the surrounding territories are well-rendered and look suitably grim and imposing. The obsidian temple in particular is pleasantly stark and alien. - Good voice work across the board. - Good sound design. A consistent audio tell for enemies' ranged attacks was much appreciated. - Hardening mechanic. Absorbing a hit in the middle of your combo feels cool to pull off. - Returning glands. These segments were a lot of fun and accurately delivered a feeling of tension as you try to make your way back to the tower. Cons: - Short. There's one central area, three side areas, and a final boss. - Huge difficulty drop once you upgrade your weapons. The first dungeon I did took me nights' play to clear, then I swept the other two and killed the final boss in one more session. - Poor difficulty balance between bosses and enemies. Regular dudes with sticks will obliterate a third of your health with a noodly-armed blow, while a flaming behemoth half again as tall as you will just tickle. Your mistakes are punished severely in the dungeons, but barely at all by the bosses in comparison. - Player isn't directed to critical mechanics. I entirely missed the center tower for my first few hours, and didn't have access to any other shells, weapons, or instructions. - Inconsistent quality control. Lots of places on the map allow you to fall out and not get back in, or get trapped between objects... and the only way to get back is by throwing away all your currency. Enemies don't stagger consistently and don't always stick to their cooldowns, especially after you're knocked out of your shell. - Lore. I don't dislike the presentation (learning more about your shells and the world via unlocking abilities), but the world as a whole lacks context that the shells don't really explain, especially surrounding its supernatural elements. I appreciate soulslikes that lean heavily into their themes, but I was never really sure what Mortal Shell's theme was trying to be. This is not a bad game, but it's really only nailed the look of the genre and not its substance. Buy on sale if you're hungry for more soulslikes, but don't go out of your way to pick it up.

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  138 found helpful · 7 found funny

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  Reviews written: 57

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  1.2 h at review1.5 h total

  18 Aug 2021

  "Dark Souls 3 if you bought it from Wish" Visuals - 10/10 World-Building - 7/10 Atmosphere - 8/10 Pacing - 4/10 Gameplay - 0/10 Overall: 2/10 I came across this title and immediately had high hopes, but unfortunately this game attempts to be 'Dark Souls meets Bloodborne meets Sekiro' and ends up being a worse version of all 3. There is a thick cinematic veneer of visual effects and slow motion, which desperately tries, and fails, to cover up how shallow and recycled the actual gameplay is. Combat is clunky and unintuitive, which is exacerbated by poor hit registration and pointlessly punishing mechanics that I can only describe as a poor attempt to artificially replicate the 'difficulty' that Souls titles are known for. Within the first few enemy encounters, you've already experienced the bulk of what this game's combat system has to offer.

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  124 found helpful · 47 found funny

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  Reviews written: 1

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  18 h at review18 h total

  3 Sept 2022

  Hi, Not much to say really. Is it good? Yes. A good souls-like? Yes. 18hrs, is that short for a souls-game. Yes, but i dont want to spoil what/why. Does it show something different? Yes. Overall gameplay is good? More or less. Quality of the game? 7/10, because there are some bugs, issues with graphics settings and fps dropws in few areas. I would recommend it on sale. Thanks for reading.

  109 found helpful · 1 found funny

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  Reviews written: 95

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  0.4 h at review0.4 h total

  19 Mar 2023

  Честно? Не очень. Я большой любитель дарк соулса, но попробывав именно этот соулс лайк (В надежде получить "вау" и что-то очень похожее на дарк соулс), он показался мне каким то очень скучным... Локаций мало, видов оружия мало, боссов мало, минусов много (по крайней мере в отзывах об этом часто пишут). Зато графон крутой) В общем увы она не каждому понравится. Однако не стоит забывать что игру делало всего 15 человек, что для такой игры довольно неплохо. В общем 6 из 10.

  108 found helpful · 5 found funny

  Graphics

  Games owned: 589 · Reviews written: 375

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  108 h at review111 h total

  3 Mar 2026

  Павшие души, каленая сталь: память забытых имен Долгое время эта игра оставалась вне поля моего зрения из-за негативного фидбека знакомых. Но после мегакрутого трейлера Mortal Shell II под трек Behemoth "Ben Sahar" мне захотелось прощупать первую часть. И-и-и что я вижу: тусуемся мы в болотистом туманном лесу, играем на гитарке для огромной жабы, перекатом давим мелких жаб, пьем самогон, закусываем жареными крысами... По дороге вечно попадаем в капканы, так как в бухом состоянии на земле все кружится и мы не видим, на что наступаем. Попадая не в тот район, устраиваем пьяные драки, потому что не понимаем, где мы и куда нам идти. Будучи избитыми до смерти, срываем на земле мухоморы и кушаем, тем самым лечимся. А когда теряем сознание, то оказываемся дома (в хабе), и никак не получается вспомнить, где упали и как туда теперь попасть, так как выпили слишком много. О мире и сюжете: Mortal Shell - это короткая игра от инди-студии, состоящей из 15 человек. Сюжет здесь глубокий и загадочный: история повествует о некогда процветающем королевстве, пришедшем в упадок после того, как человечество почти исчезло в погоне за божественностью. Мир разделен на четыре ключевые области: Фоллгрим - туманный перекресток миров, где обитают разбойники и мутанты. Святыня пепла - обитель огня и кузниц, где фанатики усердно поклоняются своей вере. Склеп мучеников - ледяные залы, ставшие последним пристанищем для последователей культа. Престол бесконечности - сюрреалистичное место, где ученые-культисты все еще стремятся к вознесению. В этом королевстве изучали священный нектар. Он обладал исцеляющей силой и продлевал жизнь, но имел чудовищные побочные эффекты. Неочищенный нектар можно было употреблять лишь в малых дозах, так как он быстро вызывал зависимость и лишал рассудка. Самый чистый концентрат предназначался лишь высшему обществу. "Грязные" же остатки - деготь (Тар) содержали меньше целебных свойств и больше яда. Ими лакомились низшие слои населения. Эффект исцеления был кратковременным, и, попробовав его однажды, люди превращались в "наркоманов", вынужденных вечно искать новую дозу. Они гнили заживо душой и телом, умирали и возвращались к жизни, но уже в совершенно ином облике, становясь лишь пустыми оболочками без цели и воли. "Они марают губы вином лжи. Этот напиток утоляет их нужды, подобно ласке любовников. Но что их жизни? Что былое убеждение? Брошены, точно дырявый мешок." Время шло, и мир перерождался в ещё более жутком обличье. Появилась религия, и в каждой локации утвердился свой покровитель. Во время жертвоприношений они выпивали так много нектара, что постепенно сходили с ума. Теперь это сюжетные боссы локаций: Тарсус, Имрод и Круцикс. А в Фоллгриме не было религии, там царили лишь пьянство и раздолье. Покровителем этих мест стал лучший из разбойников - Гриша. Мы начинаем игру за Подкидыша, который потерял всё: и связь с миром, и душу, и собственный облик. Пройдя начальное испытание, мы следуем зову самого Хадерна и сестер Генесс. Наша цель - собрать священные железы и уничтожить источники нектара, чтобы положить конец безумию этого мира. "Те, кто испил чистого нектара, больше не смотрят на солнце. Их глаза видят иные миры, которые выжигают разум." Минусы: Левел-дизайн: это основная проблема игры. Локации здесь многоуровневые и запутанные, со множеством скрытых путей и шорткатов. Причем самая лабиринтообразная - именно первая, куда игрок попадает в самом начале, пытаясь познакомиться с миром. Не зря многие шутят, что передвижение по ней напоминает попытку выбраться из миски со спагетти. Помимо этого, первая карта наполнена туманом и неприятным зеленым фильтром, от которого буквально вытекают глаза. Отсюда и негативные отзывы в духе "не понимаю куда идти и что делать" в этой игре. И спустя 20 минут после получения ударов по бошке от мобов игроки дропают игру. "Светошумовая граната": при переходе в инвентарь или сразу после убийства боссов экран на пару секунд заливает ослепительно белым светом. Если играть в темной комнате, это сильно бьет по глазам - крайне неприятный технический нюанс. Лишние анимации: мини-катсцены при входе в узкие проходы (норы) и выходе из них кажутся здесь абсолютно избыточными и со временем начинают раздражать. Механика парирования: здесь нельзя парировать "просто так", как в некоторых других играх. Для этого необходимо сначала накопить очки Решимости (местная концентрация), что делает боевку более требовательной к ресурсам. Плюсы: Оптимизация: лагов и багов не замечено. Механика окаменения: скажем так, не просто замена щиту, а фундамент геймплея. Можно застыть прямо в прыжке или во время замаха, что открывает огромный простор для тактики. Мы больше не ждем привычное "окно" для атаки, а сами диктуем условия боя. Фоторежим: обычно я ими не пользуюсь (предпочитаю свободную камеру от Otis_Inf), но в этой игре он просто восхитительный. Саундтрек: треки от Rotting Christ - это не случайный выбор, а часть идентичности игры. Агрессия, диссонанс и мрачная тематика тяжелой музыки идеально подчеркивают "грязный", безысходный и жестокий мир. Вторая жизнь: в этой игре мы умираем дважды, как в Sekiro и Lords of the Fallen. При смерти героя выкидывает из оболочки, но в неё можно вернуться, полностью восстановив здоровье, что является огромным плюсом. Уникальная игровая механика: здесь мы не прокачиваем статы по отдельности, а вселяемся в оболочки павших воинов. У каждой своя история, навыки и баланс характеристик (ХП, выносливость, решимость). Это позволяет легко менять стиль ведения боя и оружия. Звуковое сопровождение: отличное оформление окружающего мира. Атмосфера и визуальный стиль: мрак, опустошенность и безнадежность. Эстетика "умирающего мира", сюрреализм и "неземная архитектура". Отличный дизайн оболочек, мобов и боссов. Система знакомства с предметами: свойства вещей раскрываются только после их первого использования. Удобство: предметы подбираются мгновенно, без затянутых анимаций (наклонился-поднял), которые длятся сто лет. Важное: есть котик, которого можно погладить! Итог: Самое сложное в игре это начало. Mortal Shell нужно понять и прочувствовать, да и пара советов от друга не помешают. Вначале не стоит бежать куда глаза глядят и пытаться сражаться со всеми встречными, так как мобы здесь бьют очень больно, а противники с алебардами и вовсе могут вырубить с одного удара. Лучше фармить около хаба: там можно лечиться у сестры Генессы и продолжать зачистку. В руководствах Steam есть отличная карта со всеми нужными метками, рекомендую заглянуть. Необязательно хилиться одними мухоморами, у которых долгий кулдаун; можно купить у торговца жареных крыс, они восполняют значительно больше здоровья. Вначале будут проблемы с равновесием: персонаж очень медленный по сравнению с врагами, и любой удар шатает его, как алкаша у подъезда в пять утра. Но игра становится намного проще, когда вы находите подходящую оболочку и прокачиваете оружие. Например, парировать удары станет гораздо легче в броне Соломона. Не советую игнорировать механику парирования, так как она восстанавливает здоровье. Чтобы убрать неприятный зеленый фильтр на первой локации, можно скачать пресет для ReShade на Nexus - это значительно улучшит картинку. В целом боевка неплохая, анимации приятные, а боссы не сложные и не требуют специфических знаний. И помните: в начале игры удар с разбега + окаменение - это имба! Mortal Shell понравится тем, кто предпочитает мрачную эстетику и хочет чего-то знакомого, но с "изюминкой" в боевой системе. "Истина горька, как целебный гриб, а покой здесь обретают лишь те, кто окончательно перестал сопротивляться окаменелости этого мира."

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  105 found helpful · 3 found funny

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  Reviews written: 5

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  11 h at review11 h total

  21 Aug 2021

  Pros: - Visually Stunning - Few but well made weapons - Very good combat system with Hardening giving a lot of freedom to create your badass moments - good artistic direction for creatures-npc Cons: - Maps are barely more than corridors with an illusion of complexity - Boring side loot, apart from the weapon upgrade materials the rest is 'meh' consumables - Bosses are impressive to see but too damn easy, most of them will go down at first, max second try if you know your hardening - Unforgivable padding in the form of inane backtracking after killing one of the 3 main bosses - its quite short, i finished it in 10 hours (DLC not included) and it felt like i could remove 2 to 3 of those without some cheap deaths and the backtracking padding - The lore is uninteresting, i lost any will to read the cryptic clues and lore pieces 2 hours in and skipped all the rest, it was just not gripping, this also killed any reason to try the free DLC All in all i'd say soulslike fan should play Mortal Shell, when it shines it shines brightly, but it is on the bottom of the list compared to many other soulslike present on the indie\AA market (The Surge, The Surge 2, Shattered, Salt and Sanctuary, Hellpoint) and ofc the AAA offering (Dark Souls Trilogy, Sekiro,Code:Vein,Nioh, Nioh 2) Overall 6/10

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  105 found helpful · 5 found funny

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  Reviews written: 99

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  42 h at review49 h total

  8 Dec 2022

  The game feels similar as any Dark Souls game regarding playability and dark fantasy setting. The combat can be challenging if you act too impatient or careless but it's balanced and enjoyable, the bosses could have been harder though. Besides the known dodge mechanic, you got the harden mechanic instead of block and shields, where you become a stone while holding the button or until you get hit absorbing the damage and it feels forgiving as you don't lose stamina when getting hit while using it. The game doesn't feel very RPG like, there is no character creation, customizations, armors or jewelry. Instead of wearing armors you wear a shell. There are five shells in game and they must be unlocked by finding them laying around. Each one offers unique stats and unlockable passive skills. The skills are limited, 2 per weapon, but you must find the weapon's item upgrade first to use the skills and requires resolve which you fill by hitting enemies. Also you have 3 different parrying effects if you got resolve and one of them can heal you but you need timing. There's no magic or archery ways to play, just melee combat. The game is kinda short but easy to get lost if you get distracted meaning you might spend time walking around the places trying to find where you should be, making it feel lengthier than it actually is. Also there are no side or major quests just the main story and the enemy variety is small but since the game is also short it's not an issue. The game looks good visually speaking and I only had a few minor problems like getting stuck sometimes due to not having jump mechanic, but rarely happens and you can just return to the main menu. It's a good and challenging action game that can be sometimes frustrating like any game under souls like tag but it's worth playing.

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  101 found helpful · 1 found funny

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  Games owned: 507 · Reviews written: 6

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  18 h at review18 h total

  23 Oct 2023

  "'Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.'" -JRR Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' Mortal Shell do be like that. It's not that there's no good ideas, but they're spread too thinly, when its limited content should mean the opposite: a tightly polished, very focused experience. Mortal Shell does nail the slow and methodical playstyle of older Soulslikes, along with the 'figure it out as you go along' atmosphere, but nothing else. Its chief problem is one that it shares in common with Lords of the Fallen 2014: very limited art assets stretched out over far too much level geography. Every space in a given area pretty much looks like every other space in a given area, and that's literally the whole game. Although the levels have reasonable shortcuts and side paths, there are almost no visual landmarks. Further exacerbating this, literally half the game is shrouded in mist - it's the game's single most consistent visual element! Dark Souls 1 players might recall the Tomb of Giants. Dark Souls 2 players might remember the Shaded Woods. Well, imagine a game that is made up of half Tomb of Giants and Half Shaded Woods. Nothing else. This slows navigation to an absolute crawl. Everything is gray stone and brown earth and white fog, endlessly. Given the navigatory pains, one might expect exploration to be more rewarding, as fair compensation, but it's actually less so. Once you find the shells (essentially your more-limited class archetypes) and weapons, there's not much left of value. Weapon upgrades are much more limited but, confoundingly, less impactful than in an average Souls game, instead of more so. If you're lucky, an upgrade will let you kill a tanky enemy in seven strong attacks instead of eight, but it might not even do that much. This also applies to enemy drops; instead of a cool, rare weapon or armor piece, you get generic consumables that remain negligible even if you bother to engage with the admittedly conceptually interesting 'use this ten times to familiarize yourself with it' mechanic. Combined with the too-harshly limited healing that forces you into a parry playstyle, and the amateurish, Lost Izalith-esque enemy-spamming placement, this strongly incentivizes running past enemies. The combat is the bulk of the game that isn't wandering around being lost, but there's not much point in engaging in it. When you do fight something, you'll find that the hardening ability is incredibly useful, but it and the various shells don't thematically tie into anything in the same way that hollowing does in Dark Souls or parrying does in Sekiro. They're just kind of cool ideas that don't link into anything else in the setting, instead of being smaller parts of a thematically-coherent whole. This also applies to the lore overall, which greatly values obscurity and using non-obvious words for vaguely-described actions. If the stories of most Soulslikes are jigsaw puzzles, Mortal Shell's is a transparent one that's even harder to put together but doesn't give you enough information to visualize a real picture. Why does this book page turn into a spider? What's with the flying fish thing in the boss arenas? Why do the enemies and bosses look the way they do? People make fun of Dark Souls 2's handwavey 'Um, Seath made the animal people!' justification, which is absolutely the Souls equivalent of 'a wizard did it,' but Mortal Shell lacks even that much of a fig leaf around its lore. Environmental storytelling, you say? Sorry, not in this foggy town. The game's tedium and arbitrariness makes it harder to shake off its rough edges, which feel more disrespectful with the dearth of positive reinforcement. The visual indicators for item pickups are made much harder to see than in other Soulslikes, which just goes great with the rest of the pain-in-the-posterior visual design. There are places where you can get stuck on geometry with no recourse. Some enemies will walk off cliffs to their deaths for no reason. Archers and knockdown attacks are overtuned, and enemies overall are spongey, just like the levels are aimless and confusing, all just to slow you down. Your experience is divided into two currencies, which accomplishes nothing besides making progression even more fiddly and obtuse. Many of the few abilities you acquire are of questionable worth, but you're forced to max out a shell to gain an important utility feature anyway. The whole shell system is a downgrade in player agency from picking spells, armor, and attributes, with no positives to make up for it. The 'second chance life' system where you can regain your shell once before dying permanently feels poorly thought out, as you have to run back to your shell and put yourself in danger of getting oneshot - since the enemy who just killed you is STILL THERE RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR SHELL AND WILL UNFREEZE IN APPROXIMATELY THE TIME THAT IT TAKES YOU TO RUN BACK TO IT - to get that second chance! It feels like it could have been an engaging system with a little more effort and balancing consideration put into it, but that's just everything about Mortal Shell. Mortal Shell is a handful of half-developed but genuinely cool ideas, with a vast amount of padding and filler around them. It's absolutely desperate to slow the player down, but doesn't give them anything to engage with or admire. The developers should have gone in the opposite direction, made the game smaller, focused on having it do the few things it does do really, really well, instead of trying to make it seem more complex and epic than it had the resources to be. In these days with an abundance of great Soulslikes, it's impossible to recommend.

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  98 found helpful · 4 found funny

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  Games owned: 2,050 · Reviews written: 26

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  13 h at review13 h total

  2 Aug 2026

  So, Mortal Shell. I am a huge souls(-like) fan and I played Mortal Shell for the first time June 22, 2022. But only for 73 minutes. That was it. I don't remember what it was that made me not want to play this, but apparently it didn't catch me. Fast forward to now (2026). Was watching the Iron Pineapple Video where he featured Mortal Shell II. I knew that it would be released but didn't really follow it too much. But IP's Video convinced me that Mortal Shell II will be a great Game. Combat looked fantastic, Graphics looked good, environments and bosses all seemed varied and I just had a feeling that I needed to play it. So I pre-ordered it on a whim. And I just had to play Mortal Shell and this time finish it, before I would even think about playing the second one. I am weird like that, I always need to play in chronological order whenever possible. And I did. Finish Mortal Shell that is. Steam says it took me 13.4 hours, subtract the 73 minutes and a bit of downtime in Game and it took me probably around 11 hours to complete. 19/37 Achievements. And yeah, the beginning was extremely hard. I didn't click with it. The first few hours were miserable. I am usually pretty good at those kind of Games but here I got my a** handed to me. I died many times and it took many hours for the game to finally click. But when it did, I had fun. It is certainly not perfect. Game looks and runs fine (though there seemed to be some fps issues in a later area), enemies would pop-in when you were 10 meter in front of them many times, lock on had kind of a short range, in some areas you could get stuck in the environment, I really dislike the healing System (there is ONLY healing over time and you basically have to farm those items; you can buy some at a vendor, but the main healing was from mushrooms around the world that took 5 minutes to respawn; also it doesn't heal that much and is way too slow even if you are familiar with the item) and the map and layout can be pretty confusing at first (although later on it was no issue anymore). When I finally settled on a Shell and Weapon to max out though, I actually had fun. I felt more powerful, the combat felt good and weighty, Sound Design was pretty good as well. Voice Acting ranged from amateurish to good. Some Achievements seem like a pain though (be it skill related or busy work related) so I won't even bother trying to 100% it. But yeah, overall I enjoyed Mortal Shell. It was pretty short which in this case I really liked. But that being said, I hope that Mortal Shell II will be way longer because it just seems to be a way better Game where the Devs just improved on everything. I will see for myself since I am downloading the Open Beta as of writing this Review (you will get a skin for playing it for at least 30 minutes). Kind of excited, ngl. And regarding Mortal Shell, if it's on sale and you can get over the first few hour hurdle (you need a high tolerance being frustrated) I can definitely recommend this if you never played this but really like soulslike Games... Small Edit: Just after finishing Mortal Shell, I tried out the Open Beta for Mortal Shell II for ~45 minutes. I don't want to play too much before the release but I can already say I really like it. Feels a bit AA'y (which it is) but really nice so far. Runs smooth, looks good, Combat feels satisfying. Hyped for the release now...

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  95 found helpful

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  Games owned: 3,502 · Reviews written: 229

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  24 h at review24 h total

  23 Apr 2022

  Yet another Dark Souls clone that completely misses the mark. This a very simplistic and extremely short game You have a central hub and then 3 separate areas, each with a boss. After you beat the 3 bosses, you return to the hub area and fight the final boss. If you know the maps, you can probably get it done in under 4 hours. My biggest gripe with this game is the level design, it's absolutely terrible The central hub area is a swampy forest, but it's very convoluted, like a maze; also, everything looks the same, so you will get lost a lot. The 3 separate areas are for the most part linear, so they don't suffer from the same issue. Although, in one area, you have to traverse it by using some teleporters, and you have to remember the order in which to use them, because they send you to different parts of the area, and these parts are, again, quite maze-like. The final boss is terrible It has a ton of health, it spawns aggressive adds during the fight and, once per battle, it consumes said adds to regain health. The game really shows its AA origin, and not in a good way - They misspelled one of the achievements, ffs (after you beat a boss called The First Martyr, you get an achievement "Martyr'd the Matyr". - Also, it's like the game tries to be obnoxious. After you die, you respawn in front of a Sester (the level-up NPC, kind of like a firekeeper), and she always has a dialog line. This gets really annoying after dying to the boss a few times, like "there's no need to remind me that I'm bad at this game". I turned the dialog volume slider to 0 because of this. I'm sure the voice acting in this game is amazing, but I'm never going to find out. - The DLC is the exact same game, but now in roguelite form. I haven't bought it, because it sounds terrible. Also, as with other games, the DLC achievements appear in the achievement list even if you don't own the DLC (not sure if this is a Steam limitation, though), which I hate. - There's plenty more of these little quirks, but this review is getting quite long already. The story is... there, I guess You are a Foundling, some sort of alien creature, and you can inhabit Shells, armors of fallen warriors. However, nothing is really explained. - Each Shell has its own unique skill tree, and each unlocked skill also unlocks a bit of lore about the warrior that inhabited it previously. It's an interesting concept, but the problem is that some skills are quite uninteresting/bad or too expensive, so you won't probably get the whole story. - You do find some monoliths with notes around the world. In addition, there are some hidden notes that only appear when you hit certain walls and that reveals the true history of the world, but, without a guide, good luck finding those. To be fair, it does some things well, or, at least, differently + The hardening mechanic is interesting. Basically, you can harden your shell, which makes you invulnerable to all damage. You can remain hardened indefinitely, until you let go of the button or are hit by an attack. This ability has a relatively short cooldown. The fun thing is that you can do this at almost any time: while attacking, while healing, while dodging etc. While you are hardened, any effect you are under continues, e.g. your stamina replenishes, you continue to regen health if you used a healing item etc. There are also consumables that give boosts if you are hit while hardened. So, there are quite a lot of gameplay elements and combinations possible. + If you take lethal damage, you are instead ejected from your shell and have to get back to it. Thus you kind of have an extra life. If you are hit even once in your shell-less form, you die. There is a (rare) consumable that gives the extra life; there is also a skill that gives the extra life after you kill a certain amount of enemies, though it's quite expensive. + Visually, the game doesn't look bad, it's quite gritty and has this depressing vibe to it. The separate areas are all different to each other and visually distinct: one is fire/lava, one is ice and the last one is obsidian/rocks. The bosses are also related to these elements, both visually and with their attacks. All in all, I recommend avoiding this game, or at least getting it on a deep discount.

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  89 found helpful · 9 found funny

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  Games owned: 1,613 · Reviews written: 21

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  14 h at review15 h total

  7 Sept 2021

  As far as game play, the game is fluid and has decent graphics. There is no real incentive to fight everything on the way through the dungeons, as there is no consequence to just running by them. I enjoyed the boss fights at first, but the pace of the bosses don't change. You have to fight each boss twice, just to have the same move set over and over. They could have accomplished the same objective by giving the bosses double the health. There are only 4 bosses in the base game, which made the game feel really short. I also didn't feel the need to go looking through the dungeons to find anything. There is nothing off the beaten path that is needed to beat the game. After opening several chest that were out of the way of the main path, I realized there was no need to waste my time. All in all, the game was way to easy to be considered souls-like. I enjoyed playing through the game once, but there is no desire to replay the game. Unlike the souls games that this title plays off of, you don't have the ability to level up your character and put stats where you want. This forces you to play with prestated characters, that don't change throughout the game. I'm disappointed, the game looked good through the trailer. what they have so far, in my opinion, was not worth paying full price for. Wait for the game to go on sale, if you are set on playing.

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  85 found helpful · 5 found funny

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  Reviews written: 2

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  14 h at review25 h total

  30 Dec 2021

  Mortal Shell is a very, very impressive game. There have been countless prior attempts to replicate Fromsoftware's formula since Dark Souls released 10 years ago, but no other 3D game on my radar has done such a good job of both emulating and innovating on the souls games. Mortal Shell feels familiar but distinguishes itself through a few key features. Let's dive right into the gameplay. Before you can play Mortal Shell, you need to climb inside a mortal shell. Instead of armor, your character inhabits the bodies of fallen heroes. There are 4 in the base game plus another in the dlc. Each has strengths and weaknesses and a unique skill tree. It's a very clever mechanic, as it allows for customization and build variety without requiring too many unique assets. The 4 shells look great and each fill their niche well. I mainly used the default shell, who is very well-rounded, but I'm looking forward to exploring the others in future playthroughs. So now that you have your shell, what can you do with it? This is the big question for every soulslike. Well, naturally, you can dodge-roll. In fact, most shells have a 2-step dodge move. Tap the button once to dash, and again for a big roll. It feels really good to use once you get used to it. But you won't get through Moral Shell by rolling around at the speed of sound alone. There are other options. You can parry, and it works as you'd expect while feeling really good to use. As you play through the game, you'll unlock unique riposte abilities which help keep parrying as fresh and versatile as anything in your kit. But these are the predictable mechanics one expects from the genre. What about boring old blocking, typically the least interesting method of defending yourself in a souls game? Well, that's where Mortal Shell really shines. Blocking is replaced with the "harden" ability. Hardening makes your character utterly invincible against anything short of a bottomless pit. No, really, you can get hit by the most powerful attack in the game while hardened and shrug it off unharmed! And once activated, hardening stays active for as long as you choose. So what's the catch? Well, enemies can break you out of your harden by dealing enough damage, and once broken or ended manually there's a moderate cooldown. You'll have to choose when to use this ability carefully. So when *can* you use it? Any time you want! What sets harden apart as a mechanic is how you can use it during almost any action you can think of. Do it while rolling, attacking, leaping, using an item, the list goes on. It's an incredibly useful, versatile ability with no equal. It'll take some time to get used to, but once you do hardening becomes as natural as a dodge-roll in any other soulslike. That's how you defend yourself. What about attacking? Mortal Shell, without the dlc, only has 4 weapons. But like the shells, it's a case of quality over quantity. Each weapon has a unique moveset which can be chained together in all kinds of ways. They all have 2 unlockable weapon abilities which increase their utility even further. I vastly prefer this Bloodborne-esque approach to weapons compared to what Dark Souls does. Why have 70 variations on "sword" when you could have one fun weapon encapsulate the whole category? I'm excited to dive into the other weapons in future playthroughs after mainly using the starting sword. Attacking and defending are all well and good, but what about the world itself? This is another big one. Thankfully, Mortal Shell delivers in spades. The mazelike swamps and temples of Fallgrim are a delight to explore. This is very, very good-looking game. That's probably the most impressive thing about Mortal Shell: it looks like a AAA game despite its small development team. The devs really understand how to make the Unreal 4 Engine shine. This is all backed up by some of the best animation work I've ever seen in a game. It's all so expressive and good-feeling; you'll have to experience it for yourself to understand what I mean. And of course, the world of Mortal Shell has plenty of lore to sift through to uncover its twisted, mysterious history, along with the cryptic NPCs you'd expect. I was never bored in my 13 hours with the game. I have some criticisms, but they're minor. Enemy variety is a bit lacking, but once again quality shines over quantity. Every enemy is fun to fight and Mortal Shell sets up plenty of fun encounters, but you can start to see the cracks in some of the longer segments of the game. The nonlinear structure can make some areas feel too easy if you only upgrade one weapon, especially in the case of bosses. At the same time, I wish upgrade materials were more common. I felt stuck using one weapon when I would have liked to branch out and try the other 3. There are also occasional typos and visual oversights (i.e. I could see seams or gaps in the geometry), and I managed to get stuck on terrain once, but these were minor blemishes. The lack of a main healing item like an Estus Flask will probably be the main point of contention with Mortal Shell. You have some infinitely respawning consumables, a few rarer items which can heal you given you meet the requirements, and you can suck the life out of enemies by parrying and riposting. Once I got the hang of the game this didn't bother me, but I can see how someone who was struggling would find it obnoxious. It's the same issue as having to farm blood vials in Bloodborne. It's no fun, it's tedious, and it can feel necessary. Thankfully Mortal Shell is generous enough with checkpoints to make this a minor issue for me. So that's Mortal Shell, one of the first 3D soulslike games that truly seems to understand what's so great about the genre. What's familiar is good, and what's new is fantastic. The combat is the perfect blend of Sekiro/Bloodborne speed and Dark Souls 1 weightiness. There's a ton of charm and creativity on display. I only wish it were longer, which is not something I often say. I heartily recommend Mortal Shell to anyone who's a fan of the soulslike genre or who's thinking of getting into them.

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  77 found helpful · 2 found funny

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  Reviews written: 83

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  32 h at review75 h total

  16 Mar 2022

  Story ☐ nothing ☐ pretty bad ☑️ hard to follow ☐ Average ☐ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ Will make you cry or smile a lot Gameplay style ☐ perfectus ☑️ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Nothing special ☐ lacking enjoyment ☐ Bad ☐ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Graphics ☐ irl ☑️ outstanding ☐ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Will do ☐ Bad ☐ Awful ☐ Doom 64 Audience ☐ Kids ☑️Teens ☑️ Adults ☐ Everyone Difficulty ☐ Just press a bunch of buttons ☐ Easy ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Not so easy ☐ Difficult ☑️ Mortal Shell ☐ Dark Souls Game time ☐ short story ☑️ Short ☐ Average ☐ Long ☐ Depends ☐ infinite Price ☐ Worth every last penny ☑️Worth it ☐ Not too expensive ☐ decent ☐ rip off ☐ hell naw not my son Lag ☐ No lag ☑️ a bit ☐ decent ☐ Can get annoying ☐ Ruining the game ☐ ark survival ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☑️ 8 ☑️ 9 ☐ 10

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  76 found helpful · 7 found funny

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  Reviews written: 2

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