Mortal Shell Review

Mortal Shell came highly recommended from a lot of hardcore Souls fans, so I figured I should check it out before the sequel likely launches this year. It was one of the first true Soulslike created after FromSoftware's series, and beyond that I didn't know much what to expect. A challenging experience, obscure lore, and that was about it.

What I found was a game full of genuinely interesting ideas operating on a smaller scale than I anticipated. It's a proof of concept that left me genuinely excited for what comes next.

The Atmosphere Carries It

The dark fantasy oppressive atmosphere is one of Mortal Shell's strongest points. It feels more hostile and creepy than Dark Souls does. Where Dark Souls has that fallen kingdom vibe, exploring the ruins of a lost civilization, Mortal Shell leans into this eerie wrongness. Something feels off and you're not quite sure why, which actually works really well for what the game is going for.

The art design backs that up. You get your traditional dark fantasy knights in heavy armor with great swords, but you also get weirder creations. A giant frog, ballet dancers with rapiers, a bog with this diseased haunted quality that reminds you of Blighttown. The sound design is equally strong, using replicated sounds throughout but doing so in a way that adds to that oppressive atmosphere. The weight of your armor, the sounds enemies make, everything feels sufficiently heavy.

The Shell System Changes Everything

The biggest mechanical divergence from traditional Soulslike games is the shell system. Instead of building your own character with stats, you occupy a specific shell that falls into an archetype. One shell has high health and low stamina, built for heavy weapons and tanking damage. Another has high stamina and low HP. There are five shells total, and they let you pick your playstyle without the whole song and dance of planning a build.

This is not an RPG. It's an action game where you cannot level your way past checkpoints. It's all about understanding the challenges presented to you and using the toolset the game gives you to overcome them.

The healing system is equally unconventional. You have limited consumable healing items you can find and replenish from merchants, but the real trick is the Peir system. Your Peir can do a variety of moves, and the first one you unlock doesn't just open enemies up for ripostes like traditional Souls games. It does heavy damage and heals you. Once you understand the system you can use Peirs as a healing source, and you can upgrade them to do fire damage or other variations.

Initially it's frustrating because the game doesn't explain this when you start, and healing items are limited early on. But by the end you have so much currency you can buy your way out of that problem. The skill curve is incredibly high, reminiscent of Dark Souls 2 where you start weak and feel virtually unkillable by the end.

Where It Falls Short

My main criticism is how light on content it is. You have five shells, which limits replayability compared to the infinite build combinations of traditional Soulslike games. There's no armor to collect outside of the shells, and only four weapons. A two handed sword, a mace, a very large two handed sword, and a hammer and chisel. The game is clearly blending RPG elements with an action adventure focus, more concerned with you exploring its levels than building your character.

The zones themselves are strong. They're interconnected, twisty, windy, looping around each other in genuinely interesting ways that make exploration feel meaningful. But there are only three of them, plus a handful of bosses. None of the bosses particularly stood out as more challenging than others. They're just different, providing different challenges.

For some players that choice of exploration order without a suggested path will be genuinely appealing. For others it feels like missed opportunity for difficulty progression.

The Verdict

Mortal Shell presents a lot of interesting ideas but feels limited by its short runtime, variety of things to collect, and number of bosses and zones to explore. It reads as a proof of concept, which is exactly what makes me excited for Mortal Shell 2.

The vision is clear here. The atmosphere is cool, the enemy and boss designs are interesting, and the shell and healing systems are genuinely novel. Given more biomes, more enemies, more time to explore the mechanics, this could be something special.

For Souls fans it's worth playing. It's sufficiently challenging, the level design has that FromSoftware quality of interconnected vertical design, and there are enough bosses to test yourself against. Just go in knowing this is the foundation, not the finished building.