Everyone knows what to expect when they play a Soulslike. Crushing difficulty, a vague yet overwrought story, some sort of currency that's dropped upon death, a grim-dark setting, bosses so tough that you'll grind your teeth to dust out of frustration, etc. FromSoftware's games have been distilled into a patented formula. Soulslikes are their own genre now and they're popping up more frequently than ever.
Mortal Shell wears its Dark Souls influences on its sleeve. While some of these Soulslikes try to differentiate themselves by changing up their look or setting, the people over at Cold Symmetry appear to have set out to make a straight-up FromSoftware title. Everything about this game seems like something that could have popped out of Hidetaka Miyazaki's head. That might seem like a damning criticism, but while Mortal Shell is treading familiar ground, it does so with enough polish and novel ideas that it manages to be a pretty solid pretender to the Souls throne.
What A Shell Out
The main character is a ghostly being called a Foundling - at least that's what the weird lady who would let me level up called me - that can possess Shells, which are the corpses of dead warriors. Each Shell has its own set health and stamina bars, along with special weapons that be upgraded with particular items. Instead of upgrading your stats, you use Tar - which is this game's version of Souls - as well as resources called Glimpses to gain new skills from the previously mentioned weird lady. You gather these Shells along your hellish journey through frozen tundras and enemy-infested tombs on the way to finding whatever it is your wayward spirit protagonist is searching for.
This is one way that Mortal Shell sets itself apart from other Soulslikes. In most of these games, it's common to come across new armor and weapons constantly. Here, you have the armor that's on the back of your possessed body and whatever weapon they have. You can find other weapons, but gear isn't as prevalent as usual. You just have your Shells, which are combat archetypes for you to choose from. Some are tanky fighters with plenty of health but low stamina, while others are faster but don't hit as hard. It sounds limited, but it actually saves some time as you don't need to constantly worry about finding a better helmet. Choose the Shell that fits your play style and you're off to the bloody races.
The combat feels as close to a Dark Souls game as you can get. Plenty of dodge rolls, heavy strikes, stamina management, and desperate moments where you're begging for a chance to heal. The most unique mechanic that Mortal Shell offers is hardening. You can harden your Shell to deflect and counter enemy strikes. This makes you immune to damage, but you can only harden so much as you need to wait for a meter to fill to do it again. Hardening can also stagger an enemy leaving them open for counterattacks. It's a cool variation on blocking and it offers some neat risk/reward scenarios.
Crushing My Soul... I Mean Shell
Mortal Shell has the same level of intense difficulty you'd expect although it likes to be especially mean at times. You might make it through a boss fight only to discover that they have a second phase and you barely got through the first. There are traps littered about that can make battles a pain. Healing items are scarce. Enemies can deal debilitating status effects that can severely hamper your character and there's a decent chance you won't have the right item to get rid of it.
To learn what an item does, your character has to use it first. Then, if you continue to use that item, you'll eventually become familiar with it which improves its effects and may even give you an added bonus. For example, using the Weltcap mushroom ten times makes it more effective at healing.
In typical Soulslike fashion, this system can also be fairly cruel. One time I ate a Tarspore mushroom to figure out what it did. This resulted in my character being poisoned, and since he was low on health, it led to a slow and painful death. Of course, upon becoming familiar with the Tarspore, I discovered that it gave me immunity to poison for 120 seconds. So there's a method to the madness.
It's a good idea in theory, but it means you often have to waste something just so you know what it does. Not all of these items are easy to find, so you might have to burn an item that might have come in handy at another point in the game. I like the concept of becoming familiar with something and that leading to it being more effective. It just sucks that you have to consume a potentially valuable resource to do so.
A Few Tricks Up Its Tattered Sleeves
The biggest criticism against Mortal Shell will no doubt be the fact that it looks and acts like anything FromSoftware has done. It has a similarly vague story where NPCs speak in riddles. The protagonist is on some hazy quest towards some obscure goal. The setting is as grim-dark as it gets. It's full of shambling enemies who are all in various stages of decomposition and/or insanity. It's difficult, creepy, and weird. It's as close to Dark Souls as a Soulslike can get.
That being said, I think there is a bit more personality added to Mortal Shell than you see in most of these Souls imitators. The enemy behaviors and animations could be very bizarre and creative. There was one enemy that had multiple swords impaled inside them and they would yank them out to throw at my character. When they were down to their last bit of health, they would rip off their own head and chuck it at me before exploding into a cloud of poisonous mist. That's just one example of the quirks and odd movements that I really liked from the enemies. Even the most generic baddie had something they did that was fun to watch and/or dodge. Some even play the lute!
Along with the animations, the game looks pretty good for a Soulslike made by a small team. Snow blows in the wind, frogs jump around the swamps, etc. It runs smoothly, although there was the odd sound glitch or awkward camera angle here and there. It's obvious that a good amount of care and attention was put into this. If you had told me that this was some official side game in the Dark Souls franchise I would have believed you.
A Shell Of A Good Time
As of right now, no one has any idea when Elden Ring will be ready to go. Same with the Demon Souls remake for the Playstation 5. So while there are plenty of Soulslikes to choose from, there aren't many that scratch that From Software itch. Of the several I've played, Mortal Shell is very close to feeling like a Hidetaka Miyazaki-directed game. It is a tad derivative, but it's also well made and fun to play.
While Mortal Shell does nothing to reinvent the Soulslike wheel, it still manages to bring many of its own ideas to the table while invoking the feeling, mood, and brutality of previous Dark Souls games.
A PlayStation 4 copy of Mortal Shell was provided to TheGamer for this review. Mortal Shell is available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Mortal Shell
Mortal Shell launched in 2020, and is an action RPG set in a dark, brooding atmosphere. It features a possession mechanic, in which you take control of the dead and use them as shells to unlock different abilities.