Mortal Shell II

Pro: + Visual presentation of the game is top level, the character models, the enviroments, the weapons, all looks amazing + Exploration is fun and rewarding, the map is large but not dispersive and so you never feel your time is being wasted + The various shells are very fun and offer a varied set of abilities and playstyles, Eredrim and Proxima are probably the best ones + A lot of secrets cleverly hidden in the game, between dungeons, and the night and day cycle mechanism + Very well optimized, the game ran at 120+ fps the entire game without hiccups with every setting at ultra and global illumination at high Con: - With the removal of stamina from the Soulslike formula the developers had to use methods to increase difficulty that are more annoying than fun, the game heavely relies on large groups of enemies, extremely delayed attacks and unblockable attacks all at once to force difficulty on what is actually a quite easy set of enemies on their own - The bosses are a mixed bag, some are quite fun and offer a great duel, others, especially in the late game, suffer from Elden Ring syndrome and rely on endless combos of mostly unblockable and unparryable attacks + less than a second grabs that remove 70 to 90% of your life in one go to be 'hard' while they just are annoying especially wit hthe amount of almost 'teleporting' sliding the hit tracking has - The various dungeons are quite small outside of the major 6 ones, a bit more meat on those bones would have been great Mortal Shell 2 is a very good Soulslike that improves a metric ton over its generally mediocre first chapter, it offer a very good value for its price with good combat, good enemy variety and good player expression trough the shell system, the various set backs it have still puts it far behind the top level of the non from software games of the genre (Khazan and Lies of P among the best) but it is a good time if just a tad overhyped. Recommended 7.5/10

First review I’ve done here on Steam, and this game deserves it. I’m a Soulsborne and Soulslike veteran, and I can say with confidence that this game is one of the best. The developers delivered a unique experience that stays true to the roots of Mortal Shell 1. The different shells, weapons, and tarstones allow for a ton of build customization. In Souls games, I’m always the big bonk tank, but here I found myself really enjoying more of a traditional dex build. A lot of people are saying the game is unbalanced, but as the saying goes, they need to git gud.

[b]this is more like a neutral rating, but i am currently leaning towards no. i'm willing to change it to a positive yes down the line.[/b] commenters: behave. be able to have a discussion, or go away. few things: this is a significant improvement from the previous game. the visuals are striking and they've nailed the atmosphere with their own identity. the combat and worldbuilding has sauce, and is what got me to buy the game after how much fun i had with the open beta. this is the kind of game that's made for me, and i do enjoy it for what it is, but if i have to be objective, i'm going to say that the full release isn't quite there... yet. last straw on the camel's back stuff. mind that these are all fixable problems, and so long as the devs are willing to, i'd be more than happy to push this on every soulslike enjoyer i know. i actually don't personally mind the runbacks, because stamina doesn't exist, so you could theoretically just sprint all the way back to where you left off. (also, i literally played dark souls 2 before this, a game that has frigid outskirts, which is an area of all time.) what does annoy me a bit however, is how much the enemy's attacks will 'stick' to you. on the way back i feel like i'm bound to get nicked here and there, because a lot of the attacks have a long lunge range, with how high the incoming damage is, and the healing stretched thin - i think my pulse is at +5? (why don't the game show how much i've upgraded it?) but it heals maybe a quarter of my health - it can get quite dicey and rough. i feel like i should be able to take a few more hits, especially playing as my goat eredrim. one of his shell ability is literally called tank lol i just want to feel like one you know? they overcorrected after some people have said the open beta was quite easy. it kinda was, but i'll gladly take a hit to difficulty if it means it's Fun. i like my soulslikes difficult too, but this is where i think the devs just simply couldn't help themselves, going by how some decisions were made in both the games they made. i think i would've been fine with the high incoming damage, but it's like they've made the parry window smaller and now parrying combos specifically just doesn't feel like it works most of the time. harden doesn't break combos too when it's kind of the point of using it, coming from the first game. another high incoming damage soulslike i've played is lies of p. in that game though, there is grey health healing, where attacking right after getting hit will heal some lost health (edit: sariel has this passive, i don't think it's as important as being able to charge a heal though). you'll always have healing so long as you keep fighting and charging a pulse - gragu has this as one of his passives, but i think it could be made global to help ease the lack of healing feeling, also to offset the stress of exploration because the beacons are very sparse. often times i actually hold off of resting at beacons because i want to explore and find secrets while the areas nicely cleared out, which honestly shouldn't be the case imo. resting at beacons should be, 'aight, i'm ready to keep going' and not, 'man i have to fight all those enemies again smdh'. i also don't like how they've stuck to their mentality for ng+, because this time, glimpses are actually a limited resource per cycle, which is insane because this is straight up a downgrade from the previous game, where you could farm for glimpses in the mist. what this scarcity means in practice is that most people would either have to invest into tiel or proxima to combat the early game difficulty, or hold off for quite a decent while as they get their hands on the other shells. in fact i'm pretty sure tarcores are limited per run too! so there are only so many tarstones you could max out per cycle, and some of the rank 3 upgrades are extremely significant, like having permanent status infusions on your weapons. for a game that seemingly wants you to experiment with shells and builds, you can't, because of the resource scarcity. ng+ should be an optional thing, for the people that wanted more from the game. for the rest, a full playthrough of a cycle is a complete experience, but the shell stories are locked behind shell bonding too, so now not even the lore nerds get to have their fill in one cycle. this is such a weird decision they made because in my head it's a problem long solved. even in ps3 demon's souls, back in 2009, you were allowed to play around with weapons because enemies can drop the resources, painful as the farm was. yes, colorless demon soul existed, but that game made up for it by having a way shorter game cycle. gloom income is also quite tight, and not every level you earn is meaningful. i remember seeing myself spending 15k gloom to go from lv26 to 27 only to gain a whopping +2 to health. and that feels terrible, i mean not even a shell point, really? :( one more thing is that the enemy variety is kind of dire. there are exclusive enemies in night mode, but if you've played the open beta you've actually seen almost all the enemies. the outskirts of mammon side of the world simply has the same enemies... but more armored and/or differently colored. i guess it's better than the previous game but i do expect more with the expansion of the world. i'm willing to see what changes they come up with down the line. i think it's right for them to wait for the full release before making any drastic changes to their game, but for now this is the kind of game only a soulslike maniac glutton like me could stomach.

Reminds me of the Lords of the Fallen reboot than any other souls game I've played. For the first four hours I wasn't feeling it. BUT once the perk tree nodes got filled out 3/3 and the Tarstones clicked, the game became a lot of fun. In most other souls games, you can play however you want from the start because you're building your toon with stats, but in Mortal Shell 2 you're kind of stuck to a play style till you find a shell that suits you. This can make combat frustrating, because it is difficult and unforgiving. BUT as you can see I clocked in almost 12 hours on Advance Access and the only reason I turned the game off was because it was 2am and I had to wake up in two and half hours. When it clicks it clicks hard. Exploration is extensive. There's great use of space and paths to give you a sense of genuine discovery. BUT as much as I am enjoying the combat, at no point did a location or zone make me sit up and go "wow". Locations are very derivative of things you've seen in Souls games. Enemies aren't too standouts either. Bosses are interesting enough, but so far I had one encounter that was memorable because it was ridiculous. Oddly though, while I died a lot to trash, I beat every boss on the first try. So that was a little disappointing. But again, I am having fun and if you're a fan of action adventure games, not necessarily Souls-like games, you owe it to yourself to check this one out.

I never write reviews, but this time I am making an exception. Mortal Shell 2 is simply amazing. Haven't had this much fun in a long time. Sure, there are things that could be polished, but overall experience is one of a kind. The atmosphere, the music, the vibe, when you put all of this together with the gameplay and the lore, it's a must-have experience. Kudos to Cold Symmetry for listening to the fans, also I see what you did there with the fast travel and certain speed-run of the first game :) Can't wait for the DLC!

Mortal Shell 2 is definitely a great Souls-like, but it has some of the most frustrating design choices that make me want to rip my hair out. Lets not forget the amount of places you can get stuck to the point where your choices are to die and start from the last beacon, or quit to the main menu and load back to the last beacon, its a lose lose scenario. I got stuck so many times that I just can't bother to finish the game at the moment, throw in the fact that this game has lords of the fallen and dark souls 2 levels of enemy density that it makes most fights a losing battle. I do recommend the game but this is more of a warning of what you're getting into.

good

Fantastic souls like game!