I’ve always been attracted to the visuals, soundtrack and apparent worldbuilding of the Dark Souls games, and often sat there looking at the buy button with one or more of them in my basket. But the thought of having to do the same thing, face the same enemies and walk through the same places over and over again always kept me from taking the plunge. Overtly difficult games aren’t normally my type at all and I quickly lose patience with them, especially if they demand quick combat reflexes to master it.

With that in mind, I decided to open Game Pass and put a few hours into Mortal Shell, to see if a soulslike - that to my eyes looked as DS as it could get - would tell me whether or not I should look into DS further. And after beating the game, I find myself unsure about the answer. Mortal Shell has a number of things I really liked and a number of issues that have left me at odds with the game and, possibly, the genre.

There are too many aspects I want to mention about MS, so rather than putting everything in a long wall of text I’ll use more easily digestible bullet points to share them.

Good:

• the game is aesthetically beautiful. It boasts an amazing dark atmosphere with a subtle, oppressive and fantastic soundtrack to boot (I’m familiar with Atrium Carceri’s work and they didn’t disappoint);

• loved the contrast between the overwhelming grimness and the lighthearted, almost humorous moments;

• directly tied to the previous aspect is the lute. Man, what an awesome little addition. It provides much welcomed audio respite to what is otherwise a pretty tense gaming experience;

• MS is unbelievably difficult at first. I genuinely thought I didn’t have what it took to play this game, but I kept pushing and pushing, and was ultimately left with an incredible sense of improvement and achievement (though ironically this is also connected to a negative I’ll mention later);

• very punchy feel to combat, which once you understand and learn how to tackle becomes quite rewarding;

• with hardening and shells, MS introduces a couple of really intriguing and original mechanics and concepts. The hardening is a really cool, visually impressive take on blocking, while the shells - and the weapons that go with them - offer just enough visual, stats and gameplay variety to keep you entertained and find your own style;

• all characters are great. From Sester Genessa to Baghead and everyone and between, I appreciated my time with all of them. Each one is sufficiently unique in style and personality to be lodged in your memory in a positive way;

• the Fog. There’s just something about it. I loved going back to Fallgrim after clearing each dungeon and be greeted with even grimmer, more ominous visual and sound landscapes.

Bad:

• my main problem with MS is the absolute lack of clarity. I’m not talking about hand holding, but in my opinion the game does a really poor job at explaining a couple of basic things. The most obvious one is the parry mechanic, both in terms of use and how you unlock it, but even smaller aspects like the Fog, which I praised above, feel poorly weaved in;

• I have very mixed feelings about the level design. I liked that so many areas interconnect, particularly in Fallgrim, but to me, the way it was done resulted in incredibly confusing navigation at first. The game’s maps are small but it’s really difficult to get your bearings, especially when so many areas look the same. Eternal Narthex is the worst offender here, especially the second part of the level;

• the pacing in MS felt weird to me, and this is what I tie to the sense of progression I mentioned as positive. As much as I enjoyed experiencing the improvement and achievement by overcoming obstacles, this came earlier than I had anticipated and didn’t last long. Ultimately, in this particular aspect, the game played as a ceremony of highs and lows - really frustrating beginning, amazing mid game, meh ending;

• as punchy and satisfying as it can be, combat comes with its own problems. Parrying, in particular, was incredibly difficult for me to master. I was okay with it for a couple of enemies, but others felt almost impossible to anticipate. However, I’m not sure if this is the game’s fault or simply because I suck at reading telegraphic cues;

• I really enjoyed quite a few of the regular enemies, but the little variety on offer meant that this ended up feeling repetitive in a game that took me about 16hrs to finish. Though to be fair, I was almost certainly slower to beat it than most people will be;

• the bosses were hit and miss. I took out all the previous ones at my first attempt - which made them surprisingly easier than I thought they would be -, yet the final boss was an absolute pain for me beat, not only because summoning lower level enemies in a boss battle always feels like BS to me, but also because the poor camera angles added a ridiculous layer of artificial difficulty. I would’ve appreciated a more evenly balanced boss experience throughout;

• there’s also an obvious lack of polish. For all the amazing graphics and atmosphere MS clearly has, I also experienced glitches, being stuck in combat (both myself and the enemies), and at times even invincible foes. This was with the enhanced version on console, so I’m not sure if other platforms would result in a similar experience.

By the end, I was kind of done with the game. I am definitely glad I played it, but if I’m being honest, all the downsides did bring down my overall enjoyment a bit. Ultimately, I wonder if this means I’ll enjoy Dark Souls games. I’ve always been put off by its difficult reputation, and I also read that mechanically the games are different enough for me not to be able to get a direct answer until I try them. I’d love to hear the thoughts of anyone who has played both the DS franchise and MS to see if they share the same ‘cons’. As I started this review, I was dead set on giving Mortal Shells a 7/10, but after reliving my experience with it through writing I would probably rate it a 7.5 instead. It was impactful enough for me to say I really appreciated my time with it when all is said and done, but it was also a significant ‘investment’ that left me wishing the payoff had felt slightly more rewarding.

I gave this game a second try because the sequel looks really dope. From the first pack of enemies, I remembered why I quit the first time. Having just finished Lords of the Fallen, Mortal Shell's combat felt very clunky, the enemies took too long to kill and overall everything was so difficult to get through that I wasn't having any fun. I ended up installing a mod that removes the cooldown for stone form and gives me infinite consumables so i could play through it, since I really enjoyed the aesthetic and wanted to see any story that might be relevant in the sequel.

After that I pretty much blazed through the game, which wasn't much more than a central hub with a few side areas where you kill trash -> kill boss -> collect item. Enemy variety is minimal and not particularly interesting. Bizarrely, after a point in the game all the central area enemies are swapped out for the same mob, so variety becomes virtually nonexistent.

All in all, I could not imagine myself going through Mortal Shell without uber-easy mode on. Maybe a souls enthusiast can find joy in struggling to the end.

On a positive note, I'm in love with everything about its aesthetic. I would love to play an actual good game made in this world, which is what I'm hoping the sequel will be.

This is a Soulsike action RPG released that emphasizes slow, methodical combat and a heavy, oppressive atmosphere. Clearly inspired by games like Dark Souls, it adopts familiar elements such as stamina-based combat, punishing enemies, and cryptic worldbuilding, while presenting them in a more compact and focused experience. And I tried really hard not to call this a rip-off when it comes to it's visuals, but despite it having amazing art-style, it is not very original, very uninspiring and generic at times. This won't necessarily hurt the experience, but it is an important point to make. Its dark fantasy setting is bleak and unsettling, reinforced by minimalist storytelling that leaves much of the lore to be inferred through environments, item descriptions, and brief character interactions.

I got to admit that I didn't really paid much attention to the lore, or dove deep into the written stories you face during the adventure, simply because no character or location felt interesting enough to make to do so. As for its most distinctive feature is the Shell system, which allows you to inhabit the bodies of fallen warriors scattered throughout the world. Each Shell functions as a different character class, with unique statistics, abilities, and combat strengths, encouraging experimentation and adaptation rather than traditional leveling choices. And this is truly what makes this game unique, there is no clear upgrade when it comes to this mechanic, you can play the entire game with the very first shell that you find. I mostly focused on the balanced builds, even though I mostly favor more glass-cannon playstyles.

Complementing this is the hardening mechanic, which lets you temporarily turn to stone mid-action to block attacks without consuming stamina. This system adds a tactical rhythm to combat, rewarding precise timing and patience, and helps Mortal Shell stand apart from other Soulslike titles. This mechanic alone can help you balance your level of aggressiveness in combat, making it feel like an oldschool Soulslike title. And the reason I say this is because most Soulslike nowadays tends to encourage being maximum aggressive, more and more I see this happening. And while I particularly like this kind of approach, it can lead to repetitive, generic and an uninteresting ecosystem if every game developer is trying to push the same approach.

Combat is weighty and deliberate, with an emphasis on reading enemy patterns and committing carefully to each attack. Weapons feel impactful, and boss encounters are tense and often visually striking, reinforcing the game’s grim tone. However, the smaller scale of the project becomes apparent in its limited enemy variety and world layout. The interconnected map can feel confusing, with significant backtracking that may frustrate some people, especially during early exploration. There are also some interesting mechanics such as the Resolve gauge, which is refilled once you attack enemies, and lets you execute parries and use weapon abilities, similar to mana or magic.

My biggest complaint about this game is the lack of some basic features, such as fast-travel and weapon swapping. For some reason, the developers thought it was a good idea to have no way to perform fast-travel, you need to walk to each and every checkpoint in the game. This is especially frustrating because that you can't change your weapons, if you are not, either in the hug area of the world map, or in the very place you found the weapon that you want to use. It hurts experimentation since if makes you commit to a single play-style for the entirety of the dungeon that you decided to start. What makes this tolerable is that the world map is not really that big anyway.

From a technical and design standpoint, it shows both ambition and restraint. Its visuals and sound design effectively create a haunting, oppressive mood, but occasional bugs, uneven difficulty spikes, and a relatively short overall length hold it back from matching the depth and polish of larger genre leaders. Despite these shortcomings, this title succeeds as a focused and atmospheric experience that offers fresh mechanical ideas within a familiar framework, making it an appealing choice for fans of challenging action RPGs who appreciate dark, deliberate gameplay, even with a small scale. Hopefully the sequel brings much needed polish and QOL improvements.

Visual style, stamina based combat, “leaving a bloodstain” - all smells of Dark Souls. There are no classes, though. Instead, we have “shells”, dead bodies of different heroes that we inhabit and reanimate.
There are no direct stats or levels: instead we pick perks.
There are no shields: instead we have “hardening”, which can block some attacks completely, but has a cooldown instead of being dependent on stamina.
A bit annoying that there’s no fast travel until the very end of the game. Either give me a fast travel or a map, but I’m not going to remember how to get from place to place. One element I liked in Dark Souls, is that your estus flasks replenish after you die. Here you have a consumable system instead. And those also don’t heal you immediately, which make them pretty useless.
Guides say that the first boss, ogre funnily called Grisha, is easy. He isn’t. Managed to beat him only with counters, Bloodborne-style.
Some more interesting ideas: as I mentioned, the amount of healing items is pretty limited. But one of the characters is able to heal from poison. He also has the lowest health of all of them, though.
Also, there’s no magic outright. But you can find two unlocks for each of the weapons, which are powered by your “rage meter”. Some of those abilities are AoE or ranged attacks, while others allow you to imbue the current weapon with one of the elements. Two-handed Martyr’s Blade is especially useful in that regard. It’s cold imbue allows to freeze even some minibosses. At least it worked on Enslaved Grisha.
The game is relatively short compared to Dark Souls: about one third of number of areas, bosses and overall length. Completed it in about 10 hours. Seat of Infinity is the most tiring temple of the three. Even with the skill that gives you another respawn once you kill enough enemies, it’s a trial of endurance. I ended up running past most of the enemies to get to the boss.
The boss turned out to be the easiest out of the three for me. Maybe because my shell had a long reach and could shrug off some of the damage. Or I was well prepared, and not greedy. Or maybe I just got lucky. But I beat the “siamese twins” on my first attempt, and never looked back. Literally, I just ran all the way out of this cursed temple, not engaging a single enemy.

Final boss proved to be a real challenge for me. Mostly because he summons a lot of quick minions – true bane for my greatsword.

Managed to beat it on my last breath.