This was a very nice roguelite game with some absolutely amazing pixel art and graphics. You play as a family tasked with battling the corruption affecting the land. They venture forth from the main house into a series of dungeons that progress the story.

There is quite a bit of progress that gets saved between runs. The different dungeons (each usually will take around half an hour to an hour for a full run) do not have to be completed in a single run but have to be cleared at least once in order to access the subsequent ones. Also, XP and gold (morv) accumulates and is used to "level up" the familiy as well as each character individually. It also has a nice bit of lore and story that is enough to keep the progression interesing. There are also several side missions and collectables that add more background to the world and things to do in the game runs.

As I said before, the pixel graphics are gourgeous. The main house in particular, is beautifully detailed. I think the best part were the character animations. In each visit, the family members will be doing some different activity or interacting with each other in some way. It does so much with "so little" and it conveys more with a few pixels than many more "graphically modern" games. This is, of course, not limited to the main house but it certainly must have been the part that was worked on the most. The music and voice over is also very good.

The gameplay is also solid but it took me a while to get used to. Every character plays quite differently and keeping track of all the abilities and objects gets a little difficult. There can end up being something like 7 different abilities and objects one can activate on a given run (3 controller buttons + both shoulder buttons and triggers) that will be different per run and per character. However, the amount of variety in both characters and power ups keeps it interesting. The boss fights were also good and had some nice variety. It also has a coop-mode, higher difficulty and new game+ modes that I have not yet tried.

On the downside, I feel like the levels got a bit repetitive and most of the time ended up being more of a test of patience. I understand that you are meant to be repeating levels, but even between different levels I didn't feel that there was all that much different except the artwork. The enemy design was interesting but they did not change all that much through the game. Perhaps I am just not very good at it, but I found it annoyingly difficult to avoid taking damage, especially with melee characters. I usually ended up taking ranged characters and slowly and safely clearing out enemies.

Despite these minor points, I thoroughly enjoyed this game. Highly recommended, especially if you appreciate good pixel graphics and/or roguelites.

This title is a roguelite action RPG that sets itself apart by putting storytelling and character development at the center of the experience. Rather than focusing on a lone protagonist, the game follows the Bergson family, a group of heroes bound not only by duty but by genuine emotional ties. Each family member has their own combat style, personality, and small narrative arcs, which gradually unfold as you progress through repeated dungeon runs. This structure gives the game a sense of continuity that is rare in the genre, making each return home feel meaningful rather than just a mechanical reset.

I can safely say this is one of the best narratives you can experience on this genre, not just because most of them are somewhat shallow and focus more on gameplay than lore, but also because it is genuinely a good story. You can totally play this as a single-player experience, similar to something like The Legend of Zelda, which is how I played, at least up until now. I say this because I also intend on experiencing the local-coop, though up until the moment that I'm writing this review, I have not experienced this yet.

The presentation is one of the game’s strongest aspects, its pixel art is richly detailed, with expressive animations and atmospheric environments that bring both the family home and the corrupted dungeons to life. Lighting effects, particle work, and subtle visual storytelling elevate what could have been a standard retro aesthetic into something far more polished. Though the dungeons can feel repetitive because they'll only change when you reach the different sections of the game, so a single "big area" will look the same until you reach the next one. Complementing this is a narrator who guides the story with a calm, almost storybook tone, reinforcing the feeling that you are experiencing a tale about people.

The gameplay revolves around exploring procedurally generated dungeons, fighting enemies, collecting upgrades. Each character offers a distinct playstyle, which adds variety and encourages experimentation. There is also a shared progression system that benefits the entire family, giving a sense of growth even when individual runs fail. However, despite these systems, the core combat can feel somewhat limited, attacks and abilities lack the depth and complexity seen in other roguelites, and enemy variety does not always evolve enough. Particularly I forced myself to play each available character, at least for the first dungeon, in order to get the gits on all of them and decide which one I should play. I ended up sticking with both John (the father, shield and sword) and Mark (the monk-like playstyle).

All available characters are very fun to experience, some are more complex, some require more micro-skills in order to be effective, it is very unlikely that you can't find one that fits your playstyle. There are ranged, mages, melee, fast, slow, and you quickly enable their "core kit" in the very first few minutes that you play them. This helps a lot since the first few skills that you unlock are the ones that you'll be using the most through the entire, 20ish hours long main campaign. That is, if you choose the "traditional" experience option, which focuses in story-telling and narrative, you also have the option for a perma-death mode, that lets you focus on gameplay instead, and I have not engaged with this mode at all.

As the game progresses, repetition becomes more noticeable, while the story continues to unfold and provides motivation to keep playing, the structure of the runs and the pacing of upgrades can start to feel grindy. Some people may find that the balance between narrative progression and gameplay repetition leans too heavily on the latter. Even with these shortcomings, this title remains a memorable experience, its emotional storytelling, strong visual identity, and focus on family make it stand out in a crowded genre. It may not offer the deepest or most mechanically refined gameplay, but it succeeds in delivering something more personal and heartfelt, making it particularly appealing to those who value atmosphere and narrative as much as action.

There presentation of this game is beautiful. The pixel art, animations sounds and music are all top notch. The main hub, the family house, has so much detail and is so beautifully crafted. The narration is extremely well done and makes the feel of this story come alive On that alone the developers deserve a 5 star for the amount of love put into it.

In terms of gameplay, it is super smooth and for the most part intuitive. Hack and slash and kill everything in sight. It is not a brain dead game and it requires you to be on your toes and actually pay attention to what is going on as you can easily get overwhelmed. Melee characters take more attention (and I would argue skill) to be able to be successful. Ranged charges have more leeway but by no means makes the game a cakewalk. The roguelite elements are not very prominent in the main story, you carry over a lot of stuff. If you die you keep the gold, xp and skills. You need to restart the dungeon like a lot of arpgs. Something I really enjoyed was that even upon death you always progressed in some way, which was a nice surprise since I was concerned about having to grind until I "git good" like some roguelikes require you to.

The only thing you lose are the items you pick up. In my opinion these items are very lack luster and not very interesting, there might be one or two exceptions here.

All the characters are very unique and their skills are pretty fun to use. I am pretty sure everyone can find at least one character they like. The game encourages you to level up characters sort of at the same rate to unlock global passive abilities for everyone.

The two criticism on game play are that certain mechanics are not clearly explained and it felt frustrating at times not understanding why some thinga didn't work

The other one is the items not being very interesting like I mentioned above.

The game can be played 2 player coop which is the main way I played it and it was a blast. If you have a friend you can play with I highly recommend trying it out.

I didn't play the family trials which is a mode that seems to be more akin to standard roguelite gameplay (everything is reset upon death)

The story while presented in a beautiful manner is nothing very spectacular and it is pretty run of the mill. Playing with a friend was a plus as we would joke about the story as it progressed.

Overall my time with the game was a blast and I highly recommend it to anyone that is into arpgs or roguelikes. And while I didn't do more than just the main story, the game provides a lot of value if you try to chase fully maxed out characters, skill unlocks and you delve into the alternate roguelike mode

ACTION ROUGELITE - The Bergson family must battle against an encroaching corruption threatening their once-peaceful land, using their unique abilities to fend off dark creatures and restore balance.

PROS:

++ Slick presentation. I found the game's art to be quite beautiful and pretty. And the animations of each character were done exceptionally well. It was full of life, charm, and energy. The narrator did a great job as well in making the whole experience feel like a fairytale story being retold.

++ Meta-progression. There was enough meta-progression made in each run which made it so that every run felt substantial. In Children of Morta, there are certain things that can be improved upon that will make future runs easier. Upgrading all sorts of stats (XP gain, total HP, damage dealt, critical hit chance, critical hit damage, dodge chance, movement speed, etc.), feeding treats to pets that can bolster certain stats, rescuing certain NPCs that can help you in future runs, and most of all, levelling up each character so you can unlock better skills and moves. The meta-progression made it so that the difficulty curve was just right, if not, a bit on the easier side.

++ Rewards death. At first, I found it annoying that a cutscene played after each failed run. But the more I grew fond of the Bergson family, the more I appreciated that a player's failure would be rewarded with additional cutscenes. This brief reprieve would temper my frustration and made it so that death wasn't too bad.

++ Dungeons. Oftentimes, procedural generation leads to very boring levels. But with this game, I felt that the procedurally generated levels were quite decent. There were lots of random events that can take place in a dungeon (playing Pong, chasing after a bird, reuniting a child with his mom, playing a memory/guessing game, etc.) which provided some spice in every run. I also liked the variety in the Divine Relics, Graces, and Runes that can be found. Although sometimes, the RNG might not give you anything good so you're sort of bound for failure.

++ Diverse cast. The core gameplay is decent. It isn't anything exceptional or noteworthy but I did appreciate that the seven playable characters all had distinct playstyles. You couldn't just use each of them the same way. John has a sword and shield. Linda is an archer. Kevin has short reach because of his daggers but he's incredibly fast. Mark uses kung-fu and lunges at opponents which is especially effective against isolated enemies. Lucy is an OP pyromancer. Joey moves slows but hits incredibly hard. And Apan was great for crowd control. The power balancing is a bit off, since Lucy is noticeably more powerful compared to the rest, but nevertheless, I found it enjoyable to switch to a new character every run. They were all pretty fun to use. There was also a great incentive to use each character since levelling each of them up unlocks passive skills that benefit the whole family.

++ Family Trials mode. If you are craving a more difficult roguelike experience, Family Trials mode has what you're looking for. You have to survive 13 floors and a final boss fight in order to have a successful run and I found it to be a pretty fun side mode. It also has a new playable character which was pretty cool.

CONS:

-- Stuttering. I don't know what was causing it, but throughout my entire playthrough, the screen would often stutter when I would be moving fast. Nothing game-breaking, but I found it especially annoying near the beginning. I eventually got used to it.

-- Weak story. The plot is simple: a family joins together and unites to defeat an ancient evil. It's nothing offensive, but it's not memorable either. There were a few heart-warming moments in the story, but as a whole, I found the entire plot to be quite generic.

-- Enemies. The designs of the enemies and bosses were meh. Not really too memorable. And I guess I should also say that the bosses were quite underwhelming. I don't know if it was because Lucy is so strong, or if the bosses were just weak, or because I got better, but I beat all of them in 1-2 tries. Again, not a criminal offense, but it's worth mentioning.

I had this game recommended to me by a friend, who had nothing but great things to say about it. You would think that I picked it up immediately and played it, right? Nope! It took me a year or more after it was recommended to me to actually start this game, and now I ask myself: "Why did I take so long?"

This game has such a wonderful and rich story that just makes you feel like you are part of the family that you are helping in the game. You grow attached to each family member and want to see them succeed as you are helping them through their struggle.

It was amazing to me how story forward this game is for being a roguelike game. So often this genre does not put the story upfront and center which is kind of sad, because I think put the story forward helps you understand a roguelike game so much better. It gives you a reason and a purpose for dying over and over again.

Ultimately I cannot say enough good things about this game. It was so enjoyable to play, game mechanics were great nothing felt clunky. You have a pretty big variety of character type to choose to play. Finally the story is just a chef's kiss!

Children of Morta by Dead Mage is a solid rogue-like dungeon crawler. It has fantastic pixel art and sports a varied roster of characters. Unfortunately the game plays it fairly safe and lacks unique selling points which makes it easy to draw comparisons to its competition. Children of Morta has the unpleasant position of being compared to other rogue-likes, namely Hades. Whenever I boot up Children of Morta, I’m constantly reminded how much better Hades is, whether it is with the environments, the combat encounters and the general level of polish. Children of Morta is a fantastic effort by a relatively unknown studio, but lacks that extra level of effort to make it truly worthwhile.

The Bergsons, a multi-generational family, reside on the peak of Mount Morta. One day, demon-like entities appear and start corrupting the local wildlife. John Bergson is able to rout the demons, but notice that their numbers are not thinning. The matriarch of the family, Grandma Margret proposes a solution, to enter the depths of Mount Morta and liberate the three gods who inhabit it. In doing so, they hope the gods will grant them the power to destroy this evil. She imbues the Bergsons with the power of light which allows them to retreat home mere seconds before dying. It is up to the Bergson family to venture into the mountain and towards the darkness to release the gods.

The dungeons are divided into three biomes with two to three levels in each biome. Players start with choosing from two Bergson family members but eventually it grows to a roster of seven. The gameplay is most similar to the aforementioned Hades, with a few mechanics inspired by Diablo 3. Each character has three skills, a super move and a dodge roll. In the environment, there are chests to loot, shrines to activate for temporary buffs and traps to avoid. On each run, the player can find Divine items that either grant a permanent buff or a handy item that can be used once or on a cooldown. The randomized dungeon layout helps keep the game feeling fresh after multiple runs. After falling in combat or clearing an area, players will retreat back to the Bergson manor where they see special events, improve their stats and read up on the lore.

The pixel art aesthetic clashes with the readability of the game. Text is extremely tiny and hard to read when playing on a TV, even with the UI set to large. Environments are hard to parse. It is difficult to tell what objects are interactable. It took me around an hour to realize that urns are breakable (similar to the Diablo games) and may contain extra loot. Enemy attacks are telegraphed, but attacks from smaller enemies are hard to discern due to their low pixel counts. Traps blend too well within the environment and it was hard for me to notice them until after numerous failed runs.

Children of Morta could have benefited from another round of playtesting. The ranged characters, Linda and Lucy are overwhelmingly broken. It is easy to cheese the game by having them snipe at monsters safely behind blue and gold gates. Melee characters have a much harder time, especially Kevin who has a very short attack range with his daggers. The game’s difficulty eventually balances out, but not without numerous level ups and skill increases. I also encountered several visual and audio bugs such as screen flickering when loading the Bergson manor or sound effects stacking on top of one another.

Children of Morta checks all of the boxes expected from a modern dungeon crawling rogue-like but doesn’t offer anything innovative. There is nothing wrong with sticking with tried and true gameplay features, but it highlights the game’s flaws compared to other games in the genre. The game’s readability and imbalance between melee and ranged characters are not enjoyable but instead aspects that are tolerated. The best analogy I can think of is… hamburgers. Children of Morta is like a fast-food joint that makes a decent hamburger but doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself. The longer you eat there, the more you start to notice that the seats aren’t as comfortable, the fries aren’t as crispy and the service isn’t as fast as its competition.

Children of Morta is a satisfying, charming, and relatively short roguelite with a variety of characters to suit different playstyles. The gameplay loop kept things fresh with mechanics that encourage you to try out multiple characters, and death was rewarded with little story tidbits whenever you returned to home base. I made it through the main story in a few days after I saw it was about to drop off of Gamepass, and I'm glad I put in the time.

My primary complaint is that the game's only difficulty stems from either HP-soaking enemies (particularly in the third major area, which I found exceptionally unenjoyable) or from the whims of the RNG. The latter is what made this feel like an old-school roguelike at times, but not necessarily in a good way; one run might leave you completely starved for useful items and reliant entirely on your baseline skills, while the next might load you up with healing and protection and make the boss fights borderline trivial.

Also, main boss spoilers: though I generally like the whole "the gang's all here" approach for the boss's final phase, it made for pure visual chaos and a fairly unsatisfying conclusion in this case. If you want the emotional satisfaction of everyone teaming up to wreck a dark god with the power of love, either make it challenging or make it a cinematic; I just sat back and spectated when I saw how quickly his HP was draining without any effort on my part.

All in all, I had a great time overall with the main story and would recommend it to anyone who's into roguelites. That said, after firing up NG+ and seeing that it's purely a bump in enemy damage and HP, I'm fine putting it away for good. I'd look forward to a sequel, though.