Mortal Shell | PS4 Review

Mortal Shell from Cold Symmetry is not a nice game. The fact you play a sinewy, grotesque, husk of a man should be the first indication. The second indication is the fact that you will die often and brutally. Difficulty is a tentpole aspect of the Soulslike genre, but even as a seasoned veteran who could play a million of these games happily, I was routinely devastated. I found myself getting upset at every failed corpse run, annoyed at the amount of enemies before me each time. But then something clicked as I mastered the combat system slowly but surely. I found myself experiencing one of the most rewarding games this genre has to offer.

A Great Night for a Hunt

As with any Soulslike (can we please come up with a new name for this genre?), everything revolves around the intense combat. You’ll die in only a few hits from even the weakest of enemies. While there is an incredibly useful dodge roll, it’s defense that gets interesting in Mortal Shell. At any point, including mid-jump or while rolling, you can “harden” your character. This deflects arrows entirely, and will knock back and stagger an enemy that strikes you with a melee attack.

Hardening is the first thing the game teaches you, because it is so essential. Yes, it’s similar to blocking on the surface, but it’s more ubiquitous than that. Because of the versatility of using it whenever you want, it incorporates defense into offense. Strike an enemy a few times, harden, stagger them back, and wail in until your stamina depletes. There’s a long-enough cooldown on hardening that makes it impossible to spam, as well, so you have to be smart about it. After a few hours, you’ll be doing a beautiful dance: dodge, harden, attack, parry. It makes the combat absolutely sing once you get the hang of things.

Welcome to the Waking World

Mortal Shell has one hell of a hook. You play as a wraith-type creature, all undead and disgusting, but you possess the ability to occupy corpses, or mortal shells. At first, I assumed this was nothing more than a cute gimmick to disguise player classes. However, each of these four corpses has a name, and has lived a life. Occupy the right shell, and NPC’s (few though they are) may react differently. The character Tiel the Acolyte has a surprising romantic history with Sester Genessa, for example. It enriches the lore of the world just enough to make you even more invested.

Furthering the stress of combat is the lack of a reliable healing item. There are a few scattered foods that can provide a minimum heal, but there is nothing reusable. You will die. Luckily, the game accounts for that. When you lose all your health, you are rended out of your Shell. Stuck in your frail wraith form, you have the option to hop back into your mortal form as long as you can survive long enough to run back into it. You get one of these “second chances” per visit with Sester Genessa. Die again, and it’s back to your checkpoint you go. If you get back to your corpse before dying, you can of course recover your XP, but also use it as a full heal. It’s an exciting push-and-pull that persists throughout the experience.

Use the Doll, Should it Please You

Sester Genessa is the character through which you activate your respawn point, heal, and level up. Each Shell has their own upgrade path, almost like a simplified skill tree. These skills prove incredibly useful, and far more interesting than a typical Strength or Dexterity increase often found in Soulslikes. The best ability was the chance to regain your ability to reenter your shell upon death an extra time after killing enough enemies. It made exploring deep into areas far more possible. I only wish I had it sooner. Other abilities include a powerful kick, or a devastating ground pound. The variety is engaging, and with each ability earned you learn a little more about the past life of the Shell you’re inhabiting. It’s a clever way to weave the lore directly into the gameplay.

Another thing that grabbed me immediately was the environmental atmosphere. Everything from the trees to the tombs is just dripping with a constant sense of foreboding. Never do you feel comfortable in an environment, even as you get better with combat. I always felt on edge, which is exactly the sort of feeling I want from a game with as eerie a name as Mortal Shell. Every environment made me uneasy, especially the otherworldly locations.

Grant Us Eyes

Adding to this sense of unease is the game’s very mechanics. You can’t so much as use an item without dread entering your heart. Items don’t tell you what they do, so you have to just try them out and hope for the best. As you become familiar with items by using them, they can unlock unknown secondary effects. For instance, I tried out a mushroom that turned out to poison my character. Okay, check, I won’t use that again. In the heat of combat, though, I accidentally used it once more. Turns out by becoming familiar with this poisonous mushroom, I could now eat them to become immune to poison altogether. Naturally, not every item gets nicer with this level of familiarity. Mortal Shell somehow turns the simple act of using items into an adrenaline rush.

There’s myriad more ways Mortal Shell deftly rewrites aspects of the genre. In almost every aspect, I was delighted by a smart subversion of my usual expectations. Even when it comes to length, it was a nice surprise coming at under 20 hours. Despite the shorter length, or perhaps because of it, I want to jump back into the game on New Game Plus. I know I missed a weapon called the “Balistazooka,” and I hear there’s a cat to pet out there somewhere. The only major critique I can think of is that most of the bosses were easier than a typical Soulslike. Even so, vanquishing these foes felt incredibly satisfying. If you’re a fan of the challenging and esoteric nature of this genre, there is no reason not to play Mortal Shell.

To hear me talk more about Mortal Shell, be sure to listen to Ep 308 of The Gaming Outsider Podcast.

This review is based on a PS4 copy of Mortal Shell provided by Evolve PR for coverage purposes. It is also available on Windows via Steam and Xbox One.