Mortal Shell

 PC
User Score
6.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 428 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 191 out of 428
  2. Mixed: 121 out of 428
  3. Negative: 116 out of 428

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  1. EduCLSS
    Sep 6, 2023
    3
    Una copia muy mal hecha de los Souls (que ya de por sí tienen defectos notorios). En este caso nos encontramos con un juego con un sonido ambiental insoportable, el cual es un zumbido que te deja con dolor de cabeza. Las animaciones de combate son totalmente defectuosas, en muchos casos se bugea la esquiva de golpes y te deja totalmente vulnerable al ataque del enemigo (pasa muyUna copia muy mal hecha de los Souls (que ya de por sí tienen defectos notorios). En este caso nos encontramos con un juego con un sonido ambiental insoportable, el cual es un zumbido que te deja con dolor de cabeza. Las animaciones de combate son totalmente defectuosas, en muchos casos se bugea la esquiva de golpes y te deja totalmente vulnerable al ataque del enemigo (pasa muy frecuentemente). Respecto de la historia, totalmente ausente, no tiene sentido alguno. En la parte técnica está súper mal optimizado y hasta el día de hoy no logra funcionar decentemente por sobre los 30 fps. El entorno y los enemigos son sosos y repetitivos. En fin, un juego que en su tiempo tenía potencial, pero que terminó siendo decepcionante.… Expand
  2. Wiezzel
    Aug 29, 2023
    2
    I tried to play it on Computer, the movement with Keyboard and mouse is utterly garbage.
    When you press A or D the camera AGRESSIVELLY turns and if you are FORCED to counter act with your mouse, many times it just ignore it and turns even more. It can quickly turn into a spiral camera turning around because the design is just plain trash and there is really no defense for how bad it is.    I tried to play it on Computer, the movement with Keyboard and mouse is utterly garbage.
    When you press A or D the camera AGRESSIVELLY turns and if you are FORCED to counter act with your mouse, many times it just ignore it and turns even more. It can quickly turn into a spiral camera turning around because the design is just plain trash and there is really no defense for how bad it is.
    Since the camera is really the the gate to play the game and without visibility there is not much that can be done, this game deserves a 1.

    I gave 1 extra for the graphics. They seemed nice, not mind blowing, and lacking detail, but they fit in the environment ( that is poorly designed to fight in) it is really nice to only* walk around.

    There is a mind blowing amount of unstoppable cut scenes that are garbage as well. Like after the tutorial, the character SLOWLY gets out of the water taking all the time of the world and you slowly walk forward and then they make you press E to enter a tunnel as cinematic animation like, where you then press W for like 3 min straights while you crawl through a quiet ugly dumb tunnel.
    Just so the devs Ego can present you "Mortal Shell" on the bottom black banner .... as if anything so far was impressive. Maybe for kids under 10 that do not know any better.

    The tutorial is also made abnormally slow. Too many waste of times part.

    Now that all and all you wasted 80% of your time the first 1h doing utterly nothing but staring and waiting and pressing 1 button at a time, you can start walking around fighting the camera automatic adjustment mainly. You will never get used to it, I uninstalled the game after another 30 min as it was mind blowing stupid how there is no setting to change that.

    After all of this, there is some fighting. Fighting is VERY easy and you will just die early on for random things you are just not aware of ( there is no intro to new enemies ) you just going to die and repeat the last 10 min gameplay, Really a design around wasting your time, not giving fun.

    The fighting itself is boring, very simple, not crazy or nice action.
    Regular Dodge and slash and dodge and spamm slash and your enemy cant do anything or do the Hardened thing any time. I am really not a good player and never play soul like, but this was piss easy and I tried Dark souls 1 and I actually quit this one because it was hard not trash like Mortal shell.

    At no point waste your MONEY and even less your time on this game.
    Devs need to learn how to design basic before doing this.    … Expand
  3. Quazder
    Aug 22, 2023
    0
    Most boring soul game i have ever played. Not worth ur time honestly. Dont play it
  4. ManHoof
    Jul 29, 2023
    4
    A weak game. Among the advantages, I can only highlight interesting game mechanics.
    The game design of the locations is low, everything is monotonous. Fortunately, the mobs are different, but the design quality is terrible. The game itself is very easy, regardless of the level of pumping, the game mechanics allow you to do cheating. Also, unfortunately, there are many bugs in the combat system.
  5. DUCKMANBILL
    May 31, 2023
    3
    Piece of **** game made artificially longer by clunky and occasionally unusable mechanics which have not been thought out in the slightest. Healing is absolutely terrible, the only way you can really heal is by parrying which in itself is terrible because parrying has a windup animation making it slow and incredibly difficult to use.
    It has a great tone and the character and boss designs    Piece of **** game made artificially longer by clunky and occasionally unusable mechanics which have not been thought out in the slightest. Healing is absolutely terrible, the only way you can really heal is by parrying which in itself is terrible because parrying has a windup animation making it slow and incredibly difficult to use.
    It has a great tone and the character and boss designs look fantastic, but I can't honestly recommend this considering that the gameplay does not hold up in the slightest.
    Just another Dark Souls clone that does not have enough budget, talent or whatever it may be to pull it off.    … Expand
  6. vova22379
    Mar 8, 2023
    2
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
  7. Forgotten
    Jan 31, 2023
    1
    Feels like a cheap Dark Souls knock-off. But with less smooth gameplay, more bugs, clip through graphics, RTX (really? Why focus on RTX before gameplay) if you try this before the Demon / Dark / Elden series. You done wrong.
  8. XBliss
    Jan 4, 2023
    1
    Backtracking all over the game and you even don't need to kill enemies - just run and everything will be fine
  9. ricardolaizo
    Jun 20, 2022
    0
    To the people who love the Souls games, it's not worthy to play Mortal Shell.

    The game trys, but cannot achieve any fun at all.

    I've played about a hour of it and my only solace is that I've taked it for free on Game Pass.
  10. jexewa1856
    May 10, 2022
    0
    Mortal Shell really, truly, irredeemably sucks. If you like Dark Souls (or Elden Ring), it sucks. If you hate Dark Souls (or Elden Ring), it still sucks.
  11. DrSpace
    Mar 23, 2022
    4
    I had a high expectation for the game. As a standalone it is decent, but it comes nowhere near games from Fromsoftware. I compare it to Souls games, because almost everything in the game was influenced by Fromsoftware, so the devs actively made the choice to make it souls-like.
    However, most things that make DS great are missing in Mortal Shell. No real customization, no real skill tree,    I had a high expectation for the game. As a standalone it is decent, but it comes nowhere near games from Fromsoftware. I compare it to Souls games, because almost everything in the game was influenced by Fromsoftware, so the devs actively made the choice to make it souls-like.
    However, most things that make DS great are missing in Mortal Shell. No real customization, no real skill tree, no real boss music and no real lore, from what I've seen so far. The world feels simply empty and many details feel like bad design. But even so, the game comes off as incomplete, and finished hastily, as there are many wacky animations, bugs and no proper cinematics.
    I like the idea of the game, but the execution is poor. After first area, it became boring. Bought the game at a discount for $15 and it was hardly worth it.
    For time comparison: Souls game easily take me 20 hours on a casual playthrough, 40+ on first attempt. Even though I tried most things in Mortal Shell, it was finished in 14 hrs. Went back out of curiosity and finished it for a second time in 3. So much for length of the game and learning curve of combat. Cannot recommend buying.    … Expand
  12. LeonardTheThird
    Mar 11, 2022
    2
    Game combat relies entirely on the parry system. Parry system is like the Parry System in Dark Souls which is to say... miserable. Actually, it's worse than in Dark Souls. It's awful.
    Copy/pasted enemies everywhere, over and over again.
    Mazelike level design that makes my head ache, without enough notable landmarks to find your way around. Lousy and slow progression. Cheap boss    Game combat relies entirely on the parry system. Parry system is like the Parry System in Dark Souls which is to say... miserable. Actually, it's worse than in Dark Souls. It's awful.
    Copy/pasted enemies everywhere, over and over again.
    Mazelike level design that makes my head ache, without enough notable landmarks to find your way around.
    Lousy and slow progression.
    Cheap boss mechanics.
    I rarely buy games but I bought this as a bit of a treat for myself when I was in a souls-like mood. What a waste of money. Absolutely avoid this.
    Made this account just to review this game. How I wish I had used my usual foresight and watched some gameplay beforehand. What an overwhelming disappointment.    … Expand
  13. oOMcLovinItOo
    Jan 26, 2022
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This Game is absolute trash, the weapon wind up takes too long, all of the enemies can land 3-4 hits whereas you will be lucky if you land a quick attack. There is no instruction to the game, Dark Souls 3 by From Software at least had the courtesy to tell you all of the controls before you attempt Iudex Gundyr. I wandered around for two hours before I found a Giant that grants a pointless cutscene, oh! It also gives you the parry ability. (No it not included) now I’m sure you’re thinking oh I have a Parry this game is going to be way easier, you would be wrong. The parry has to charge, except we’re not really quite sure what makes it charge. Oh and you can’t land it perfectly every single time you will fail the Parry it’s programmed into the game. But wait there is more, aside from that it is a literal rip off of Dark Souls, even the menus and the text are the same style and font. A love letter game is a tribute this is basically plagiarism with a different name. Now let’s talk the bosses, have you ever fought a boss that has an extremely unpredictable move set that randomly changes, oh and the break between attacks is .000001 of a second. Yeah me neither.

    Several people have made comments saying this game is so easy and they beat it in two hours, well those are the same people it find it funny to tell you there’s treasure at the bottom of the abyss. There trolls and half of them don’t know what they’re talking about, I doubt they even made it through the game.

    I give this game 3 out of ten and that’s being generous, because for the most part it looks like they did at least attempt to make a decent game, they failed miserably but they tried. Hopefully their next game is better if they have a next game.    … Expand
  14. Zeon1982
    Jan 19, 2022
    0
    I love Dark Souls and Bloodborne and i really wanted to like this game too, but the gameplay just doesnt do it. Slow and sluggish controls and a poorly done healing system makes this game a boring and tedious slog. **** this game.
  15. Chrislzrks
    Jan 8, 2022
    2
    It's an insult to call this souls like game. Do your self a favou and kindly Avoid.
  16. LUKSlion
    Dec 16, 2021
    1
    bem sem graça a história, os gráficos são legais e só isso salva, a jogabilidade é travada e desbalanceada ...
  17. BallzyDan
    Dec 11, 2021
    0
    Slow movement, no ability to save, and cats. No noticeable objectives. What is the point of this game? Not even worth the price of free.
  18. VDS9
    Dec 10, 2021
    3
    Jogo legal, porém muito travado. Dependendo do que vc quer fazer ou mudar vc tem que viajar um mundo inteiro pra pode fazer.

    Mas o que estraga mesmo é ser travadão
  19. ukidas89
    Dec 8, 2021
    0
    Dark souls fan here was quite excited when mortal shell got announced as a ps plus game for December.
    Oh, wait,it looks awful and plays at 30 fps only cause someone is greedy.
  20. Lionarith
    Dec 8, 2021
    1
    The combat system feels so unresponsive and unimaginative that it finally stopped me from playing it. I thought i would ignore any issues because the levels looked so interesting, artful well crafted, but the combat feels so slow, unfair and boring that i couldnt bear it. It is so clearly a souls imitation. High effort level design against low effort combat design, this time low effortThe combat system feels so unresponsive and unimaginative that it finally stopped me from playing it. I thought i would ignore any issues because the levels looked so interesting, artful well crafted, but the combat feels so slow, unfair and boring that i couldnt bear it. It is so clearly a souls imitation. High effort level design against low effort combat design, this time low effort wins again, sadly.… Expand
  21. RazielFair
    Nov 23, 2021
    0
    The combat system if this game is a joke, totally not playable. It just a bad copy of dark souls
  22. Dobermann917
    Oct 6, 2021
    4
    Clunky, uninspired and boring game. Does not even deserve to be compared to Dark Souls. Not worth the £15 I spent on it.

    Very unimpressed.
  23. SIXPATHSJAY
    Jul 10, 2021
    4
    Very dissapointed, the game has a lot of potential, with great story lore and atmosphere. But the combat **** sucks, it’s unresponsive clunky and the hardening mechanic feels like a cheap get away free card, combat aside the game is nice but the combat ruined it for me
  24. sivrisnake4
    Jul 7, 2021
    0
    basicially a pretty bad copy of dark souls. no heal, no save, no teleportation. just keep walking and kill same monsters a few billion times.oh, if you wanna go somewhere ? why you dont search for 15-20 hours. because it makes game hard isnt it.
  25. Flowie
    May 14, 2021
    1
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Bad. Just.....bad. Play Dark Souls don't waste ur time here because you will be disappointed.… Expand
  26. sakuutio
    Mar 19, 2021
    1
    From Software, hire this team,
    From Software, hire this team,
    They're using Unreal Engine in any way they can
  27. XzRecolz
    Nov 30, 2020
    2
    One of the worst games I've ever played. Please, save your money. It's not even worth your time if you get it for free. Stay away from it and just play any SoulsBorne game instead.

    Clunky, slow, your health bar is a joke with barely any healing, parry mechanic can easily be missed which is just a dumb choice, the 'learning' mechanic is interesting but poorly executed, no enemy variety,    One of the worst games I've ever played. Please, save your money. It's not even worth your time if you get it for free. Stay away from it and just play any SoulsBorne game instead.

    Clunky, slow, your health bar is a joke with barely any healing, parry mechanic can easily be missed which is just a dumb choice, the 'learning' mechanic is interesting but poorly executed, no enemy variety, awful world design... It's a mess not worth playing.

    Graphics look decent though.    … Expand
  28. Xvatch
    Nov 15, 2020
    0
    Someone in Dreams could make this and is the worst souls-like I've ever seen. Lords of the Fallen is actually better by quite a big bit. I'm not even exaggerating that the areas are vast and duplicated to the point of blandness and boredom and everywhere you go looks the same with 1-3 of the same enemies. Movement is the worst I've ever seen in a game, graphics are PS3. Please just play Nioh
  29. Kjloch
    Nov 14, 2020
    4
    Game feels terrible,little content,movement is clunky,bad dodge frames.People forgive the game because of it being an indie title ,however there have been many great indie titles and even better games that drew inspiration from dark souls. such as nioh ,code vein ,or remnant from the ashes.
  30. MCmetacritic
    Nov 10, 2020
    0
    "What if Dark Souls really, really sucked?" seems to be the question that spawned this game. That's really all there is to it. Poor combat, movement, progression, level design, character design . . . I'll be honest, there is nothing at all to like about this game. It's a steaming pile of something worse than disappointment.
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Awards & Rankings

26
#26 Most Discussed PC Game of 2020

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
76

Generally favorable reviews - based on 44 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 44
  2. Mixed: 18 out of 44
  3. Negative: 0 out of 44
  1. Worth Playing
    Jan 8, 2021
    80
    Mortal Shell is an enjoyable title for those who are already fans of the SoulsBorne sub-genre, and it has more positives than it has flaws. The swamp hub world is bland and confusing, but the different biomes you eventually reach are gorgeous, even if they're relatively familiar. The lack of a deep leveling system has a very good replacement in the shell system, which ends up providing more versatility in your character build and the attack system. The relatively shorter length makes it great for newcomers, while genre veterans will find it to be a great debut effort from a small development team.
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  2. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Oct 7, 2020
    80
    If Dark Souls wasn’t sufficiently dark and difficult, this is just the thing for you. Taking the souls-like genre a step further, Mortal Shell provides a satisfying combat system enveloped in a creatively unique narrative. Well worth the suffering. [Issue#305]
  3. RPGamer
    Sep 18, 2020
    70
    Mortal Shell may be a modest product, but it surprised at nearly every turn with regularity. The lack of variety in the environments, weapons, and classes are more than made up by never overstaying its welcome. Whenever it feels as though its about to become stale, players will stumble across something new to try out. The lack of depth isn’t too much of a detriment as the game is short enough to ever feel tired. Better yet, what is there is good, a foundation with easy room to be expanded upon and a strong demonstration of Cold Symmetry’s understanding of core concepts that are the strength of the genre. Mortal Shell is a exemplary use of limited resources to make a tight, fun game, even if it only takes a weekend to beat.
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