Mortal Shell II

mewo

Intro / First Impressions Mortal Shell 2 is a really interesting game because the jump from the first game to this is honestly insane. It feels like going from Jared Leto’s Joker to Heath Ledger’s Joker — the difference in quality is that big. The intro sequence is especially strong. It introduces the mechanics really well, gives you enough time to understand how everything works, and despite being longer than most Souls game intros, it never really feels like it drags. Open World & Visual Design The open world looks graphically good and, for a UE5 game, it actually runs pretty decently compared to a lot of other UE5 titles. The problem is that while there’s quite a lot to do in the world, the world itself feels very bland and visually repetitive. Most areas blend together and there isn’t really a location that feels iconic or memorable. Compare that to Elden Ring where you have the Erdtree constantly looming over the world, Caelid looking completely different from Liurnia, or even older Souls games with places like Lordran and Drangleic Castle. Even Expedition 33 has areas that feel unique and genuinely mesmerizing to look at. Mortal Shell 2 just doesn’t really have that. The world looks technically good, but nothing really sticks in your head. Shells & Core Combat Where the game shines the most is definitely the mechanics. The Shell system is genuinely unique compared to other Souls games. In most Souls games, your starting class basically stops mattering after the early game, but in Mortal Shell 2 each Shell gives you a completely different playstyle throughout the whole game. The Shell ability acting as an emergency second health bar also feels really fitting for the game and adds another layer to combat. Having a dedicated class ability is another thing I really liked because it gives you another actual tool to use instead of just dodging, parrying and attacking. Build Variety That being said, while the Shells themselves are very different from each other, the build diversity within each Shell feels quite limited. If you play Tiel, you’re pretty much pushed toward poison or maybe blood curse. Proxima pushes you toward lightning, and other Shells have similar things going on. Tarstones limit things even more because certain effects are locked to specific weapons. If you want frost on your weapon, for example, you might basically be forced into using the greatsword instead of being able to have something like a frost katana. Yes, you can technically use any weapon on any Shell, but then entire parts of the Shell’s skill tree can become useless. If you use a weapon that doesn’t interact with Tiel’s poison or Proxima’s lightning stacks, then a lot of your upgrades don’t really matter. I understand they probably did this to stop builds from becoming stupidly OP and to keep scaling under control, but I still think they could have found a better way to give players more freedom. Bosses The bosses are probably the biggest letdown in the game, especially because bosses are such a huge part of why I enjoy Soulslikes. In my entire playthrough I think only one boss even had a proper second phase. A lot of the bosses also felt like Lords of the Fallen-style bosses where you’re mostly fighting big creatures instead of having memorable humanoid duels. I would have loved more fights where it feels like you’re fighting someone on your level rather than just another giant monster. I honestly don’t think I memorized a single boss’s attack pattern because most of them were just too easy and not interesting enough to force me to learn them. Compare that to something like the Puppet King in Lies of P, where the fight, the arena and the whole buildup around it feel memorable. Enemy Variety Enemy variety also could have been much better. I felt like I was running into the same enemies in most areas, and then occasionally something like a Corrupted Gate would introduce one new enemy. There just needed to be more variety across the world so different areas actually felt mechanically different, not just visually slightly different. Beacon Cleansing One idea I really liked was the Beacon cleansing mechanic. Being able to enter a checkpoint and cleanse it is genuinely a cool idea and gives the checkpoints more purpose than just being a place to rest. The game handles it pretty well overall, but I still think they could have done way more with it. A lot of them start to feel the same after a while, and I think only a couple actually had bosses inside. I was hoping they would push that mechanic much further with more unique encounters, bosses, or different challenges depending on the Beacon. It’s still a really good idea though and I genuinely hope other Soulslikes take that concept and build on it. Animations & Consumables The animations are another strong point. Weapon animations feel really good, fast travel animations look great, and generally the game feels polished when it comes to how everything moves. The game also changes how consumables work in a way I really like. I always end up hoarding consumables in Souls games because I’m constantly thinking, “I might need this later,” and then I finish the game with loads of them unused. Mortal Shell 2 making a lot of these things more like passive or reusable effects means the game actually encourages you to use them instead of being scared of wasting them. Story Unfortunately, the story completely lost me. I genuinely finished the game without really understanding what was going on. I couldn’t even tell whether the game was trying to tell the story directly like Sekiro or Lies of P, or whether it was going for the more cryptic Dark Souls/Bloodborne style. Even in Elden Ring, on a first playthrough, you at least understand the basic premise: the Elden Ring was broken and you’re trying to become Elden Lord and restore some kind of order. Then later, if you want, you can dive into all the deeper lore. In Mortal Shell 2, I mostly just felt like I was collecting alien eggs because the game told me to, and I never really understood why. Maybe there’s deeper lore there, but the game didn’t give me enough of a reason to care about finding it. Final Thoughts Overall, I’d give Mortal Shell 2 a 7/10. The mechanics are genuinely strong and unique, the Shell system is one of the most interesting class systems I’ve seen in a Soulslike, and the jump from Mortal Shell 1 to 2 is massive. But the bosses, enemy variety, world design and story all hold it back from being one of the best in the genre.