Mortal Sin

TL;DR: Do you like high octane FPS roguelike dungeon crawlers? Yes? What about DDR/Rhythm based input for combat and by extension, combos? Now what if your level of skill and progression in this game is determined by how well you can essentially treat your keyboard like a game of DDR or Guitar Hero WHILE playing a game geared toward and skinned as something akin to Roboquest, Hades, Voin, Barony, etc.? If your answer ultimately ended in no, you will not like this game. The very choice of how combat is handled is what alienated me, and what would turn most people off from this game. Everything else is a win in my book, but unfortunately the core mechanic cannot be altered.

This game gets a bare pass. It's fine. It's mechanically extremely repetitive and boring. It uses a colour coding system for the combos that make it basically impossible to play if you stop playing, kind of like the colour coding they use for Xbox controllers because the buttons are actually that colour, so it makes logical sense in that case. When criticized about this obvious glaring design issue, and given the suggestion that the yellow circle that represents "attack" should communcate the function rather than an abritrary colour scale, I was banned from the discord. I'll try not to let this effect my review moving forward. This is a first person roguelite with fighting game elements. You enter your fighting game combos out of a combination of three inputs - Attack, dash and kick. There are various classes that have different combos, and a shuffle mode to keep your combo list moving and varied. A wide variety of weapons, enchantments and roguelite run buffs enhance your character. Your eventualy goal is to clear 3 levels. The levels get progressively harder and have variants based off when you do them. So if you do the forest 3rd, it is scaled up to be a tier 3 dungeon. If you do it first, it's pretty easy. I basically described the entire game in that one paragraph. There isn't any nuance or anything unique about the game. The art style is garish even in the "realistic" mode that the developer had to make because he was getting such bad reviews. The story is basically a non event and is somehow pretentiously written, but also under written. There's a half naked angel and you're on some kind of path of redemption or something. It's presented to you exclusively through text and doesn't dwell on the story so I won't either. It's just there in my review like it is in the game. Ultimately, it just comes across as a student project. It lacks the care and precision of professional work. The animations look kind of dumb and it is extremely repetitive. If you're not the type of person who is amused by lots of colours on the screen you'll quickly realize you're mostly just pressing the same 3 buttons over and over and over and playing with the exact items your chosen class demands you to play with. In an attempt to feign difficulty the player agency was just basically removed. There is no balancing done as well so a lot of the time the best option is just to use power attack or the spin attack repeatedly because adding a kick or a dash would just lower your DPS, and the combo doesn't pay out for it's time investment in the vast majority of cases. Like the original art style, the gameplay itself was just poorly concieved, is as wide as the ocean but about as deep as a puddle, and is just an inferior version of things that are already on the market. If you're on the fence, I think you should grab it. Play it for 3 hours and then return it if you don't like it. It's one of those games. If you've looked at the store page and thought; "That looks a little bit ♥♥♥♥...", the feeling doesn't go away when you play it like some indie games, which is why it doesn't get a recommend. Even when you get into the flowstate in this game, which it seems to expect you to do, you're constantly tripping over dead frames and animations that have to play out and it never feels like you're in full control. It doesn't have a good gamefeel, well written characters, soul or anything particularly endearing about it, and if you want my personal opinion, I think it was made by a pretentious little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. You can tell by the snyde nature of the post that said he added realistic mode for all of the people who didn't "Get his original vision". A lazy, self professed artist who's best work is embarassing when put next to an actual artist, failing upwards by copying other people's work and not really contributing very much overall. It only gets a passing grade because the games he copied were fantastic and the bulk of the criticism of this game from all sources, not just me, is the stuff he did himself. Again. He had to remake all of the art because it was awful but he thought it was good. That's what we're dealing with. It's better to just give your money to someone who is going somewhere rather than some kind of airhead with delusions of grandeur. Please refer to my Caves of Qud review if you think I don't give recommends to titles when I've conflicted with the developer. If this was an amazing game I would recommend it regardless but it just isn't. It's good enough, which is the exact effort that was put into most aspects of this title. It's technically a game and it technically has all of the parts there, but it's a pale imitation of actual art.

Overall, the game has some things going for it, but the DDR/Guitar Hero combo system just takes all the fun out of it and makes it utterly annoying to play.

60 hours in and I still get that stupid grin when a build clicks. hit something, it flies into a wall, dopamine arrives. that's kind of the whole pitch and it works every time. each class plays so differently it's basically multiple games. the mage has an evocation loop that makes you feel like a god. the warrior just runs at problems until they stop being problems. replayability is genuinely out of control. also there's a colour palette system and yeah it's "just cosmetic" but being able to make my dungeon look exactly how i want it to look? incredibly important to me personally. rough around the edges in a charming way. don't sleep on it.

In the sea of roguelike games, this one doesn’t stand out in any meaningful way. It feels as if it’s held together by duct tape. The experience is extremely chaotic and overly reliant on a poorly implemented combo system. Combat feels weightless and becomes repetitive quickly. Randomized loot is handled in a dull way and feels pointless. There are also plenty of annoying mechanics, like scares or those portals that lead to small platforming sections (which are horrid). Progression feels aimless and poorly structured. Mortal Sin first released in Early Access in March 2023, and after more than three years it still doesn’t seem to have found a cohesive vision. It’s a mess of ideas that probably seemed cool in the solo developer’s head, with no one around to challenge them. At this price point and with so many better games available I’d say give this one a pass. If you’re skeptical, just look at the Global Steam Achievement stats: only 5% of players have completed a full run with any class, and most seem to have dropped off after barely progressing into the game.

It's alright, I couldn't find myself playing for more than a single run or two because it gets repetitive really fast. The combat, despite it having a complex combo system, feels very buggy and sluggish. The hits you get don't feel as impactful for a game that prides itself in chaos and blood and gore. It's pretty cartoonish/cell-shaded with a Lethal Company like volumetric fog, and PS2 style textures, so the environment is really immersive and stylistic, but it falls short with it's clunky animations. Overall I'd give this experience a 5/10. It's... okay. (Buy on a 40-50% Sale)

I know its the roguelike style, but the scenarios just feel... dull, Same with the enemies, the sound effects and the bosses. Same flat things repeated over and over again with no innovation. No surprise element. No changes. There are almost no space for having an unique experience. Gameplay is just imputing the same combos with no difference between them all. You can just use one combo and its alright. Also, happens with the items, find some items that could apply no more than 2 drastic effects and farm objects for poor improvements. The only way to change the play style is by switch the class at the start. But no more than that. Sometimes you get killed and don't even know what was it. Later you MAY discover that some elite enemies throw a fireball to your face. Good luck playing a melee class. Oh yeah, almost all of the heroes are melee ones. The music is so simple, basic and so repetitive. No uniqueness between environments. And the sound effects are so poor. Also (but this could be my perception), the graphics reminds me so much to "Bullets per minute". Maybe is because of the game engine, but same cell shading visual, pretty damn similar scenarios, even same characters I would say, just check Helena, looks almost the same as the protagonist in that game; and similar plays style, but obviously, this is not a rythm based game. TLDR; l have no idea how this game have so many good reviews. After 2 games, I'm bored. Too expensive for this.

I LOVE FIRST PERSON MELE COMBAT I LOVE COMBO BASED ACTION GAMES I LOVE ♥♥♥♥♥♥ UP EVIL LOOKING GRAPHICS

not a huge fan, I think the combat system really distraction from the gameplay. It's hard to tell what's happening around you most of the time.

Phenomenal Game, buddy got it for my birthday just this weekend and i literally love the class building and everything about it. (PLEASE MAKE THIS CO-OP)