Mortal Shell 2 builds upon the foundation of its predecessor, presenting a more assured and expansive Soulslike experience. The game opens with a masterfully crafted prologue that immediately immerses players in its mysterious world, deftly setting the stage for the next 30 hours of gameplay. This introductory sequence showcases the game's strengths, including its deliberate and brutal combat, the absence of a stamina bar, the unique Shell mechanic, forgiving parry timings, and the new Resolve system with its accompanying sidearms.
The original Mortal Shell was an indie take on the Souls formula, introducing innovative mechanics like Hardening, where players could briefly turn to stone to negate damage. However, it also exhibited some drawbacks, such as a limited number of Shells and a narrative that occasionally lost steam. Mortal Shell 2 rectifies these issues, offering a highly accomplished sequel that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with genre greats. While set in the same world and featuring returning Shells, it functions as a standalone narrative, making it accessible to newcomers.
The core narrative revolves around the Undermether, a deity who crash-lands in the mortal realm with stolen eggs, known as Ova. Players embody a Harbinger, hatched from an untainted egg, tasked with recovering these stolen kin. The story unfolds through interactions with various factions and the devoted servants of the Undermether, who reside in a hub area carved from her bones. The personal histories of the Shells themselves also form a significant part of the narrative.
Evolving Combat and Character Progression
Mortal Shell 2's combat is faster and more aggressive than its predecessor's, largely due to the removal of the stamina bar. This encourages players to engage offensively, feeding into the Resolve mechanic, which is used for powerful abilities and ranged attacks. Enemies are designed to counter simple attack spam, demanding a strategic rhythm that balances aggression with threat assessment and crowd management. Despite the increased pace, combat animations retain a satisfying tactile weight, with hits visibly impacting enemies. The game features a focused selection of weapons and distinct character classes, each with unique animations and movesets, eschewing the overwhelming weapon variety of some RPGs.
The titular Shells are central to gameplay, serving as the game's class system. Each of the eight Shells offers unique abilities and inherent stats, guiding playstyle. Eredrim, for instance, is a robust melee-focused Shell with a crowd-control shoulder charge. When a Shell's health is depleted, the player is ejected, with a chance to return by landing melee hits. The Harbinger can be leveled up, providing passive boosts to the active Shell. Build variety is significantly enhanced in the sequel, with deeper skill trees for each Shell, allowing for specialized or generalized playstyles. These skill trees can be reset at Beacons, enabling players to adapt to different challenges.
Exploring a Dense World
Mortal Shell 2 presents a 'wide linear' world design. While open for exploration, progression is gated by teleportation gates and bridges, creating distinct, authored regions. This structure enhances the feeling of discovery, rewarding players with items and lore scattered throughout. Beacons, serving as the game's checkpoints, are sometimes inconsistently placed, leading to frustratingly long runs back to one's corpse. Seals offer further customization, augmenting or replacing the block function with mechanics like timed parries or a hardened stance. Tarstones provide weapon and sidearm infusions that can alter attack animations and add new moves, encouraging hyper-specific build experimentation.
Boss Fights and Technical Polish
The game's boss fights are a noted weakness, with many encounters feeling repetitive or lacking the grandeur expected from the genre. The main bosses, while visually striking, often suffer from limited attack patterns, making them less of a challenge and more of a test of endurance. This issue, present in the first game, is more apparent here due to the overall increase in polish and design sophistication.
Technically, Mortal Shell 2 is more polished than its predecessor, though some minor issues persist. The review build received several patches, indicating ongoing efforts to improve stability. Some moments raise questions about whether enemy attack patterns are intended or the result of bugs, necessitating replaying encounters to confirm. Despite these minor technical hiccups, the core gameplay loop is exceptionally strong. Mortal Shell 2 successfully realizes the ambitions of its predecessor, offering expanded combat, a denser world, and a more coherent narrative. While boss fights may not always hit the mark, the overall experience is a significant achievement for developer Cold Symmetry, offering a compelling action game for Soulslike fans and newcomers alike.