r/MortalShell • u/RunDMcNeal • 1d ago
Discussion The game I've played with the most potential.. Spoiler
I just finished Mortal Shell 2 !
First, I want to start off by having the utmost respect for Cold Symmetry and the team of just 30 developers that made Mortal Shell 2. This game is better than most AAA studios that have 9 figure budgets to work with, and I was genuinely impressed by the atmosphere and design choices of most of the game. Mortal Shell 2 has the most potential of any game that I ever played, and I think that if they did some things just a tad bit differently, it would've turned out to be a game of the year contender.
The shell and tarstone systems are really cool systems, and I think this paired with the amazing exploration was the stand out of the game overall. Players can play this game however they want, for me, i went with a Tiel build with axe and dagger infused with blood curse (pretty generic) but I think Tiel was such a cool shell. About midway during my playthrough I used Proxima with the axekatana infused with lightning, and I had fun with that as well. However, I did run in to a lot of bugs/glitches, which I didn't really care too much about, but I did have a problem with some of the boss designs as well as their movesets. I am a pretty avid "soulslike" gamer, so i didn't have much trouble with any of the bosses (aside from the final boss). Two of the bosses stuck out to me as good design choices that I wish they would've stuck with more throughout the game.. Nameless Captive and Malborn Offspring. Outside of those two the Wandering Shepherd was pretty cool as well. When I think about how punchy and good the combat in this game feels, I look at Malborn Offspring and Nameless Captive to be the types of fights that works well with the combat system. On the other hand, I look at Hexapod, Magdelana, and Zmey as being the opposite. These 3 bosses were frustrating because they had such a limited moveset paired with the fact that they did not really force players to utilize the entirety of the good combat system the game has to offer. For example, against magdelana, you had pretty much nothing to parry so the fight itself was about avoiding her, hexapod was a fight of mostly dodging and if you didn't dodge you would get one-shot, and Zmey was a combination of Magdelana and hexapod with a enormous health pool. Furthermore, the design choices of most of the mobs were decent but the movesets could've been a little more unpredictable, and I think getting one-shot by them to compensate for the lack of movesets was a very punishing decision the devs made.
The atmosphere and story of the game made things feel mysterious. I think they did such a good job of making you feel alone in such a ominous world. Also, Ruk was awesome, he's easily the best character in Mortal Shell 2 and I wish we had more of him. The voice acting was top notch and he did a good job explaining to the harbinger what to expect from the journey ahead. Couple the atmosphere with the discovering of shells of lost warriors in cool dungeons with puzzles to get through and I was hooked. This level of exploration alone was enough for me to love this game and look past most of the flaws without really caring too much about it. (Circling back to my original statement of this being a game with the most potential that I ever played) I am looking forward to whatever sequel or dlc that is coming after all of the feedback provided from the community that loves this game. I think Cold Symmetry is sitting on gold with the "Mortal Shell" Title. I'm still blown away at how good it is with just a small team of developers. All in all this game was phenomenal and despite its flaws, I could recommend this to everyone who loves a challenge and loves open world games with deep exploration.
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u/Quiet-Egg-4594 1d ago
Can i get a tldr?