By Aegis Malkav 
If you’re a soulslike fan and been wondering what could scratch your itch for a punishing but rewarding experience? Then look no further because the sequel to Mortal Shell is finally here to make an impression on you.
Developed by Cold Symmetry and music composed by Taneomi, this game greatly expands everything that its predecessor offered us when we witnessed The Foundling’s journey through the land of Falgrim.
Mortal Shell 2 gameplay changed drastically in comparison to its prequel and took the path of frenetic battles that other games like Bloodborne, Sekiro and Lies of P walked before its inception which will be explained in detail further below.
The story of Mortal Shell 2 revolves around a godly descent, devotion, maternity that lead to corruption, madness and female eggs? (Yeah it’s what you think it is but for the sake of making this review family friendly will let the viewers realize for themselves the analogy behind this).
Many years after The Foundling ascended and became a beacon for every living being something huge fell from the sky, a female godly entity which was later called The Othermether or simply Mother, after the fall her remains were used to carve monuments and temples to worship and revere her which of course includes mother’s ehm….eggs or also called Ovas.
This time you control a being strangely similar to the previous main character called The Harbinger who awakes in a weird village with a decaying crow that has an arrow on its throat by his side, it tells you that this is not your home and that you have an important task to do for Mother which consists on bringing back her uhm….eggs.
At the beginning of the game you feel like the game is very linear and doesn’t leave you room to explore, only that after almost two hours later I realized that I’ve been playing the prologue the entire time! Once the game truly starts you’ll find yourself in the game’s nexus where everything connects called Marrow Keep, then you’ll notice that you have an incredibly big map to explore and progress further into the story.
Let’s talk about the improvements that the sequel holds in comparison to its predecessor shall we?
For starters for those that played the original you’ll remember that there were a total of 4 shells and apart from the base stats or the weapons that came with the shells there weren’t many more differences and felt that there was a lack of expression but guess what? Mortal Shell 2 gives you 8 different shells! (9 if we count the shell in the prologue) and some of them are females which is something that the prequel lacked, giving you plenty of choices and playstyles that we’ll discuss further below.
These shells are not mere weapons changes or design choices to look at when you’re running through the land, each shell comes with a unique active and passive abilities that define their own personalities when they were alive and that only them are able to use , lastly you’ll experience flashbacks of the live that the shells had before passing away which further strengthen the bond between you and your shell of choice.
A couple of examples without ruining the discovery of the shells abilities would be Harros The Vassal Stone Stun which turns the enemies into stone allowing you to give enough hits to force a riposte hit or Tiel The Acolyte Lingering Shadow or Shadow Dash that allows you to transform into a shadow so you can approach undetected towards the enemies for a Shadow Strike or dodging at the right moment gives you the power to stagger enemies on its next few hits.
People who played the game before knows about this feature but if your health bar gets depleted when you’re inside a shell The Harbinger will be removed from it by force and give you a “second chance” to fight your way out, the difference in the sequel is that unlike before where you just simply could go back into your shell short after now you need to land hits on enemies for a while before the games gives you the chance to reclaim your shell once more making it more challenging to survive.
The next change that the sequel offers in comparison to the original is in its combat and you’ll see why I compared it to games like Sekiro or Lies of P.
For starters the stamina bar has been removed, the reason is because for the other features to work the game has become more aggressive and fluent where enemies also become more aggressive so be prepared for relentless combats if you’re planning to survive.
Also instead of the stamina bar there’s a resolve bar which is basically the ability or magic meter that you saw in many games before, this meter can be used to activate the shell’s abilities and also counts as ammo for your secondary weapons, the bar can be restored by relentlessly attacking the enemy or absorbing resolve that you’ll find on the surroundings.
They also added another new feature into the game that all of you who played the titles i’ve mentioned above will know perfectly and that’s the posture breaking system, a new bar that appears every time you parry or stagger an enemy by special means and when the bar is filled entirely stuns the enemy and leave them vulnerable to a critical hit that deals stupid amounts of damage but careful, you also have a posture breaking bar and you do not want the enemies to fill yours or else…..
The next change is the addition of secondary weapons and the ability to choose,upgrade and customize your own build and weaponry. The secondary weapons system reminds me of Bloodborne in the sense that they are made for the purpose of either deal extra damage from a safe distance, break the enemies posture or inflict specific status effects, you can also choose and upgrade the weapons you feel most comfortable with and without the penalty of those same weapons being attached to their respective shells like the its predecessor.
Next are the seals which are the way the game gives the player to in a sense alter the difficulty and the approach you want to give to the game, will give a few examples in order to not spoil the player’s chance of discovering itself.
First we’re gonna start with the Untarnished Seal: This seal allows you the ability to block and parry blows from the enemies but mind you that some of them have unblockable attacks that only can be avoided by dashing or else get ready to see the dead screen short after, this playstyle is for the OG souls like players that want to make emphasis on an aggressive playstyle that focuses on relentless attacks and critical damage by breaking the enemy posture bar, not recommended for beginners.
Vatra’s Seal: This seal offers you the ability to harden your body turning into stone absorbing the next hit from almost any type of damage and just like the parry if you time it perfectly you can nullify the damage completely and deal break damage which also fills the enemy’s posture meter with the caveat that you can’t attack while in harden mode, the difference with the Harden ability in Mortal Shell 1 is that is not unlimited anymore in the sense that now it has a cooldown and can’t be spammed anymore. This playstyle is for players that like a more defensive and less risky approach when facing enemies, recommended for players that enjoy a slower and tankier style of combat.
Slayer Seal: This is seal is basically the “easy mode difficulty” that the game offers to players that struggle with souls like games but still want to experience what it has to offer entirely without feeling left behind by more skilled players, the seal offer two distinct abilities that gives you an edge against any threat that gets in your way: Gloomslayer gives your sidearm the ability to deal break damage, restore some heal and resolve when dealing a critical blow to an enemy whose break bar has been filled. Lastly the Slayer Punch is basically a “superman punch” that has invincible frames and dashes towards the enemy dealing massive break damage, if the bar fills after dealing the blow the character automatically does a critical damage blow to the enemy. This is recommended for players who aren’t very skilled at the game and want to play on “easy mode” so they can enjoy what it offers without being frustrated by its difficulty.
Important note about the Slayer Seal: DO NOT USE IT unless you don’t care about achievement hunting because once you equip the seal the game’s achievements are not gonna unlock on that save file so do it at your own discretion.
Moving on we have to also mention support items that enhances a wide variety of attributes increasing riposte damage, critical damage, max health or even infuse your weapons with different attributes such as: Holy, Fire, Stat buffs, Bleed and much more giving the player a flexibility never seen on the previous title.
Now that we covered most of the battle and equipment mechanics lets go through the environment features which are also an improvement from Mortal Shell 1.
Vertical, horizontal movement and platforming has been improved in the form of “launchers” that the character can use to make a massive jump or dashes allowing you to reach places otherwise impossible to get by just walking, it gives an extra flavor to exploration which is something that players complained about the lack of it in the previous title.
Of course it wouldn’t be a soulslike game without bonfires, am i right? Well here comes in the form of beacons, structures that offers you not only a respawn point in case you’ve got your cheeks clapped by groups of enemies jumping you but also they offer a good amount of features which a few but not all of them are: Leveling up both your character and shell that you’re using, change between the shells and weapons you have already unlocked, mask that you can put on Harbinger in case you’re feeling “bonita” and even teleport to the Marrow Keep.
Here’s the thing tho, most of the beacons are corrupted and have to be cleansed by going inside the beacon and go through a mini dungeon, clean the trash that’s inside in the form of enemies and you’ll be able to cleanse the beacon allowing it to bestow upon you extra functions, rewards and in some of them key items that you’re definitely gonna need if you want to 100% complete the game.
Around the world there’s also trials, totems where once activated you’ll have to fight a good amount of enemies at the same time, surviving being jumped by the boys rewards you with unique items often used for weapon and character upgrades so don’t sleep on those.
One massive improvement that I forgot to add is that the game’s total amount of time has been increased by 3, the completion time for its predecessor was around 10 hours while this new sequel triples that making it a total of 30 hours of gameplay, probably even more if youre aiming for the 100% completion.
Apart from the main story areas that you have to visit in order to progress the story there’s optional dungeons that if you dare to enter it often rewards you with very rare items that would make your journey easier, it’s a good way to incentivize exploration rather than going full yolo and speedrun the main story.
Speaking of the main story it’s important to mention that this game also have secondary quests where you interact to several npcs, the game is not gonna hold your hand while kissing your forehead when it comes to how to progress these sidequests, you’re gonna have to explore and figure it out on your own how to advance through them but the rewards for completing them are often incredibly good so it would be smart to try and complete as many as you can while you’re at It.
Another improvement that the devs made sure to focus on are the variety and quantity of regular enemies and bosses.
One of the things i didn’t like about Mortal Shell 1 is that both the variety of enemies and amount of bosses were extremely low and fairly disappointing but it seems that the devs took those criticisms at heart because oh boy, the madlads said Hold my shell and cranked It by several times fold!
I didn’t personally count every single one of them but with some mental counting I calculated around 30 different types of enemies which in comparison to its predecessor would be the equivalent of a coughing baby facing a hydrogen bomb.
I counted the bosses tho and lmao had to check my notes twice because i thought i made a mistake.
To make the comparison more impressive lets take a look at the amount of bosses that the previous title had: Counting the battle with the shells themselves and minibosses we have a total amount of 11 boss encounters, a meh amount for soulslike standards.
Then there’s Mortal Shell 2: Puts reading glasses The total amount of bosses so far I’ve encountered and I suspect that there’s even more considering I have yet to complete it at 100% is….. 24!
Jesus Christ where do i begin: Not only the main and mini bosses are not copypaste fights like the shells back in MS1 but also all of them are unique and have their own gimmicks that you’re gonna have to overcome in order to win, this is to me by far both my biggest gripe with the previous game and also the biggest improvement the sequel has, after all you would call a soulslike game by that name without its most important allure which are the boss fights?
The rewards for beating them as expected are pretty good and include progression items, unique weapons and gear and even shells! Making it very rewarding once you climb those walls.
It’s important to also note that the game offers New Game Plus which lets you retain most of your character’s progression giving you a good excuse to replay the game after getting the ending.
Finally im gonna briefly talk about the graphics and sound: There’s a clear graphics improvement in comparison to the previous title and runs smoothly at 60 fps on both Series S and X, the sound design for both the world and bosses fits perfectly with the dark fantasy atmosphere giving you total immersion, lastly im gonna praise the voice acting on these sequel because it clearly shows that the voice actors earned their bread with their good performances.
There’s a few flaws about the game that i. gonna talk about before ending this review: Theres some minor visual bigs that appear randomly and while they’re not deal breakers it sours a bit the experience but i want to be confident that the devs are gonna fix them soon in order to offer and more polished product so dont be discouraged by it, my last complain is that the game when it comes to shell and area unlocking feels a bit linear because unlike the first title you can’t get a specific shell that you want nor have the option to investigate any area from the start, you have to follow a semi predetermined path that takes away some of the liberty of choosing where to go.
Overall this sequel is a fantastic improvement to its previous title and shows that Cold Symmetry really listened to their fanbase and offered us a worthy successor that is gonna make the talk for the fans of this genre.
- Eight distinct shells with unique abilities and playstyles
- Faster, more aggressive combat with deeper build customisation
- Huge improvement in enemy and boss variety
- Strong visuals, sound design and 60FPS performance on Xbox Series X|S
- Minor visual bugs can affect the overall polish
- Shell and area progression feels overly linear
- Some players may find the aggressive combat and difficulty overwhelming
Mortal Shell 2 release date will be on August 20th (17th for the people that bought the Devout Edition) and will be available on Xbox Series S/X.
The game price for the standard edition will be 49,99 and the Devout Edition will cost 59,99 with a total of 53 achievements worth 1000 gamerscore.
Thank you all for reading this review until the end and I’ll see you all in the next wall of text.
Fletcher Wilkinson