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Bonfireside Chat 170: Mortal Shell (Part 2)

🕑 Added 2020-12-06 21:50:42 +0000 UTC

Comments

Steven E Southall

I wanted to chime in with some thoughts about the shell-less option. There's a shrine near the giant toad that lets you renounce your shell(s). In return, you get the "common" skills for free. I tried it out for my second run, expecting to give up pretty quickly. Instead, I went through everything. Getting one-shot was challenging, but knowing the areas and being familiar with the hardening tempo really balanced it out. I recommend trying it if you're the kind of person who would normally try a shield-less (or similar mild challenge) run of a Souls game.

R Lou

Harden is a great mechanic, if a little exploitative. You can stunlock any enemy, including bosses, with the mace if you know what you're doing. I agree that the main hub is samey and lacks landmarks. I finished the fire level before I found the main hub. It's my favourite Souls-like and it would be even greater with a little more polish in the combat department,

Kristina

I'm so glad you guys covered this game! I really enjoyed it overall. I thought it had a lot of cool ideas even though, as you mentioned, some of them were flawed or incomplete...but for a short game from a small developer I thought it was beautiful and felt good to play. I had a hard time at first getting used to the harden mechanic. I also ran Solomon, I tried all the other shells but due to his big resolve gains and balance I just felt right with him. I used the sword and the mace pretty equally, their special attacks with the longer I- frames got me through every boss because I continue to be super inconsistent with parries as I am in every souls game. Gotta shout-out the lute and lute songs which are absolute jams (once you get a little familiarity) and I smiled ear to ear when I got the secret ending from old baghead... you share some food and grog and just jam as the world turns. It would be really cool to see a mortal shell two with the lore and concepts more fleshed out and definitely some fun new shells and weapons.

tundacct

I did my first branch as Solomon but switched back to Harros the Vassal as his advantages became more apparent. Two of his abilities - the reduced hardening cooldown and the increased duration of invincibility after hardening - more than made up for his inferior base stats, To Me. There was something about the attack timing of most enemies that made these two abilities extremely powerful in concert. I had a great time diving in with the hammer and chisel, knowing harden would always come off cooldown at the exact moment I needed it. I think this could be another case of the Mario option benefiting from the game being more designed around it.

Bob Witz

I played through the ENTIRE game without unlocking the skill trees. There is a lot to like about Mortal Shell and some of the imagery and vistas captivated me. But eventually the combat got totally monotonous. I found that I could beat the entire game with the Hollowed Sword running attack, back away, harden if I must. Wash, rinse, repeat. Left me with a bit of a bad taste from a game I was really into for two weeks. But I will certainly check out this team's next effort!