Tracking:

The tracking of attacks in this game I think hurts the overall game more than it compensates for difficulty. I understand why they did it but I think that ultimately it hurt the overall experience and didn’t sufficiently justify itself. While it did mitigate the trivialization of the combat it adversely discouraged dodging and positioning in favor of the safer hit-and-run strategy.

Healing:

Also contributing to this is the lack of healing items. Because you run the risk of totally running out it is safer to cheese enemies which is much less engaging. This promotes a hit and run style of gameplay rather than dodging through attacks and positioning compounding the aforementioned problem.

This is a negative feedback loop. The people using the most healing items are the people who are struggling the most. This mechanic, similar to bloodborne is controversial and for a good reason. At least in bloodborne it’s easier to farm vials. It was easy enough for me as someone who has played a lot of From Software’s games. But it discourages actually healing during boss fights. Because if you use all you’re healing you have to backtrack and farm mushrooms. Now you might point to the Mortal tokens and the squash and the rats and stuff but these are still limited resources that use an essential currency that you use to upgrade your character. This also greatly discouraged using a shell like Tiel. Because if you even get hit once you HAVE to heal or else you’ll be 1 shot. I see what they were going for with all the different healing methods distributed across all those items. But I think it ultimately falls flat. Something to estus flasks would have been better.

Seat of Infinity: Pseudo platforming

The Seat of Infinity area is in my opinion the coolest area. But it also has some of the biggest missed opportunities. Mainly the platforming. The pseudo platforming. I can’t help but feel there’s so much more they could have done with it. What made it fun wasn’t the incredible skill required but the fear and exhilaration. It was so much fun discovering all the little hidden areas and obscured drops and platforms. And then the thrill of inching across precarious and narrow platforms or dropping down to otherwise inaccessible areas. I honestly feel they could have done far more with this and it presented an opportunity to have more scenarios where the drop-smash ability could be utilized. But the worst part was when you’d try platforming to something that was definitely in reach only to die to a insta-death box. I’d like to see them have a designated jump button in the sequel. Ever since I played Hellpoint I’ve just been thirsting for a souls like with good platforming.

Enemy Design:

The next thing is the inconsistencies with the enemy design. There are several very very very good enemies in this game. But some were lost on me for a number of reasons. For example the skinny red ones are fairly easily staggered but are so fast that they can move out of a staggered state almost instantaneously into an attack. Or ricochet off your shell and go straight into an attack. It’s like they were designed for a faster paced game and your character for a slower game. Again some of the tracking on some of the enemies attacks makes dodging far less viable and promotes defensive tactics. Other enemies just chain so many attacks so often and so fast that it’s hard to find an opening without them being able to get in a revenge hit. So instead you sit back and wait for the animation to finish. As you can see there’s a whole lot of waiting in this game. Other enemies suffer from having overly animated and complicated attacks. While they look cool they can become cumbersome and unexciting. For example the dual wielding enemies in the shrine of ash. Their attack combos are so long and really only succeed in making me back away and wait for the animation to finish.

Virtuous Cycle Relics:

This is somewhat of a gripe and it doesn’t ruin the DLC by any means but I found many of the relic unlocks to be entirely useless. Like fall resist damage. When am I ever going to use that? Although perhaps there are some speed running methods that I’m not aware of. But you get the idea.

Virtuous Cycle Parry:

My other concern with the virtuous cycle is the parry abilities needing to be unlocked each cycle. I found this to be unnecessarily annoying seeing as how there is a easier sequence to approach the areas. Maybe beating them once unlocks them permanently. Rather than locking you out of the content every single time and having to choose between the essential healing and the useful aoe explosion.

Stomp Ability:

One thing that always bothered me about the base game is that I can never get the stomp ability to go off. I simply step off the edge harden and fall to the ground. Worse still is that there’s almost no scenario where I’ve ever use it and if it doesn’t go off certain drops can do a lot of fall damage.

Shells:

The shell concept is a cool idea. The idea that each shell has unique abilities and perks to them. But I feel like having set abilities and perks rather than perks and abilities to choose from was a missed opportunity. The Hadern Shell showed us this. It was so much more interesting to Frankenstein a shell together rather than simply plug-in the required currency to unlock stuff.

Bosses:

Most of the bosses suffered from not applying enough pressure. Imrod for example posed no real challenge because you could simply back away. He wasn’t nearly aggressive enough. The Crucix boss ignoring its horrendous cinematics suffered a lot because of the crossbow shots which fired off too quickly to dodge and move in the punish. Itbasically just meant that you just sit there in the hardened state and wait for it to stop. The Hadern and Shell fights weren’t great either. There seems to be a dissonance between the way they operated and the way the game worked alongside it. They were given the hardening mechanic while already being quick enemies and dodging a lot. They were also not easily staggered especially with certain weapons. Their attacks were stupid quick for an enemy that is hard to stagger and constantly ricocheting when you hit their shell. And for some of them their attacks were so quick that it was unreasonable to dodge or parry. All this culminating in more hit-and-run tactics. Any one of those things are not necessarily bad but in conjunction they made for pretty unfun fights.

Grisha is the best boss in the game. Period. This is also one of the few bosses that seemed to pair well with the combat system. I mean besides being intimidating as fuck and having a unique and cool moveset.

Branching Paths:

I like that you have a central hub from which there are branching paths. You can take any path but some are harder than others. This was awesome for new game plus. But it was kinda hampered by beta testers who complained that you don’t level up your weapon. So in order to accommodate this they had to beef up the enemies according to the weapon upgrade level meaning there is a correct/easier sequence to tackle the areas. You still can but it’s unnecessarily difficult might as well do Shrine of Ash.

Fallgrim:

Navigating this place is a nightmare. I love the aesthetic but god it got annoying around the 2nd and 3rd playthrough. What it lacked is some sort of landmark or hint as to where each direction lead. The tunnels were cool but it kinda hurt the traversal because you forget wtf is behind this tunnel.

More…:

Needs one or two more levels/bosses and I’d consider it complete. That being said the Virtuous cycle was a genius dlc. And something we haven’t really seen in a souls like. It greatly extended the playtime and it was cool becoming OP as fuck.

Enemy Behaviors, Design and Synergy

Enemy behavior is an often overlooked feature. It’s something that you don’t really notice and take for granted until it’s pointed out to you. It can also make or break a game. Here are some examples: How the red hood guys hang back until you come within a certain range allowing you to lure away the smaller guys. But when you do get close enough they can cover that distance very quickly with their leaping swing. The gollum looking guys also have great synergy with the other enemies because they lurk behind and stalk forward slowly. Meanwhile other enemies are more aggressive meaning your dealing with them but also positioning yourself to keep the gollum guys in view for when they do their leaping attack. They also have a strong audio cue for when they are about to do their attack.

And what allows you to create interesting encounters is diverse enemies with complementary movesets. Take for example the fire thrower enemies. By themselves they’re pretty easy to defeat but when paired with other enemies the fight becomes a puzzle and requires strategy and reaction. One section for instance being the long hallway with one of the fire throwers at the end with a number of melee enemies between you two. You could either sprint/dodge past them, or you could lure the melee enemies around the corner and out of range, or you can confront them while also dodging his projectiles. The fire ghost summoned large fire hazards that made the already cramped hallways even more cramped. Meaning it was often a good idea to prioritize them. Comparatively they didn’t do a lot of damage but when paired with other enemies they become a real threat.

Tarnished Seal

Giving the parry different abilities have gameplay even further diversity whether that was using it to heal, or the satisfaction of taking out several enemies at once with the AoE explosion, or freeze time to reposition or get in some safe damage, etc. This totally changes your moment to moment gameplay. And having the seal as a physical and visible item was also an inspired way to show unparryable attacks and resolve gain in an unobtrusive manner.

Health Icon

Putting the health bar around the lock on was genius. This was a small change but it made all the difference. Because the health icon was on their core it was easier to keep track of without having to flit your eyes back and forth. It’s not longer a distraction trying to keep an eye on their hp.

Weapons

Without going into too much detail the weapons were a standout in Mortal Shell. Being able to string together different combinations of attacks for different situations have the gameplay layers. And the Martyrs Blade ooooooh the Martyrs blade.

Shells:

Shell unlocks are far more interesting than arbitrary 1 to a stat that is typical in the genre. In a sense the shells offered pre-built builds. And they were also more dynamic with things like Tiels shadow dodge, Solomons damage stack, etc.

Aesthetic:

The atmosphere of this game is oppressive and mysterious whether it’s getting lost in the fog of Fallgrim, the gold slanting rays of sunlight glinting on the glossy obsidian of Seat of Infinity, or the dark oppressive atmosphere of Shrine of Ash. It was surprising to see such graphical fidelity in a brand new indie studio.

Voice acting:

What else is there to say except it was fucking amazing?

Edit: Sorry about the bad formatting I’m not familiar enough with Reddit.