Perhaps the most annoying thing in this case is the “Return to Sester” item you might pick up.which is just a mask of some sort. For one, you’ll never know if the new item you picked up will be useful in combat, or harm you in some way. It provided a nice air of mystery and gave you a sense that the player character isn’t from this world or has no knowledge of anything really, and the more you used an item the better its effects! Neat!.but then you play a bit more, and you start to realize that this mechanic is just downright annoying more than anything else. In the beginning of the game, I thought this was a neat feature! No longer will you pick up some random item off the ground and just know that “Hey yeah, this makes me slightly faster somehow, great!”. But the more you play, the better you get, and it's much the same with items. When you first use the lute, you play like you have no idea what you're doing and it sounds awful. A good example of this mechanic is the lute that you pick up basically in the beginning, which acts as a kind of tutorial. Instead of instantly knowing what items have what effects, you have “Item Familiarity”, which means you have no idea what any of the items do until you actually use them. Items in general are also done in a rather unique way. You can heal yourself in other ways, most notably with an ability you can use after parrying, but this can be very dangerous if you’re very low on health and you miss the relatively small parry chance that most attacks you’ll face will have. The most common thing you’ll find are red mushrooms called Weltcaps, which have dedicated spawn points in nearly every single level, or Roasted rats on a stick, both of which will only heal you for about 30-45 health (while your health bar can range anywhere from ~60-250, depending on your shell) and will only heal you over time and not all at once. There are no health potions or refillable Estus Flasks for you to fall back on when you’re low on health, with healing instead being from food you loot from enemies/pick up off spawn points, or buy from merchants. What isn’t nice, however, is the lack of healing items in game, and to be honest just items in general. Overall, combat feels pretty ok, if a bit slow at times, and the four shells you can choose between provide a fairly balanced lineup that should accommodate most play styles, which is all quite nice. Swapping between Shells can be done via two main ways, either through items you can loot and pick up as you play, or by heading to the main “Firelink Shrine” like area, where all your Shells and the four main weapons you find are stored in one place. You’ll find another three shells as you explore the world, a Scholar with a focus on Resolve, a Paladin shell with lots of health but little stamina, and a Rogue shell with lots of stamina but little health. Instead, you inhabit the deceased corpses of warriors from the past, the first being Harros the Vassal, a knight shell that has very balanced stats. Instead of creating a character yourself and choosing a class or a build to suit your play style, you start off as a weird kind of skeleton thing, with only a little bit of health (which isn’t particularly useful, since everything will one-shot you). After this tutorial area (which ends with you getting eaten by a big fish for some reason?), you’re tossed into the world, where you’ll discover the second titular mechanic unique to Mortal Shell: The Shells. You’ll also discover Resolve as you play, which sort of acts as your “action” points for parrying and weapon abilities. You can harden yourself at any point (with a cooldown in-between, so you can’t abuse it), including during attack animations which can result in some pretty fun combos and feints during combat. Mortal Shell follows most of the usual format, you have your light attack and your heavy attack, you have your usual dodge, you have your stamina bar, you have your “souls currency” AKA Tar, which can be spent at “Sester’s” who act as Bonfires, and you can parry enemy attacks to do massive damage! But one of the more unique aspects is the block mechanic: instead of blocking with a shield like a normal person, your entire body hardens into stone, which will stop damage from most attacks and will cause most enemies to stagger if they hit you. Mortal Shell starts out in a dream-like tutorial area, which slowly introduces you to the gameplay mechanics, and perhaps the most important thing about any Souls-like game: its combat.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |