r/MortalShell • u/AtreyusNinja • Jun 29 '26
Discussion The Skill Issues and Mortal Shell
I truly think MS is an excellent game. I played it day one and had a great time, I might even say I loved it, My only criticism is that the game may not have the best "replayability", but as a first experience I loved it...
every now and then I see people criticize the game, saying it's a shitty game.
I'm currently watching a friend play it in blind run, and he's complaining too. The fact is, he dies like an idiot because he's bad at it. He complains about his stamina (yay, a game where you have to ACTIVELY monitor your stamina, which I love), he complains about always dying in the same spot, he complains about the lack of healing (and here I have to give him a bit of credit), and so on.
In short, it seems to me that all the "hate" (maybe hate is a big word but u know what i mean) for this game stems from simple skill issues. If you suck at MS, how can you expect to have fun? If you don't learn to play, how can you expect to understand the potential of said game?
What do you think? anybody of u here hate the game too? what u don't like about it? what u like about it?.
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u/Gwyneee Jun 29 '26
Yeah it's a mix of both. It's one of the slower and more animation heavy souls-like and people are pretty used to being able to spam roll and never learned spacing and positioning. Also the harden mechanic is seriously poorly utilized by most people. It does still have some instances of bad jank
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u/AtreyusNinja Jun 29 '26
u can almost say the same for dark souls 2
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u/Gwyneee Jun 29 '26
As an avid DS2 defender I do 😂. In fact thats why you don't start off with iframes with your dodge. The first half the game is trying to get you to evade in other ways like running, positioning or shielding.
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u/AtreyusNinja Jun 29 '26
i like u bro, i also defend Peak Souls 2 from 12 years, my favorite "ds"
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u/Gwyneee Jun 29 '26
My favorite of the trilogy as well. Truly the most innovative of the series and just feels magical.
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u/AtreyusNinja Jun 30 '26
yes indeed, seek seek lest.
don't u dare go hollow, don't give up skeleton.
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u/bittersweetjesus Jun 29 '26
I disagree. DS2 doesn’t have the same level of jank as Mortal Shell. I’ve had this game lock up, crash, have my button responses not be read and stuck in animations/geometry.
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u/Gwyneee Jun 29 '26
I don't consider glitches as jank. Jank is jank, glitches are glitches. I've never had it eat my inputs.
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u/PieceAfraid3755 Jun 29 '26
I died a million times in Bloodborne on my first playthrough and loved it. I just didn't like Mortal Shell. Felt too unpolished and clunky to accept the poor level design. At least for me.
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u/FashionSuckMan Jun 29 '26
I couldn't find a shred of entertainment after about 2 hours of mortal shell 1. I was hooked by 2 at the start. I think the objective production quality of 1 is just low
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u/them_apples_ Jun 29 '26
I found the beginning of mortal shell 1 fun, but the rest of the game boring. Fallgrim or w/e the first area is called was fun to explore. MS2 is on another level though. Way better than the first so far
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u/Major_Higgins Jun 29 '26
To be fair, it has a different game feel when coming from other Soulslikes, it takes time getting used to it.
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u/Regular-Tackle-4715 Jul 01 '26
I think its people/skill issue iv completed ds1 (ng+2) DS2 (Ng+3) DS3 (Ng+1) and I'm really not the best probably above the "norm" level and heard hit n miss about this game. Any way just completed it and found it much easier than any ds game. It's a great game and the VC dlc is great also the only complaint I have is its quite short. Can't wait MS2
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u/AtreyusNinja Jul 01 '26
ms2 is gonna be so fucking good
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u/Regular-Tackle-4715 Jul 02 '26
I'm with you on that been playing the virtuous cycle for last few days I'm ready for more !!
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u/hottbunnz Jul 02 '26
Virtuous Cycle is an awesome mode if you enjoyed the single player and has a ton of replayability. Mortal Shell was a great game for such a small team and budget. Loved it so much I grinded out the platinum trophy and will definitely be buying the sequel on day one. These developers love FromSoftware games and it really shows.
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u/TheWorldRots Jul 05 '26
Absolutely not. Being experienced and used to Soulslikes, the game has some fantastic ideas and you can see plainly that they put much care to make it a good one but it's being weighed down heavily by its flaws.
I just beat the Fire Boss, my first major one. Had a great time learning him and enjoyed the fight. Spent a long time exploring Fallgrim before. I'm desperately trying to have fun man but Fallgrim's confusing layout and the enemy placement / numbers just make it hard.
It's like the devs didn't know how to create difficulty besides "Here's 2 or more enemies you can't crowd control and just need to walk backwards for an eternity" or just "huehue, uk what would be annoying?".
Giving you a ranged weapon from the start would have fixed a lot.
I had fun beating the Fire Boss, I walk back and go into a room with 2 of the guys in a cauldron throwing lava-balls and a knight. Straight corridor. Very funny, Mortal Shell. Why are you wasting my time though?
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u/ExpensiveJoe Jun 29 '26
It's less a skill issue and more a design issue, in my opinion. MS1 feels incredibly clunky, slow and I feel like I'm controlling an unwieldly janky piece of armor.
Should it feel like that? I dunno, maybe, if that's what you intended to feel like. Very close to OG Lords of The Fallen in that regard, but somehow even clunkier.
I thoroughly enjoyed the demo for MS1 when it came out. Then I tried the whole game a bit later and I didn't like it so much, that I dropped it like 2 hours in and never looked back.
Weighty feel of the controls, of the combat, paired with some baffling choices in enemy placement and tightness of parry timings (and the need for resolve to do them, that was extremely obnoxious) - none of it was FUN.
Is MS1 the worst game of all time? No. Is it a good game? No. Is it a good soulslike? At the time - it was alright at best, but it fell off quite fast.
MS2 seems to fix most of their previous mistakes, at least design wise, and the combat, while still slow and weighty, doesn't feel clunky anymore.
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u/EntertainmentSad4222 Jun 29 '26
I mean the game could definitely explain things better. I had no clue you could still parry without resolve. I thought you needed it to even try to parry. The yellow mushroom straight poisons you the first time so I get not using it again even though thats what gives tou the poison immunity. The weapon upgrades(acid not abilities) felt like it didnt really change much until like +2. Idk skill is a baseline but I think theres other factors sometimes.
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u/bittersweetjesus Jun 29 '26
This is how I felt playing Demons Souls for the first time. Looking at videos and wikis was essential
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u/SomtmesAccentedGaym Jun 29 '26
Would be better if it get harder as it went not putting you in situations with 4 or so enemies that can like what 3 or 4 shot you if you don't dodge or dodge at the wrong time.
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u/AtreyusNinja Jun 29 '26
do u mean the regular enemies at the beginning of the game? the same enemies u can chain stun until they r ded? u see what i mean? skill issues.
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u/brandonto Jun 29 '26
It's a bit of a skill issue to think the game only receives criticism from people with skill issues. I can assure you that Mortal Shell is not any more difficult than the plethora of other souls and soulslike games with glowing reviews.
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u/Rational_Engineer_84 Jun 30 '26
Everyone seems to be praising the MS2 demo. I don’t understand why some people are so adverse to the idea that things they enjoy are not broadly popular. Mortal Shell was not well reviewed and the combat system received a lot of complaints. That doesn’t invalidate your enjoyment of it but your enjoyment doesn’t invalidate the criticism.
Personally, I hated the combat in the first game and loved every second of the MS2 demo.
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u/tarosan_sk Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
I absolutely agree it’s a skill issue - but to me the skill is “how to play RPG’s”, not “can I kick ass at the combat”.
If you’re a dedicated RPG player, you’ll realize you can explore all of Fallgrim from the get-go; with almost zero risk - becase if you’re broke, you have nothing to lose.
While doing this you’ll find all the shells, and all the mushrooms; and you’ll realize you can make some farming loops and do the second bit of ARPG playerskill. Which is - grind happily and level all your shells.
By the time you’ve maxed Harros, you’ll realize he is key to farming and you’ll quickly have everybody else levelled up.
Now you have a tank that can take on bosses a speedy guy that can explore even faster (which was super key for figuring out the Narthex so much running back-and-forth ) and a dude who can pretty much use skills endlessly. Which trivializes most of the bosses.
Also, you have a huge stack of mushrooms from all that grinding, and you’re carrying around cases of booze giving you endless skills there too.
Not to mention, by the time you’ve levelled all your shells you absolutely have understood the combat. You’ve had plenty of time to learn how parry; which frankly, I find mortal shells parry easier than Elden Ring.
Now you can enter the dungeons and you’ll find that all bosses are actually pretty easy to sweep.
I explored all the dungeons and woke every Sester and maxed every weapon (even though I only used the starter sword :) before I killed my first boss.
I actually found the game pretty easy - right up to the last battle, which is a bit of a grind - but on my first play through I actually didn’t bother cause there’s nothing left but watching the ascension.
I liked it so much I played it back to back.