I want to start this review off by saying that I find it very hard to believe that some of the people who left a negative review on this game have ever played or finished a Dark Souls game. There are generally good criticisms of the game and I understand why some people have issues with it, such as performance issues, enemies turning around fast, or some of the enemies randomly appearing out of no where, but there are people who put .4 hours into the game and call a quits and refund because the enemies and the game mechanics are not exactly like Dark souls, or is too hard and unforgiving.

Also there seems to be a significant amount of negative reviews on Steam because the game released first on Epic, so much so that when I opened steam to buy it I was surprised by it being "mixed", I had to actually read the reviews because I thought there was something dangerously wrong with the steam version of this game. No, just a bunch of negative reviews because the game was on epic first. I think that a lot of people should actually play the game and review it based on that, rather than wasting $30 to make a point that it shouldn't be on Epic. Either way, this game does have some flaws and they should be addressed.

There are a lot of complaints about this game not being "enough like Dark Souls", going as far as to compare this games mechanics to Dark Souls. The first thing that should be addressed is that this is not a Dark Souls game, it is a souls like game created by a team of around 15 people. It is easy to tell that this game was inspired by Dark souls, however, the overall mechanics and the way it plays out is not going to be exactly like Dark Souls, and people need to keep their expectations in check for that.

The first major complaint I am seeing a lot of is the fact the game is unforgiving and difficult, or the enemies are hard and do not have consistent attack movement. This is where my statement at the beginning comes from, where I do not think the people who compare this game to Dark Souls have actually played Dark Souls. You cannot walk into a Souls game or a Souls like game and expect to be able to pick up things and kick ass immediately, that is basically the whole point of the souls experience. Getting your ass kicked then ultimately kicking ass as time progresses. You cannot put less than an hour or 2 hours into this and expect to be the god of the world you just entered, people need to take time and learn this game, it is a completely new and unique experience. I dropped into this game and had a tough time at the start because it was hard getting used to the enemies. But that should be expected considering your character just started and is at the lowest they will ever be. Once you get the hang of things and the new hardening mechanic the game becomes much more manageable with its difficulty.

Another complaint I am seeing is that enemies turn much faster than people are used to. I have seen about 3 reviews saying that people are used to being able to go behind an enemy and get a back stab like in Dark Souls. Unfortunately, back stabbing is not in this game, however, the criticism for enemies turning faster is warranted. I have encountered a few enemies that turn around unnaturally fast as if their character model pivoted 180 degrees without an animation for it, and if this is what everyone is experiencing all the time, then so be it the developers should slow it down. I am surprised by the amount of reviews that have this as an issue for as little as I am seeing it happen when I am playing. This is not to dismiss any of the criticism, I just find it odd as to why it has only happened to me a few times. I think most people are noticing this issue on a specific mini boss fight towards the beginning of the game since that's where I have seen a few of these reviews talk about it. In my experience I didn't bother with that mini boss till I got a new weapon and had already beaten a few bosses. I went back and was able to take him out after a couple tries.

Sticking with complaints about enemies, there is an issue that I and many other players have experienced where you can be running around the map and suddenly an enemy will spawn right in front of you. Majority of the time the enemy is sitting down in my path so I can run right past it but there have been other times where they spawn in standing in your path and you have to fight them to progress. This is another issue the developers should take a look at and fix, because it can create issues when you are fighting in an area and suddenly another enemy just pops out of no where killing you.

Either way, considering all of this I think Mortal Shell is a damn good game so far. I am able to overlook some of these issues I noted considering Dark souls has multiple issues of its own. 15 people were able to create this and I find that very impressive. I have had fun with my experience so far and I am excited to fully finish the game. If anything changes I will definitely update my review.

Edit: After finishing the game I stand by my belief that I think this is a damn good game. I still think those issues previously mentioned can turn people off, and I do not blame them. However, in terms of the enemies rotating 180 I only experienced it a few more times after the review, but it was nothing game breaking by any means.

So many great ideas but poor implementation.

Tried the game now 3 seperate times years apart still can´t enjoy the clunky and inconsistant gameplay
You fight more against the controlls than any enemy in the game.

Here one enemy encounter I had that sums it up quite good (little long):
-Don´t know where to go
-Check out side path I found
-Walk into bear trap that isn´t visible when you donr explicitly look around for them
-See enemy
-Try to bait enemy into bear trap
-Enemy uses charge attack and charges over bear trap
-DOESN´T GET HIT BY THE BEAR TRAP
-Enemy charges at me
-Knocks me into bear trap
-Get nearly killed by enemy combo I can´t avoid bc I´m in the bear trap
-Try to doge next attack
-Enemy glitches over terrain and slides next to me
-I harden
-I survive
-Get insantly attacked again
-Can´t harden (cooldown)
-Try to parry
-Parry to early bc every animation looks the same
-Die
-Enemy get stuck in the BEAR TRAP ....

trash