The few interesting novelties this game brings into soulsborne genre are drowned in an ocean of jank.

A lack of traditional character creation and class specialization is a fresh concept, and the slow, methodical combat of the genre, as well as its postapocalyptic, oppressive dark fantasy vibe, are replicated well enough. Heavy metal boss music (by Greek gothic powerhouse Rotting Christ) is a great but underutilized touch.

Everything else, gameplay-wise and storywise, reveals that this game isn’t a subpar copy of DARK SOULS just because of its low budget — the devs themselves are simply less creative, less capable devs compared to Fromsoft mastodons. Each of the „characters'“ skill tree is filled with skills that are by large useless and probably relics, just like the only ranged weapon in the game, from an earlier game build, which obviously featured noticeably different gameplay.

Level design isn’t just repetitive, it’s downright bad because of the lack of organic-looking landmarks, which makes the flow of the game rather tedious. Enemies, as well as the large central part of the map, are copy-pasted relentlessly.

The main storyline isn’t just elliptic, it’s completely incomprehensible, without any weight or pathos to it, and is presented in a string of incoherent ramblings which touch upon all the genre’s cliches: a great empire falling, a dark cult rising, a vicious plague ravaging the land, gods conspiring, etc.

MORTAL SHELL is a great recommendation for game devs and game critics. Sometimes it might be hard to see what exactly „just works“ in a masterpiece such as DARK SOULS, but this game can serve as a great anti-example in which all the cracks and all possible gameplay, narrative and conceptual pitfalls are clearly visible. It’s not a low-budget issue, it’s a skill issue.