There are very few Souls-likes that really nail the feeling that FromSoftware has perfected. From the unique worlds that portray its story through the enemies, bosses, and level designs, to the grounded and methodical combat systems, they have created a sub-genre for a reason. Many have tried to get that right, and many have failed. However, there is always one that I will mention that gets it pretty close that had unique ideas, but on a smaller scale, and that is Mortal Shell. Cold Symmetry created an engrossing world with a different take on combat using shells that alter gameplay styles and I enjoyed it very much. Six years later we finally have Mortal Shell II, sequel in name only, and it’s promising bigger and better things. I’m happy to say they have delivered on that promise.

As I hinted at above, Mortal Shell II isn’t a direct sequel. It’s more of a re-imaging or a standalone sequel. It is set in the same land, Fallgrim, so there will be some similarities, but you will not need to play the first game to understand this one. You play as the Harbinger, an entity that is tasked with reclaiming the Undermether’s stolen Ova. Ova are essentially her eggs, or spirits, that the heretics and fallen gods have stolen for power. Using them to spread corruption all over Fallgrim, you and your gang of zealots need to stop them and save the eggs in order to let these “Unborn”, well, be born.

Arise Harbinger, you are destined.

As the Harbinger, much like the Foundling from the first game, you have the unique ability to inhabit fallen soldiers and use them as shells. The idea is the same, but in Mortal Shell II, shells are much deeper with more options for builds, and story. Each shell has five memories to unlock as you level them up, bonding closer with the former warrior, you will discover their unique tragedies, philosophies, and abilities. Each memory for the shell you unlock (after the first one) will open up a new tier of three upgrades. There are a total of twelve upgrades for the shells and each one is able to be upgraded three times. The expanded shell upgrades really introduces much deeper build options to suit your own play style.

Of course each shell will have its own set of abilities, perks, and element use/defense. For example, Tiel the Acolyte is able to upgrade enough to be completely resistant to poison. He is also your fast stealthy character, with the main ability to turn invisible and then strike with a critical attack. He can also Shadow Dash which allows him to go invisible for a time after doing a perfect dodge. Gragu, the Insatiable has the ability to charge a massive punch called the Staggering Blow that deals huge damage. He also doesn’t use the standard healing item, Mether’s Pulse, instead he eats a Revered Heart to heal. While he gets less of these than Mether’s Pulse, he can recover hearts from slain enemies, letting him continue to get health items. He is also resistant against Bloodcurse, which I didn’t find to be an issue in the game.

Recovering a shell isn’t always straight forward.

Smert, the Apostate has the Miracle ability that lets him halt time and pummel enemies with his brass knuckles stacking up Chaos on them. He also has Deadly Revelation that builds Resolve faster with each melee hit when below 10% health. He can also be upgraded to be resistant to Poison, Burn, Lighting, and Frost. There are eight total shells to find in the world, and you will not be able to upgrade them all in a single run, so finding the one that fits your style is the best choice until New Game+.

My go-to was Proxima, the Broodseeker (aka Dommy Mommy). She has the Biosampler ability which is basically a grapple hook that either pulls you towards your enemy, or them to you, with a follow up lightning attack. She also has Grafted Armor which has a chance to mitigate any damage received. There is also an upgrade that allows you to collected Specimens from enemies which can be sold or held on to for bonus damage. She was an all around good character that was a balance of defense and offense, plus she has the thighs that could pop a watermelon.

The story memories for each shell are well done and help flesh out these warriors.

With eight different shells, twelve different abilities to upgrade each, Mortal Shell II has a lot of gameplay variety. There is enough to really find the playstyle you want and build from there. Obviously, some shells won’t be discovered until later in the game so luckily you can refund any upgrades spent on one shell and apply them to a new one. This solves the hesitation issue in spending points on early shells. Outside of the shells, The Harbinger himself can be upgraded, but these are not as involved. You will use Gloom to upgrade and these are set stat upgrades. You don’t get to choose which stats to boost, but each upgrade will increase one or a few of the following: Harbinger Health, Shell Health, Base Damage, Shell Ability Damage, Critical Damage, and Shell Points.

Weapons have also received a massive overhaul featuring many more options from melee to ranged. There are now sixteen total weapons to find around the world, and much like the shells, they each have their own styles. These are a bit more straight forward in the way they play, with smaller weapons being faster, mid sized being balanced, and your heavy sword and maces slower with more power. Ranged weapons are very helpful now as well offering quick attacks or strategic shots to blow up groups with environmental items like exploding vases.

This weapon is called the Ballistazooka, yes, it’s exactly what you think it is.

While upgrading weapons, much like the Harbinger, is a straight forward process: bring upgrade materials to blacksmith to upgrade damage and reduce use cost. What helps make them more customized is equipping Tarstones to them. These essentially act as modifiers to your weapons that can enhance their attacks, or even offer unique attack abilities. Not all Tarstones will work with all weapons, but there is an indicator that tells you which ones work with what. You can equip three Tarstones for your main weapon, your ranged weapon, and four on Harbinger himself that boost base stats or abilities.

Being someone who likes fast and agile characters and keeping enemies back, I loved how effective ranged weapons were and being able to have a variety of quick weapons to choose from. My favorites were the Axe & Dagger, The Black Needle, the Forgotten Crossbow for quick attacks, and the Troubadour’s Lute. I will say that the Lute is a life saver with its abilities. If enemies are grouped together, throwing out some sick cords will turn enemies to your side and they will attack each other. This basically works on all enemies outside of main bosses. This is a huge help to do crowd control and keep you safe. That being said, the Lute is a huge cause of some of my bugs, but I’ll get into that later.

Blast a group of enemies with a sick Lute strum to make them fight each other. Or if they’re alone it build their break meter.

Let’s get into the general combat, because this has seen a huge change in Mortal Shell II. The first game was very much your standard stamina based combat where you had to be careful in how frequently you dodged and attacked. Now, this feels much more in the lines of Sekiro instead of your regular Souls style. I will say it’s still not quite as fast as Sekiro, but gone is the stamina bar, and replaced with break bars. Mortal Shell II focuses more on perfect parrying and breaking your enemies for massive critical attacks. You can swing to your heart’s content and dodge all you want, but you will need to learn to parry attacks in order to survive this game.

Removing stamina does not make this game any easier. Enemies are aggressive and it will take a bit to memorize the attack patterns. Luckily, the parry window isn’t brutal, there is definitely some leeway here to let you be aggressive as well. Mortal Shell II wants you to be aggressive and how they instill this in you is with how you build your Resolve meter and recover your shell if you get slapped out of it. No longer can you just find your shell to enter it again once kicked out of it for a second chance. Instead, Harbinger has its own life bar now and one hit won’t kill you. You will need to fight to build up your shell power to reenter it, however, this can be done multiple times unlike the first game.

Man, it’s so satisfying to brutally kill some of the more annoying enemies.

I found this to be much more engaging and keeps the pace much higher. Once you build up enough to recover your shell, you’ll regain a portion of your life back which can be upgraded by upgrading Harbinger and Bonding with that shell. However, if you die outside of your shell, you will restart at the last checkpoint and will need to recover your Gloom before dying again. Resolve is basically your ability and ranged weapon ammo. In order to use your main shell abilities, ability Tarstones, and ranged weapons, you will need Resolve. Much like recovering your shell, you will need to attack enemies to build it up, or use items like the Moonshine.

Speaking of items, each item has an Active and Passive ability. For example, the Weltcap mushrooms can be set to an active item which means you can use them to restore a percentage of health. If you set it to Passive it will very slowly restore health continuously. Like the previously mentioned Moonshine, its Active restores a portion of your Resolve when used. Or you can set it as Passive and it will provide overall damage reduction. Each item can be upgraded three times, even the summon abilities. However, to upgrade items you will need to find multiple of each, but the rewards are worth it. The Moonshines third upgrade for its passive grants damage reduction in proportion to how many you have in your inventory.

Ugh, I don’t really want to grab this item…

Exploring the world of Mortal Shell II is a blast and its overall structure got a massive overhaul compared to the first. They have moved to an interconnected open world where you have the freedom to go where you want. This is much larger than the first game with so much more to do and find in it. There are a ton of random dungeons to find and explore for rewards, with plenty of mini-bosses, and tough challenges throughout.

What I liked about how this world is built is they don’t give you too many save points where I felt like I didn’t have to worry. I had plenty of times while exploring where I ran out of health items and was risking Gloom to keep pushing forward in hopes to find the next checkpoint. There was a risk and reward and it felt dangerous and scary, but awesome feeling. With a lot to uncover, and plenty of secrets to find, there isn’t a dull moment exploring this world. However, if you find you need some help locating shells or weapons, there are options.

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Back at the main hub you can speak to Zhirelle the Shellkeeper to upgrade your shells, but you can also use Glimpse to locate other shells. Glimpse are what you use to unlock shell memories and further your bonding so you’ll need to decide if using some to locate a shell is worth it. If you do, there will be a marker placed on your map that will indicate the general area of where that shell is located. Likewise, when talking to the merchant Merrick, you can buy maps from him that will provide the locations of the other weapons.

For the most part, if you are into exploring and digging deep, you will be able to find these without needing the markers as there are clues or they are rewards for beating a dungeon. Speaking of dungeons, there are a lot, and for the most part they are pretty varied in their content. However, structurally they feel the same. You will enter a dungeon, go down an elevator, fight through to get your items, and then warp back to the front. Same with cleansing the checkpoints. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there were two dungeons or checkpoints that were exactly the same content wise. But, they are very structurally similar which led to a bit of fatigue.

Feel free to call back the spent Shell Points you have spent if you want to change characters.

Each main region of the map is very diverse which is nice, each featuring different elements or curses to battle through. This is where changing up your shell can come in handy if you’re struggling with specific elements of that area. You will battle your way to the main corrupted gate where the boss lair will be. Entering the boss lair will be almost an entirely new level with its own set of checkpoints and challenges. The bosses in Mortal Shell II are unique and their designs are sometimes wild. One of the bosses, The Lost Child, looks like a mix of a Uruk-hai, and a blob fish that will literally rapid-fire poop at you. Not all bosses have silly attacks, but I did love the variety in designs and attacks.

My only main gripe with the general world and enemies, is that there are a lot of repeated enemies. Now, that isn’t to say there aren’t plenty of enemies, it’s just that you will be fighting a lot of the same ones. This isn’t a huge deal until about half way through when you have memorized all their patterns and it makes them trivial to fight. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I would have liked a bit more variety for each region to keep it fresh.

I died a few times by somehow sitting to strum my main weapon and not my Lute.

Now let’s get to the bugs, which I want to preface with saying I have been vocal with the team on their discord and there will be a lot that is fixed with the Day 1 patch that will be out as I’m writing this. Also, while annoying, none were game-breaking where I lost game progression or got locked out of anything. Funnily enough, a lot of them came from loving to use the Lute, a blessing and a curse. Consistently through my playthrough, I would have a bug where I would use my main weapon as the Lute, let me explain.

When using the Lute, you can press the left stick down to sit down and play various songs. However, even when I wouldn’t have the Lute out, I would click the left stick down to sprint and I would sit with my weapon strumming it like I’m playing the Lute. Needless to say, that got me killed quite a few times. There was also a camera bug when this would happen where if I got hit while standing up the camera would lock in the low position like I was still sitting.

The bigger bug I had were bosses being frozen, letting me just wail on them, or them clipping through an object and getting stuck. One of the later bosses would not die if I summoned one of the shell spirits to help with the fight. I replicated this multiple times and the only way to get passed it was to not summon the helper. Like I said, these are all fixes that should be ironed out by the time the public gets it, but these were the experiences I had.

The artwork throughout is fantastic. I loved seeing what was next.

Luckily, outside of the handful of bugs performance was fantastic. I am playing on PC with an i7-12700kf, RTX 5070, and 32gb of DDR5 and it ran over 100fps on Ultra with the Ray Tracing options on. I only had a couple of hitches, but it seemed like it was loading in a new area. Otherwise, performance was really great. I also played a decent chunk on the Steam Deck and it runs at a locked 30fps with low to medium setting. Going from 100+ FPS to 30 was a bit jarring, but luckily the parry window is forgiving and once I adjusted to it, it’s a fully playable option. I beat some of the later bosses while using it.

Obviously the visuals will take a hit on the Steam Deck, but luckily Mortal Shell II‘s art style still shines through. It retains that dark gothic fantasy aesthetic from the first game, but builds a bigger world with more to see. It feels dirty and heavy which really fits the tone of this corrupt land. The gruesome creatures and even the twisted humanoid enemies are all a joy to witness. On my main PC with the ultra settings, it is a good looking game with some great atmosphere. Cold Symmetry knows it, as they put quite a few sitting stones through the levels for you to take in the vistas. My only draw back, like I mentioned before, is the reskinned enemies and similar looking dungeons.

Audio design also fits the atmosphere really well offering a lot of heavy and gruesome sound effects. Combat feels and sounds punchy with gore splashes as you chop limps or perform finishing moves. Enemy sound effects with the ambient sounds help create that ominous feeling all throughout the game. Soundtrack is also heavy with a ton of distorted guitar riffs and industrial sounding metal. There are also some more unique songs like what you can play from your Lute as well as other songs featuring bag pipes. Voice acting is generally done well with voiced shells for the memory flash backs as well as all the characters back in the main hub.

Mortal Shell II cemented itself as one of my favorite ARPG’s up there with the best of FromSoftware. The changes to the combat make it fast and fierce while still maintain the difficulty I expect from these games. The expanded shells and weapons really help set it apart in the genre and allow for so much more build personality. This is truly one of the best games I’ve played this year, and I fully recommend it.

Mortal Shell II is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC.

Reviewed on PC with an i7-12700kf, RTX 5070, and 32gb DDR5 RAM.

A copy of Mortal Shell II was provided by the publisher.