Mortal Shell - Hands-on Preview

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IGN has played Mortal Shell and shared their impressions.

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Each Shell's Got a Story to Tell

Then there are the Mortal Shells themselves, which essentially introduce class-based gameplay to the Souls-like genre in a way that hasn't really been done before. The closest comparison is the blood code system in Code Vein. As you play, you'll discover new Shells that each have their own unique stats and skills. In my demo, I only came across two: The starting shell, Harros the Vassal, which is a more tanky shell that has increased health, less stamina, and skills that affect his survivability; and Tiel the Acolyte, who has a massive stamina pool, less life, a more effective vanish as opposed to a quick dash as a dodge, and a variety of skills that allow him to occasionally take damage to stamina instead of damage to health, grant him extra damage on a successful riposte, and heal some of the damage taken by poison, which was a massive pain in the ass throughout the demo.

Shells can be swapped out at certain spots in the world, or an item can be used to swap them out on the fly, allowing you to make use of their unique characteristics as they become necessary.

As you'd imagine, when you defeat enemies you collect a currency that is used for both character progression and for buying items from the various shops. But unlike what you might imagine, character progression in Mortal Shell doesn't take the form of traditional level ups. Instead, you use this currency, known as tar, to first learn the name of your equipped Shell, which then opens up their skill tree. Each skill costs both Tar and another currency called "Glimpses" to learn. Glimpses are gained by beating certain enemies or by finding itemized glimpses in the world, but unlike Tar, glimpses are only granted upon the first time you take them out. This I imagine, is how Cold Symmetry discourages players from farming easy enemies repeatedly in order to max out a character's skill tree right away.

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