Mortal ShellThe first few hours do something pretty incredible: prove that the soul-like formula is not limited to FromSoftware greatness. The developers at Cold Symmetry created a game that is tone-to-tone with the developers of Demon’s souls, the Dark Souls series, and Bloodborne.
As anyone who has ever played one of these games would expect, Mortal Shell is at once evocative, confusing, disappointing, brutally difficult and frustrating. Your first few hours will test your skills and your patience. They will also be worth the sweet palm stress because Mortal Shell is also fun and honest. You can do it, if you have the knowledge and expertise.
Whether you’re playing on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or PC (where it’s now an exclusive Epic Game Store), Polygon’s Mortal Shell beginner’s guide will introduce you to the basics of playing this quirky tight-lipped game, with tips on combat, exploration, and understanding the items you’ll find.
Treat it like a rhythm game
We have been giving this advice for years, and it remains as relevant as ever.
Soulslike games are notoriously difficult, but they are also honest – and slower than they seem at first (after you stop panicking). You have a unique human advantage over the enemies in it Mortal Shell: You can identify their patterns. Take your time, pay careful attention to what your enemies are doing and have just done, and you can attack and defend with confidence.
And that brings us to rhythm games. Your job in Guitar Hero or Rock Band is to do the right thing at the right time. At any given moment, you look at what is happening now, think about what just happened, and find repetitive patterns to anticipate what comes next.
Enemies in Mortal Shell are not all so different in concept. They are the note. You’re the strummer. They telegraph their movements before attacking (usually slowly, usually drawing from a source of three or four possible attacks). Observe. Learn their patterns, and respond to the right moments.
In other words, we have often referred to FromSoftware-inspired combat as ‘the dance’, by which we mean there is a prescribed way of approaching enemies. When you think of meetings as dance steps, it will not be a stretch to think about Mortal Shell as a rhythm game.
Wash, rinse, repeat
As Mortal Shell is a rhythm game, then it’s Guitar Hero on Expert difficulty. It’s fine if you do not finish your song your first time. Suppose no one does, because no one should. At the moments when you find yourself most frustrated, remind yourself that you are actually just exercising for your best run, and doing exercise … well, if not perfect, it will make you better.
You will find success in repetition. Almost without fail, if you use the same successful strategy against the same enemies in the same areas, you will get the same results. There is, of course, some variation, and things can always go awry, but keeping a level head and executing proven strategies leads to victory.
Here is an example that you can find within your first hour Mortal Shell.
- Jump attack on the man with the lute, and kill him.
- Kill the servant next to him.
- Kite the servant left or right in the bear trap, and attack when he is stuck.
- Do the same thing for the other man left or right.
- The last man is now on his own, and you can treat him as you wish.
Most of the time, it just plays out. Could something go wrong? Wis. And it’s a lot easier to think on the fly if you don ‘t ask who and what is around you. Keep cool, drive back, and execute a slightly customized plan.
Take the time
Often the worst thing you can do is convince yourself that you are better than you really are, that you do not have to follow steps that have paved the way for your success, that you can hammer on the run button and you can go your own way. become your destination. That’s a recipe for disaster.
Even the weakest enemies can kill you in moments. Load up in all the brash and cocky, and you will almost always find yourself hungry, surrounded.
We get it. It is annoying to re-create soil. But again, learning is also. It’s practice. And practice, especially in punishing games like Mortal Shell, is an essential part of success.
Take your time, fight the feeling that you are moving slowly, secure in the knowledge that it will save you time in the long run (because you are not dying, faster, so make it easy).
Use the items you find
One of Mortal ShellThe most interesting side of the soul form is that you play an active role in solving their mysteries, and this is especially true with the consumed items you find all over the world.
Go for it and assume that every consumed item is more or less enough – or if not enough, exactly, then not unique. You will find more of what we say. Use that strange mushroom to find out what it does. It is very unlikely that you will use something you absolutely need a few minutes later. You will soon find another one.
Better yet, the more you use an article, the more you learn from it. As you become more and more familiar with each, you will even get bonus benefits when you use them.
Make a mental card
Mortal ShellThe level design feels like trying to navigate a bowl of spaghetti from the perspective of an ant. You will not have a map, so pay attention to everything that helps you make sense of your surroundings – an ugly tree, a broken bridge, a cluster of rebuilt tombstones, places where consumables have been replanted.
Think of the humble Weltcap, a red mushroom that restores 30 health in 30 seconds. Those spawned in a few areas around Firelink Shrine the starting area. Memorize those locations, walk in between, and you will build a constant supply of healing items.
(Weltcaps also takes five minutes to respond. We made it so you don’t have to.)
Understand the design of the world
Not long in the game you reach a shrine in Fallgrim. That shrine will act as your hub and base of operations.
When you first arrive, you will find six instincts to mean – basically visions of what you have to do in the game. The three downward instincts lead you to shells. The three above will lead you to weapons. The visions will show you a series of country names on the way to your destination, so you need to figure out which way to go from your mental map. At least until we make a map for the area.
Think of Fallgrim as the center of a wheel – the hub. The three the shell are in the area around Fallgrim – you can get to most of them relatively early in the game, depending on your comfort with fighting.
The arms are hidden in mini-screams at what amounts to the cardinal directions at the edge of the wheel card. When you reach a mini-shrine, you must have a mini-boss – Hadern – against the weapon to earn it.
Just as important, there is another side of these shrines on an independent level. You will find tough enemies in these levels, at least one boss fight, and a lot of upgrade material. (These self-contained levels attached to each armory are also where you’ll find the special items – Sacred Glands – you must complete the game.)
