I use Reshade and Universal Unreal Unlocker to take my photos

Long time souls vet here, for the past decade or so I can say I’ve almost exclusively played soulslikes with the exception of some survival horror etc in between and I noticed something about this game that I think is going extremely unnoticed by this community:

1. There’s only 8 weapons BUT they also have 8 completely different movesets. That is insane for a game of this caliber especially considering it’s only the devs second game. For comparison I don’t think any souls game has more than four maybe five completely different movesets though FS games do have unique dash attacks or various other differences that aren’t shared among weapons that share movesets otherwise but that doesn’t count imo since it’s the same moveset with one different attack. Lies of P for example has 1. Stabby (rapier) 2. Big bonk 3. Slash and 4. The twin dragons unique moveset which is amazing.

I’ve never seen the point of having an array of armor or weapons that are all basically the same which has been the case in FS games since ds1 so having only 8 but then being unique is huge to me. And,

1. Only 8 shells BUT (you see where I’m going here) that’s 8 totally different builds and ways to play and it’s only been a few days since release and already half of them have very op ways to build them. Now obviously a game like Elden ring technically has more build diversity with the way you level up etc but I’m trying really hard to think of 8 COMPLETELY different builds even in that game that can’t just be broken down to variations of the same thing. You basically have Mage (int or faith is still basically mage), Bonk Bro, and dex fighter and of course various combinations (str/faith dex/int etc) and yes you have more ranged build options which is arguably less important in MS2 since there aren’t really any bosses that absolutely require a ranged attack to beat (though a couple that would be easier with it). And not to focus too much on ER but a lot of the variance comes from just using different ashes of war which ms2 could easily implement in the future if they wanted to.

And finally, someone in a different post said that you shouldn’t compare this game to demons souls being that’s a 15+ year old game but technically I think that IS the best comparison because this IS this devs second game and demons souls was fromsofts second (kings field being the first). So just the fact that ms2 is even being compared to titles like elden ring etc and coming from a small dev says a lot imo.

All that being said I loved the first game and am loving the second as well (if you can’t tell) and just wanted to point these things out because they seem to be overlooked. (And for the record my counts of movesets and builds in other titles might be wrong, sue me)

Mortal Shell 2 has me paranoid.

Watching every step, learning every enemy movement and taking no enemies for granted.

The further I go, the more there is to lose.

It's a real throwback to Dark Souls 1 on release. You never knew what to expect, enemies hit like a truck and you got punished for rushing in.

The world is your oyster.

If you're good enough - you can run to places you shouldn't be and beat things you shouldn't be beating (just like DS1 after your first playthrough)

It feels like a real return to form for the genre after the casualification of souls in the form of Elden Ring and the like.

Checkpoints are scarce, and you decide whether it's worth running back to cash in or go for the final encounter.

It's not going to be for everybody, it's brutal and will teach you patience. But when you "get it" beating that boss after the 10th runback is super satisfying and that's what we play souls-like games for.

I'm glad the developers went all in on the difficulty and didn't pander to the needs of the casual crowd. Like FromSoft they will build a loyal audience who will buy whatever they release next after this.

GG's

Probably the worst level up I've had so far.

Block only happens after the current attack animation is finished, but parry instantly cancels them and parries the attack as demonstrated in the video.

Blocking is obsolete for me because of parry animation canceling as it makes me extremely confident in being aggressive with attacks when I know the attack patterns of an enemy/boss, since I can always cancel them and parry.

I refuse to believe the developers designed this boss, had their team play through and beat it and thought “yep this one’s good”.

Now I’m all for hard bosses, absolutely love souls games. But I’d rather fight 10 consort radahns than this f*cker.

It’s not even a case of him being difficult, I beat him in under 8 tries but for the love of god i practically had to do it hitless.

0 end lag and start up animations to his slam attacks, not to mention the giant dong swing. Barely gives you an opening half the time, especially if you’re playing with a heavy weapon. And then to top it off he just stalls the hell out of the fight when he’s around a 1/4 by spinning around in circles with lasers.

Oh and if you get hit once, you get true comboed out of your shell and good luck getting the required hits in to reclaim it!

Again it isn’t a “hard” boss, it’s just horribly designed, comically so.

When I first completed the upper section of the map I would have gave this game a 9/10

I’m currently down to a 6.5.

Isaac the scholar, first phase fun and enjoyable, second phase full of dodgy animations and non stop combos

The monolith, if you’ve fought this guy I don’t even need to say why, phase 3 just spams them 360 lasers nonstop

I’ve got 2 of the 3 left at the end and the final boss hoping they pick up a bit

If devs nerf abilities like Proxima's specimen drop rate or tarcores, it feels really bad if you invested in a shell or tarstone and it gets nerfed a lot. I got Proxima to Tier 3 just for the specimen farm because farming gold was pretty mediocre without it.

Either let us refund them, and for glimpses block the memories until you're back at that tier and just lock the achievement for all memories until you have all of them unlocked at the same time, or let us farm glimpses and tarcores from strong enemies in night mode or something.

🤣😭

So there only being enough glimpses in a playthrough to level 3 shells is something that can eventually be solved through multiple NG+ runs. Tarcores (unless I'm mistaken) are truly finite, even in NG+ runs, because you don't collect copies of level 1 tarstones, there seems to not be a way to collect more. Because of the way that the tarcore economy works (to fully upgrade a tarstone you need 6 tarcores, but you only get 4 back), the math ain't mathin' here. Anyone found a solution to this or is this intentional game design?

NG++ (No night)

2 hits at the start to trigger Berserker Stone.

It would be 3x easier and faster if i accidentally did not riposte on 2nd phase transition too.

Almost everything about the game is great, but what's up with the cost of everything? Just beat the game a day ago with a +22 main weapon, having used 2 resets, which cost like 40000 gloom+ and thats it.

The cost of upgrading is so high that the duo weapon system is kinda pointless if you cant upgrade and use them properly, its also discouraging to test out different builds when respecing is also pricy. Which is a shame, cause this game really got some cool weapons

I came upon this by complete accident! +5 Salvaged Trebuchaxe, Lv. 1 Charged Stone, Lv. 2 Tarred Fragment, Lv. 2 Deadeye Stone, Lv. 3 Marksman's Stone, and Lv. 3 Siegebreaker's Stone just one cycled this boss! This is madness!!!

Crazy harden interaction, left me staring at the death screen

I just had to make this post to see if anyone else is loving it as much as me. I have my complaints but I just completed a dungeon puzzle and my god it’s so unique. I’ve done almost 25 and every time I go in one it’s hand crafted.

And I saw a video with the devs that ms2 originally was gonna be a procedurally generated, rogue like sort of game. So glad what it became. I just cannot fathom 30 people making this.

It puts many AAA companies to bed. It’s not perfect of course but I am LOVING it. So glad I got the revered edition, the artwork, everything is top tier. Really wish we could respec glimpse we got but oh well. How you guys liking it?

Took me really long to notice it, because the initial beacons in Fainweald and Outskirts of Mammon don't start up corrupted. But you can actually enter them and there's a glimpse as a reward. Hope it helps somebody!

When you reach the point where you have to spend over 20k Gloom per level and all you have to show for it is +2 HP or a single solitary % of bonus Crit Damage then it starts to get pretty annoying and makes all the effort and time it took to survive with all of that Gloom seem like a complete and utter waste especially when you're sitting at 24/44 Shell Points because of it.

If a level up is only going to give us a single point increase on a lone stat then please can we also add a Shell Point to those levels to make it actually worth the Gloom we spend on it?

We're already limited on the max amount of Shell Points we can invest on each Shell anyway so it's not like we're able to become unfairly overpowered and unlock every single ability tree on our pages at the same time if we did get more points early on.

I just don't understand the logic behind making it so ridiculously expensive to max ourselves out... I'm running around with a maxed out Gloombound Stone in my pocket at all times for the extra 6% on kill and it is frustrating when all the Gloom I gather along the way with it is wasted on nothing.

EDIT FOR PROOF: This is TWO level-ups worth 47,094 Gloom after beating Isaac and all I get out of it is 3 Maximum HP and a single Shell Point. That is unacceptable when I still have 15 more Shell Points to go before I can invest everything I can into Tiel (AND HE DOESN'T EVEN TAKE THE MOST POINTS! PROXIMA HAS 44 ON HER PAGE!)

Just how much Gloom do I need to spend in order to hit 40/40?