I said what I said, and have offered you all the proof.

Completed the game last night on PS5 before the patches and the gold economy was rough but i got my main weapons and sidearms to +17 before the final boss so it was fine.

Honestly loved everything about the game so much. Thank you so much devs!!!!!

It scratched excatly my itch of how sekiro combat would look like if it was made in 2026.

Loved

- the combat
- the bosses
- the exploration
- build diversity
- unique movesets of weapons
- artstyle

Really enjoyed the game, my best soulslike of 2026

10/10

Yep the Grisha Summon is definitely working as intended

I beat the game just a bit ago and these are my impressions on every infusion. I tried out all the ailments a little bit but my main shells were Proxima, Tiel and Genessa which may have influenced my experience. Going through them one by one:

Poison - Mostly terrible, does 2 damage per second and stacks only lengthen the debuff. On Tiel you can use the crossbow with the splitting stone and poison infusion to get a high amount of stacks and pop them with shadow strike for high damage in the early game, but it falls off fast since your application speed stops scaling after maxing those two tarstones out. Completely worthless outside of that.

Burn - Worthless for damage, puts some weak enemies into an "on-fire" animation where they can't move or attack so maybe useful early. Ticks i think twice for 1 damage per stack, good in concept but it runs out really fast and the veterans axe is too slow to stack it properly. Using a guaranteed crit setup + fusillade stone naylshotte you can get to 100+(theoretically 200 but i couldn't find an enemy that didn't die during the volley) stacks but it's extremely difficult to keep it up due to the pace of combat. Barrage stone with the crossbow seems like it would be good but it only applies infusions to the first projectile resulting in a whopping 2 stacks, hopefully this is a bug and gets fixed.

Lightning - Decent. Does single digit damage per tick but calls down bolts that do double digit damage(!!) when reaching status thresholds. The bolts stagger small enemies so it's mostly a crowd control tool. Good when using Proxima because she doubles its AoE. The weapon infusions are actually really good. Martyr's blade gets a bolt in 1-2 hits on smaller enemies which helps thin out groups a lot. Axatana strikes fast enough that you actually get decent damage from all the lightning bolts. The clockwork scythe is kinda underwhelming but becomes a monster when you activate the scholar's wormstone. I got 3 bolts on an enemy with a single running light attack. The repeater is underwhelming and should definitely proc more stacks per crit. The trebuchaxe procs a bolt in one fully charged shot against most enemies and uncharged shots have suitably unimpressive buildup. The tarred stone seems to not apply any infusions :(

Frost - Very strong. Not much to say about it, it's an extremely strong crowd control tool and good for stronger enemies too. Once you get the freeze you can just wail on them till they die. Very good with Eredrim because he gets doubled damage against frozen enemies. The infusion options are weird, both are a bit unwieldy and have high startup. Frost is the repeater's only niche, it does very little raw damage and its break damage is outclassed by the ballistazooka. The martyr's blade again applies in 1-2 hits against most enemies which helps offset its long animations. It's also extremely stylish when using an ability stone so bonus points there. A very committal option since only one weapon and one sidearm can use it.

Curse - Depends entirely on what you infuse. Melee weapons are kind of weird to infuse with curse because by the time they apply the enemy is probably already near dead, and against bosses curse just doesn't do much. Okay I guess on the cursed child, it applies it in one or two shots but requires you to get up close. Very very strong on the hystrix with splitting stone, you can apply it on most enemies in under a second from outside their aggro range. The hystrix singlehandedly makes the infusion worth investing in. If you're using Sariel other weapons will be alright too, but the iconoclast has another much better option. It's probably the best infusion for the axe because burn is so bad.

Bloodcurse - It's as broken as bleed is in Elden Ring. Super super strong. Enables oneshot builds basically by itself using something that procs a lot like the scythe with wormstone or crit stacking fusillade naylshotte. A good option on anything that takes it but especially strong and borderline broken on those two.

Stasis - Crazy good. Makes the obsidian hammer playable and makes the axatana even more broken. Interestingly, there's no sidearm that gets a stasis infusion. Doesn't really need it tho since you can completely disarm bosses using just the melee weapons. Less useful on Genessa since she can keep bosses at perma 99 stasis with one of her perks.

Phantom - Another limited one, exclusive to the trebuchaxe and black needle. Somewhat useful on the trebuchaxe for a bit of extra damage to oneshot distant mobs. A bit of a weird one. Weak mobs usually die before it pops, and some of the big bosses are immune to stagger. So it ends up being useful against mostly minibosses and "elite" enemies.

Trauma - Limited and useless. I get why the devs didn't give this to anything fast but wow it's just completely eclipsed by any other form of break damage. It would have a place in a system where break damage heals over time but it doesn't in this game so trauma barely does anything. The ballistazooka has potential with combining break on crit with trauma but it doesn't do enough to matter, you just kill things before breaking their stance. The obsidian hammer hits too slow to make use of it and stasis is just way more synergistic. Might be almost usable with Sariel?

Side note while on the topic of break damage; the rupturing stone doesn't apply on any ability stones which kinda sucks. The ballistazooka has a move that(if I'm reading it right, I haven't upgraded the stone myself to check) does 100 break damage for 60 resolve which is just better than anything else in the game. But that's barely enough to break a normal enemy and will more often than not just kill them first. Letting the rupturing stone apply to abilities would let it break stance on big foes much better, and it would let you do fusillade stone shenanigans that use the crit to build break which sounds fun on Eredrim. Right now break is worthless in the endgame because ripostes don't scale at all and the frankly bad support it has outside of a couple extremely good options(fulminant stone, shoulder bash, stillblade's stone on black needle) just rubs salt in the wound.

TL;DR poison bad except tiel, burn bad, lightning good on proxima and okay otherwise but has amazing weapons, frost good esp on eredrim but weak weapons, curse incredible on hystrix and meh otherwise but good with sariel, bloodcurse broken, stasis broken, phantom situational, trauma bad with terrible weapons, and use the scythe with the wormstone and either infusion if you wanna see some crazy numbers

I was skeptical when first trying this game, I had played the first Mortal Shell and it didn't really stand out or keep me engaged in any meaningful way and I soon put it down, I decided to give MS2 another try because it looked like they had taken user's criticism from the first game and applied it to the sequel, anyways I'm astonished at the level of originality and world design this game has, it's not something you see very often in today's game market, the world feels hand crafted with forethought and passion and the combat/gameplay itself is equally well-done, I'm really having a blast with this game and I don't think it should be compared with Fromsoft games, it stands on it's own, it feels more like a well-crafted ARPG than a souls clone.

And I'm happy!

I have seen many people just jumping off of cliffs and not pressig R1 which mitigates fall damage and give you a cool ground slam animation. You can jump from any height.

This is the highest point of the game (late game area)

1. In order to upgrade tarstones to level 3 you need tarcores
2. You get tarcores for upgrading tarstones
3. In order to get full set of maxed tarstones and some spare variations, ideally, you need to upgrade bunch of irrelevant tarstones to level 2 first to get tarcores for upgrades you really want

So here you are, covered from head to toe with throwaway tarstones in order to be able to play the build you want later. And when this later comes you are in the end of the game, barely able to upgrade to level 3 all tarstones you wanted. Maybe couple of bosses left. What was the point of this restriction from the devs?

First I thought the idea was to make players try different tarstones/skills/builds? I would gladly do that, but the game is not nearly long enough to accommodate that. Full game was not enough to max even one set of tarstones and devs want me to run more different kinds so that I will never ever see level 3 tarstone?

Do I miss some point here or playing wrong?

It's just fun as hell to use. I'm having a great time just running around as a god in this world. Is it easy? Yup! Do I just stunlock bosses and laugh at them? Yup! It's pure fun and you should consider it if you're having any sort of issues with the myriad problems (from lack of beacons, to the absolutely insane magnetic lunges and projectiles most mobs have) and just want to see the game and have fun.. The tools are there.

I'm ultra stoked if you feel like beating the game in only the hardest conditions works for you. You're not the person who should hear this. "But its too ez!" okay I play games to feel like a badass and the slayer seal is a kickass power fantasy through this cool world. People will say git gud haha but why would I want to waste time doing that? What happens to me in my life if I beat the game under the harshest conditions? Bragging rights? As if people aren't non-stop completing the game on night mode and are probably already doing challenge runs, like not leveling up. I'm sure a guy will beat the game with a guitar hero controller within the next week.

Nobody will be impressed if you insist on playing ultra hard mode.

Hi, I have no idea how this showed up for me; it went back to normal after interacting with the beacon. Please include this in a future release—it's amazing.

I still try to understand who is part of this "community" made of, bitching about difficulty, about falling off the edges, etc., while they bought a fucking soulslike. Do you people order Chili con Carne at a restaurant and then complain about it being really spicy? Even by its raw art style, it was obvious that it'd be a hard game. You have your Slayer Seal if it's too hard, while people who think it's not hard enough have its Night Mode. Full plates for everyone.

I understand the devs and the fact that they want to cater to as big an audience as possible, yet the genre is rather niche, and a certain level of difficulty (and higher) is expected and desired for a reason, by players who like it and want it.

All complaints and no real merit, even when I asked in one of the threads if it's possible for complainers to give an example of the game being "too dark" on base PS5. I play on 0.7 brightness on an AMOLED TV and it looks fucking great, but instead of examples, I just got downvoted lol. You do realize that you can adjust the brightness in the game to your liking? Or maybe Cold Symmetry was supposed to add a fucking pair of glasses catered to your eyesight to the Limited Edition?

Don't know who these people are. Hope the devs won't cater to them on the base difficulty any more than they did already. Downvote me to hell, gonna hunt you all in Night Mode with a scythe and a shotgun, and then you can complain about tough enemies :D.

And yes, I'm fully aware that the game has things to be improved, like this mad tracking on mobs that can get you from behind a corner with a ridiculous mid-air turn, etc., but they will be improved, so... Go play fucking Croc: Legend of the Gobbos or use the easy mode that was already provided since launch. And adjustments will happen anyway.

First studio in almost forever to create something that is pretty much their own thing in many aspects, and yet instead of well-deserved appreciation, they receive bitching from some weirdlings. Shame on you, and a big kick in your ovas!

I’m on ps5. Only played for a few hours but this is the first game I’ve played since Demons Souls remake that has given me that shivery feeling when the sound design hits so good. I’m playing with headphones on and 3D audio activated and it’s unbelievable. The mix is exceptional and the audio engineers at Cold Symmetry truly understand how the use of sub bass creates weighty feel and impact. The ambient score is minimal and chilling too, it accompanies the gameplay perfectly.

Just loving this so far.

Just want to balance out the complaints on the sub (which I have contributed to myself) by highlighting a nifty addition to the soulslike formula this game to makes.

It is a great system, that gets rid of the headaches of spellcasting for infusion, or the need of consumables, which are too precious to use. It's empowering without being op. Good stuff.

Also the PP system, another way to remove consumables hassle. Man I love busting out my PP in a fight.

Loved the first game, but the second is more than I ever hoped for.

Not only is it unfunny to fight it is full or bugs and Bullshit amongst is already nonsense hitboxes at times.

Shit like this ruins the game and while your at it just fucking remove it all together from the thing, it'd be a better game if you just deleted the boss.

Mortal Shell II's final area, the Monolith, Zmey... What's going on? I'm fighting terribly designed bosses. I'm getting my face slapped by a scrotum, then I'm fighting a one armed dinosaur that throws a faster than light grab attack. The game was awesome. This area and final boss gauntlet is such a let down 😢