RAVE: Mortal Shell

 " For that in sleep of death, what dreams may comes

when we have shuffled off this mortal coil

must give us pause" - William Shakespeare

 

    When the trailer for Mortal Shell 2 dropped, I was reminded how much I love the world Cold Symmetry had created and it made me want to dive back into the original. When I finally played it on PS4, the first couple of hours was some of the most frustrating, non intuitive gaming I had ever experienced. I kept dying to regular enemies, the parry felt weird and because Mortal Shell is very open ended in where you can go, I found myself in the 'hardest' area first with no way to return to the opening hub so I could start over. In a strange way, it reminded me of my first couple hours with Dark Souls 3, my first real Souls game. It is funny then that much like Dark Souls 3 has now become one of my favorite Souls game once I finally understood Mortal Shell and it started clicking, it has become now become my favorite Souls-like of all time. Now after I have 100% both the main game and its incredibly well made DLC 'The Virtuous Cycle' I happily present my RAVE of Mortal Shell.

Empty Vessels

    The story of Mortal Shell revolves around the Foundling. A mysterious entity that possess unique abilities that allows them to turn into stone aka harden and to possess the empty bodies of long dead warriors. When the Foundling possess them, they take on the attributes of the warrior they have commandeered. For example, when they possess the speedy thief/ assassin Tiel, they become a master of poisons and hit and run tactics. When they possess Eredim, they become a tank powered by a their righteousness beliefs. Along the way, the Foundling also finds a couple important figures, Hadern, the ruthless taskmaster who challenges them at certain points to teach them their true powers, Sester Genessa, the lore-smith who tells them about the world and the shells they inhabit and the Old Prisoner; a mysterious being who gives the Foundling purpose. There is more to the story of course with the plot twists and labyrinthine connections between the shells and each of the important characters in this dark world but this review is not about the lore, those can be found on YouTube. Instead this is my personal take on why Mortal Shell is worthy of your time especially if you enjoy the Souls/ Action RPG games.

    One of the most impressive things about Mortal Shell is how it was developed by a relatively small indie team and despite some jank (which we will address later) it is still a very concise, well crafted entry into a fast growing (some might say, over-saturated) Souls-like genre. The developers Cold Symmetry (CS) wear there inspirations on their sleeves and it pays homage in many ways to the games that has inspired them but not without their own takes to make it unique it is own way. Also impressive is how just how good it looks. For their debut title, CS has shown they know how to use the Unreal engine to make a game filled with impressive environments and impactful action. One area in particular, the Seat of Infinity is a sight to behold, with dramatic lighting, impossible architecture and obsidian landscapes as far as the eye can see. When it comes to visuals, CS are definitely punching above their weight class. The shells and NPCs are well detailed as well, each having their own distinct flair. Each of the three main areas also have some distinctive enemies and a main boss, catered to the area. Equally impressive is when Mortal Shell came to the next generation consoles, like the PS5 and the Xbox Series, they even upped the visual fidelity even more. Mortal Shell maybe be made by a almost indie studio but they delivered a double almost triple A visuals, something that needs to be applauded. The audio is top notch too with crunchy sound effects, well done voice acting for all the major characters and a great soundtrack. The bosses even have special soundtracks done by heavy metal band, Rotting Christ which you can turn on and off at will and I say turn it on because it really adds to the epic nature of the battles. I am happy to say, it seems they kept the metal soundtrack for the sequel as well judging by usage of Behemoth in the trailer. I have played it on my base PS4 but this review is based on my time using my Steam Deck and it looks great most of the time. The frame rate can get choppy at times in certain areas and you definitely need to play with the settings especially when the fog comes in because at one point until I made some graphical adjustments I could not see anything.

    Mortal Shell is a great game but it does have some flaws. The main area which links the three mission areas, Fallgrim is very same-y and lacks any visual oomph. It is very easy to get lost especially when you first start the game because most of Fallgrim has the same look, the color palate is bland and it gets less appealing when the area gets completely covered in fog. In all honesty, I can see a lot of people drop the game if the only areas they experience are the opening areas and the game is very challenging especially when you are unfamiliar with how it plays. But stick with it and you will find a diamond in the rough.

Shell Game

    Mortal Shell plays like your typical Souls-like at first. It is third person, you have a stamina bar, you can dodge and roll and even minor enemies are tough to overcome. When you die and trust me you will die, you will respawn at your last save point and you'll need to regain your corpse and gain back all the currency you had with it (called 'tar' in this game). However Mortal Shell does play with the genre too and adds some distinct changes to make it its own thing. First off, you do not level up the way you do in most Souls games, instead you choose a shell to level up. Treating each shell like its own class, you unlock skills in your shell of choice. These skills are built around your shell too, Solomon for example, most of his skills focus on 'resolve' a special meter you need to parry and use weapon skills, Harros on the other hand leans more into the game's harden mechanic. You are also not locked into one shell and you can change between them at anytime once you find all of them. In a way, Mortal Shell leans hard into a Dungeons and Dragons approach to classes, you choose the class that suits your playstyle the most.

    Combat is also diversified by how flexible it is. Mortal Shell has your typical light and strong melee attacks and running attacks but it also allows you to chain any of these skills into each other like a fighting game. One of the best attacks in the game is light, light, heavy but you can also do light, heavy, heavy or even light, heavy, jumping attack. These combos can also be cancelled at anytime thanks to Mortal Shell's most unique mechanic, hardening. No shell in this game has a shield, instead, you are taught very early on the best way to combat enemy aggression is to get hard... literally. Your shell turns into stone and enemy attacks just bounce off you. This unique mechanic is first thought of as purely a defensive maneuver but with time and experimenting, you can use offensively as well and this is where instead of slowing your attacks down and backing off you use your harden to stay up close and personal. Combine this with a very robust parry system that is not locked to a shield or class, Mortal Shell more like Sekiro and Bloodborne where aggression is key and you turn your enemies offense against them. I called the parry system robust because when you first learn to parry, its main purpose is to restore health but over time and as you unlock more upgrades, you can made your enemy explode in a ball of fire (and take out their allies), freeze time and even unleash the full power of the Foundling in a flurry of attacks. The parry timing itself is not strict and a lot of people who first play the game do not get it. Mortal Shell's parry is more about timing it just before the enemy attacks and as a gamer who loves him a good parry, it is very satisfying when you pull it off visually and audibly thanks to the game's great sound design. This gameplay loop is one of the reasons I come back to MS, its combat is actually very intuitive and rewarding once you master it.

    Another way Mortal Shell is not like the others is in how you use consumables. Mortal Shell's consumables have a familiarity levels and the more you use them the more familiar you become the better the benefits are. This actually encourages you to use consumables and to use them often to really reap the benefits. Again, Cold Symmetry has taken a system that taken for granted and adds its own unique spin on it which I appreciate. Mortal Shell is one of the few games where I actually use 90% of the items I collect where-in most Souls games I just ignore them. These unique twists on a well worn genre is one of the reasons why Mortal Shell is not just a Dark Souls clone but its own unique take on the familiar gameplay of "attack, roll, await for the stamina to refill, attack again" loop.

Beautiful... yet so Sparse

Cracks in the Surface

        However not all aspects of Mortal Shell scream quality and there is definitely some flaws. One of the flaws is its length, the game only has 3 main areas as well as the hub area and even with the runback necessary after beating each main boss; the game isn't that long. The DLC does not add any additional areas either if anything, they simply remixes them (certain enemies show up earlier or in different locations then in the main game). This probably comes down to what was do-able with such a small team but a even bigger issue is that some areas feel empty. Even through I sang it praises earlier in this review, certain parts of the Seat of the Infinity is purely there just to be there and there is some empty spaces filled with no enemies or anything of importance. In a way, it kind of reminds me of the later parts of the original Dark Souls; which was also lacking in polish compared to the earlier areas (Undead Burg vs Lost Izalith). The enemy variety also takes a hit with certain areas sharing the same enemy type but with different outfit and the mini-bosses being either reskinned Grishas or regular enemies with boss health bars. During the fog events which happens during the mandatory runback after beating major bosses, all enemies are also replaced with one of the most annoying enemies and Grishas which isn't that thrilling. Speaking of the fog runback, it does artificially extend the length of the game and is kind of tedious (especially on the second or third time it happens) it is at least not egregious like it was in Ghost Song, where it was just too long.

    A couple of minor flaws is the DLC weapon, the axetana (a transforming axe/ katana) has a very flawed weapon skill for the katana which cause you to get stuck in terrain and you have to use the skill again to get loose or quit out and originally the axe weapon skill would get you stuck on top of enemies and other jank so you could tell it was not fully tested (that and the fact the katana's running attack is kind of OP). Also for some strange reason, your character does not have invincible frames when you exit the traversal tunnels (which this game has plenty of) which is a massive oversight and was never patched out surprisingly. Enemies can also get a bit glitched when they are killed by the range weapon the aptly named 'Ballistazooka' and just bad collision with enemies and the arenas. Nothing horrible but it is definitely noticeable and has never been fixed despite update patches. What however can not be excused is the final boss. This final boss is a spectacle and its arena is impressive but the battle itself is a battle of patience and frustration. They have way too much health and even with a maxed out weapon takes forever to die (especially compared to every other boss) and said boss even has a mechanic where it can heal themselves to prolong the fight even more. This boss is so frustrating to fight against I try to avoid the battle for as long as humanly possible and during my no-shell run, where one hit can kill I became so very frustrated fighting them. This boss is so badly designed and the fact you need to fight him no matter what (at least in the main game) almost dropped this game's final ranking from the highest rank RAVE to the second highest rating which is Rave (not all Caps). Yes, they are that annoying to fight. However, this final battle and even some other flaws are rectified in this game's well thought-out DLC 'The Virtuous Cycle'.

Ouroboros

    The Virtuous Cycle is Mortal Shell's only DLC but if you enjoyed Mortal Shell, it is an essential purchase. Taking the best parts of the game; it re-imagines it as a rogue-lite ala Hades and becomes a endlessly re-playable mode with some new elements. Death is now permanent and their is no respawning and like all good rogue-lites, it has meta progression and it encourages you to keep going. It also adds Hadern, the foreboding weapon master as a playable character with a variable skill kit where he can draw from any other shells abilities and mix and match them and is easily the most strongest shell when mastered. Also added is the aforementioned axetana which is 2 weapons in one ala Bloodborne's trick weapons and a brand new NPC, the twin sister of the Foundling who provides more lore and a little bit of snark as well: "do you think you can just... git gud?"  is one of my favorite lines from her. Hadern and axetana are also available in the main game too now as well which is nice.

    This mode also does away with the regular healing items and instead has power up pillars which gives you a variety of skills to choose from and allows you to make your own class/ build as well as heal you too. You can also heal via picking up consumables and you can still use your parry to siphon back health too. Each run is randomized as well so each run should be unique in their own special way. Unexpected enemies show up in unexpected places and another cool addition is that the alternate colors/ shades can be earned through completing in-game tasks now and they all have some pro and cons for using them (unlike in the main game where its just simply for aesthetics). There is also a on-going progression unlocks which you can upgrade over time to make runs easier. Again, this mode draws heavily from Hades but again like how it showed homage to Dark Souls in the main game with its own spin, they do the same in this mode as well. Nothing beats the feeling of a later Virtuous Cycle run where your roll not only freezes enemies in their place but you can also roll twice as far combined with near infinite stamina. Like all good rogue-lites when your character gets strong, nothing can stop them.

    Mortal Shell is already a shorter game so turning it into a rogue-lite is something that was do-able without changing too much of its core DNA. If anything, it is streamlined even more and two of the main annoyance in the main game, the backtracking after killing a major boss and the final boss are both removed and in place of the final boss, we have a much more challenging but much better battle which I will not spoil (despite the game being 5 yrs old now). The irony is this game mode is Elden Ring Nightreign before Nightreign was even a thing. A souls rogue-lite? Yeah, we already did that Cold Symmetry said. All in all, the Virtuous Cycle adds even more re-playability to a game that was already fun to play.

Immortal Souls

    I was inspired to play Mortal Shell again and write this review because the Mortal Shell 2 trailer really got me excited and reminded me how much I enjoyed playing it the first time. As I played it again I was quickly reminded how much I enjoyed it and it actually inspired me to 100% it this time so with no qualms I locked in and got to it. Some of the achievements like the no shell run were some real challenges but here is the thing. I love most of the experience (with the exception of fighting the final boss... they can go to Hell) and I only really want to 100% a game if it really taps into something in me. The grim setting, each shell's backstory, the Virtuous Cycle's lore and so much more really appealed to me. The combat loop, harden mechanic and parry focus kept me playing and despite some minor flaws, this is my favorite Souls-like. It is the closest to Dark Souls experience you can get without actually playing a Souls game but at the same time, it has its own flair and flavor that you feel like you are not playing a carbon copy. Mortal Shell is its own beast and its savage. I wish more people would give it an honest try because I think once it clicks, you'll enjoy it as much as I have. Also if they did this much with their debut, I am excited to see what Cold Symmetry can cook up with a hopefully a bigger budget and scope. I feel the trailer shows a team ready to shock us all over again. Whilst we wait for that, the original deserves it flowers and definitely the highest rating I can give a game.

AV

LIST: How to master Mortal Shell

 After playing Mortal Shell non-stop for almost 80 hours on Steam combined with the time I spent with it on Playstation. I have figured out some tips I think I would like to share with anyone whom is interested in playing it before the sequel (like how I am). I have looked at a lot of tip videos and I think most of this stuff that has not been shared. Also I'll be reference both the main game and it's DLC roguelite mode 'The Virtuous Cycle'. Also to maximize your enjoyment you must read these tips with Hadern's voice because hey, he is the instructor of the game.

There will be a test at the end of the class.

• Max out your favorite shell as fast as humanly possible. This can not be overstated. Maxing out your shell will unlock Sester Genessa's shop. Sester G's shop has many great items but the best ones are the 'Ornate Mask' (sold for 30 glimpses) which allows fast travel between sesters, Glimpses of Affection which can be bought and than used by your shells who need more glimpses since your maxed out shell does not need glimpses anymore (with the exception of Hadern). She even sells 4 Quenching Acids in new game plus cycle which comes in very handy as well. The fast travel alone pays dividends if you are playing the game a lot and needing to get back to Sester as fast as possible.
• Speaking of glimpses, the two Grisha's hiding in the fog area of Fallgrim drop 7 glimpses per kill and are farmable. Just talk to Sester G (using the ornate mask to fast travel back to her) after you kill them and they respawn and Grishas are back on the menu. You will get you so used to fighting this battle that they will become a cakewalk. Also glimpses drop more frequently in the fog because you are fighting nothing but Nocterspers aka the sight-less vampire things. Giving Thestus (NPC with the lamp in the tower) 1 glimpse and he can turn the fog on and off at anytime. Happy hunting!
• Speaking of Thestus; his side-quest with his brother Corvid is also much easier with fast travel and a couple of effigy's. You can get all the glimpses possible in one go by doing this order. Speak to him as Harros, fast travel to Thestus, go back to Corvid (make sure you unlock the shortcut for this area/ the elevator that goes between levels) and than use the effigy to switch to Eredim to finish him off. Makes sure you go back to the original Grisha arena for the final glimpse. I got this from the wiki but I decided to shorthand it and it ties directly into the previous tip.
• Always be on the look out for your weapon upgrades, even if they take you off a beaten track. There are 8 to be found, 2 per weapon. Even if you do not use the weapon, you can equip the weapon, go to a tool bench and use the upgrade and you will always get a full bar of resolve to test the skill, switch back to your preferred weapon but you keep the full resolve bar. Helpful if you are about to go into a boss battle.
• For the Virtuous Cycle DLC, once you find a useful seed, abuse it. Seed numbers can be found in the cycles' start menu on the third page (Statistics) and can be typed in on the second page (Settings). Good seeds are seeds which spawn you close to boss arenas for certain shell challenges, seeds where the level up towers are close by or they give you useful perks. I found one seed which I abused because it kept giving me a lot of strength power ups for the Foundling and because of it I was able to do the no shell run in VC after a couple tries. Sure, using seeds removes the random element of a roguelite BUT a win is a win. You also need to fight a certain sequence of the last bosses to unlock one of the achievements too and this is made much easier with a pre-set seed.
• Also related to the Virtuous Cycle, path-ing matters. If you are using the seed tip I mentioned above, most areas will drop the same upgrades/ perks in the same area so you can formulate your 'build' much easier.
• Finally, lutes take on a different use in the Virtuous Cycle, even the simple one at 25,000 tar can heal you 3 times before it breaks and it uses resets every run. The healing is slow but one of the things that drives me crazy in VC is how poison acts. Because antidotes are no longer useable, sometimes you will die a slow death from poison. If you use the lute as you are poisoned, it will counteract the poison damage until the poison runs it course. Just make sure you do it somewhere away from enemies. I have not unlocked the higher tier lutes yet so it'll be interesting if those one have secondary benefits too. EDIT: The other lutes do have secondary effects. The second most expensive lute at 50,000, the Impervious Lute makes you invulnerable to staggering for 2 minutes as well as give you +30 max stamina. The most expensive one at 75,000, the Clockwork Lute gives you your extra life back aka 'Endless Unborn' if you have already been knocked out of your shell. This lute breaks after 1 use tho and at 75,000 is an expensive way to stay alive. I feel 'Endless Unborn' shows up a lot if you focused on Improved Last Chance in the Runic Gate so the other two lutes are much more useful I feel.

I hope you enjoy some quick tips to help you master Mortal Shell! I still have a long review planned for this game and it should be coming out soon.

AV

PIT STOP: These achievement were HARD -- Mortal Shell

     

    Bringing back PIT STOPs with a purpose, this PIT STOP will tie in directly with my upcoming Mortal Shell review (stay tuned for that). Along the way I've been achievement hunting which is what I normally do when I really love a game. Because of that, I went and ahead and achieved an achievement (say that last sentence three times fast) that I have not even did previously and I have played this game on PS4 and now Steam multiple times and conquered it many times as well.

    This time, without making anymore excuses I was going to do the no shell/ Foundling run. And after my first couple fails and especially dying against a mini-boss that I normally 'farm' for currency I was beginning to doubt if it was possible. One thing did give me pause through, with this achievement you can die as much as you like so with that in mind, I believed it was doable.

    

    Now one of the cool benefits of trying this challenge was I was able to kill two birds with one stone. I was able to get the 'Forever Alone' achievement by staying in the Foundling form and I could get the 'Life is Suffering' achievement by using the Obsidian form (thankfully in the regular game the Obsidian form is just a different skin more on that later). Once I realized due to the Foundling's abnormal sized stamina bar, I was able to spam dodge my way through most areas and on top of that, I was even able to skip some mini bosses as well. The only ones I did fight was because they blocked my progress so Imrod, Tarsus, Crucix, both Grishas (imprisoned and the regular one) and of course, ol' the Unchained.

    I skipped picking up 92% of the items and focused on just upgrading my Hallowed Sword to max because most of them are pointless to the Foundling. I did kill Hadern 3 times to get the three main weapons tho but I did that for a different reason. You see, having multiple weapons and finding their special skill upgrades and upgrading said weapons give you resolve (the meter you need for parries and special attacks) and I need as much of that as I could get.

HARD MODE UNLOCKED

    

    The run was going pretty well until out of all bosses Tarsus was giving me a hard time. The hilarious thing is Tarsus is arguably my favorite boss to fight in the game but he was giving me a run for my money especially because his frost attacks which only does minor damage to a regular shell but insta kills the Foundling form (like everything else, looking at you, you dumb poison frogs). That however was not the end of my suffering. Right after Tarsus I went back to home base and fought the final boss, the Unchained. As I was elaborate more in my upcoming full review, the Unchained is my least favorite boss in any Souls-like... not just this game. ANY Souls-like.

    After a grueling war where I not only had to deal with my least favorite boss with no safety nets and no way to cheese it (witness Ongal take down of him, it is amazing) plus real life issues like worrying about my dog and her health, after 5-6 hours of countless attempts I finally did it (perfectly timed with me being able to bring my dog home from the vet). One of the hardest achievements I have ever attempted and I did it.

Now... the next logical step. To do it again but in the Virtuous Cycle rogue-lite mode where the Obsidian shell has drawbacks as well as when you die, you die for good. The thing is, I need to do it because I need this achievement (named 'No Lifer' unironically) to get my 100% for Mortal Shell.

Wish me luck.

AV

The Road to Cloudale: Look how far We have come.

     For a brief minute, I was going to create a new blog for this entry, separate from my Rants & Raves one but I decided that I no longer need to separate myself from myself. I play video games and love to talk about it, I love a variety of television shows, films and comic books and I love to read and write. I am all of these things so if you are on my personal blog, you should get all of these things.

    In the last month I have decided to dig back into writing again seriously. I always had this story gestating in my brain (as you will soon see) and I kept telling myself, one day I would write it, one day I will put pen to paper and tell their story and breathe life into these characters who have lived rent free in my head for decades. I kept delaying it by saying, I can't write something of this scope so early in my writing career and it would take time but I realized as the years go by I am not getting any younger. I kept making it a mystical undertaking, like climbing Mount Everest and I was at the bottom of the summit. However I realized that this undertaking can not be done if I do not start taking steps.

    So I have been using tools I did not have when I was much younger Phillip. I started looking up free writer resources on Youtube to help me put my ideals more into a manageable pile. I have use AI to clean up something I always felt was one of my bigger flaws when writing which is sentence structure and speaking in the right tense. I have even used modern technologies so my teaser images I used to create now look much more professional and polished as you see above and it does not stop there. 

    When I am done with the writing, I hope to even get into the world of self publishing and I no longer feeling I need a big public backing and resources to get my ideas out there like I did in the past. With all the tools available to writers these days, becoming a published author should not be as daunting as it used to be. In the same vein as new hip-hop stars are now being found on soundcloud I want to use modern delivery systems to get my voice out there. I just want to tell stories.

    Tying into a lot of what I just mentioned about how long this story has been rattling inside my head and how modern technology can update my vision I present to you the original teaser for Cloudale. Sadly I no longer have the original file and Blogger does not allow me to repost a previous blog (weird that) so I just upload the link to it.

Signposts

    This blog was written back in 2009. It is now 2025 and the roadblocks have been removed, the street lights have been turned back home and a familiar homestead (at least to me) has placed down its welcome mat.

All Roads lead to Cloudale... again.

AV

Lets Talk about: Tokon Shell Invasions

     Originally I planned this to be a PIT STOP but I've been telling myself PIT STOP blog posts should have more uniformity and should be talking about an upcoming RAVE, RAVE or LIST like how I used to use them. As of late I've been using PIT STOP as a generic catch all blog post and I feel I can just post a blog without a subtitle and be fine. So this blog post is one of them catch all and I just want to talk about all these big game announcements especially the ones who have caught my eye.

    Marvel's Cosmic Invasion was announced previously but they have now announced two new characters to the roster and both are pretty good choices. We now have She-Hulk (looking more like her Immortal self aka the ultra buff one) and Rocket Racoon. RR make sense because it looks like the guys at DotEmu are focusing on cosmic side of Marvel and RR is one of the breakout characters from the Guardians of the Galaxy. Also with Jonathan Hickman's big summer event for Marvel 'Imperial' (which you know I am super excited for) on the horizon it make sense for them to lean into that upcoming storyline as well and I know the Hulks will play a role in that as well.

Hickman writing Hulks AND Black Panther? Say Less.

     The game itself looks very fun. I know DotEmu and Tribute has resurrected the beat'em up genre with Streets of Rage 4 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so to see their take on a Marvel license really excites me. I loved playing beat 'em ups growing up with Final Fight, Streets of Rage 1 to 3, Capcom Alien vs Predator and countless others dominating my childhood. I have waited a long time for a game like this and to see a roster already filled with big names like Captain America alongside lesser knowns like Quaser/ Phyla-Vell (rest in peace to her co-creator Peter David) excites me to what possibilities this game holds. I think the last Marvel game that explore the cosmic side of Marvel was that really, really bad Marvel Galactic Storm fighting game (and I use the word fighting very loosely) so to see gaming companies willing to explore this side of Marvel and make it a beat' em up is 100% up my alley. Speaking of up my alley, lets talk about Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls.

    Beside the unique name, this game speaks to me in every possible way. I have made it no secret that I have slowly fallen out of love with the fighting game genre especially with all the new versions of the games I used to play really not resonating with me (looking at you Tekken 8 and Mortal Kombat One) but I do enjoy playing the occasional anime fighter by French Bread or Arc System Works. BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle was my jam for a month or so and I still like to much around in UNI2 when I get bored. However one of my favorite games to just muck around in was Capcom's Marvel games. X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men vs Street Fighter and Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 are all games I loved playing so to see a new Marvel versus game was already a win for me. However to see it done by Arcsys who has been on a role with Guilty Gear Strive, DragonBall Fighter Z and GranFantasy Versus at the helm and them being told to explicitly to do it in their 'style' is the icing on the cake. This game looks AMAZING and the 4 on 4 battles looks like chaos but in the best way. Also say what you want about Arcsys' game design and dumbing down fighting game complexity their art design is second to none. I mean look at this.

Oh...My...Goddess

    Also just like Cosmic Invasion I am loving the character roster picks so far. Of course we have the heavy hitters and popular choices like Iron Man and Doctor Doom but Ms. Marvel, Storm and Robbie Reye's Ghost Rider all speak to them pulling from all corners of the Marvel universe. Also I know I am not the only one thinking in a 4 v 4 game and Marvel's Fantastic Four (important to note, not Fox's Fantastic Four... Marvels) coming out soon could we have all 4 Fantastic Four characters on one team? How amazing would that be? Also just putting it out there, I was never a fan of Marvel having to share half of the roster with Capcom characters in the Versus series. I am 100% a dye in the wool Marvel fan and I enjoy some Capcom games but not all of them so to have a Versus game with only Marvel characters is a dream come true. I said it in my UPDATE a couple days ago and on twitter that I think this might be the game that gets me back into fighting games again and make want to start going to tournaments again as well.

    My final game that I HAVE to talk about is Mortal Shell II.

    As one of my favorite Souls-likes, Mortal Shell has a space in my heart. I think it ranks up there with the Surge 2 as my favorite non Fromsoft action RPG. I played the heck out of it on PS4 and even double dipped when it was on sale on Steam as well. The Virtuous Cycle DLC which did the Souls-like as  Roguelite before Nightreign was even a thought in From's mind is also exceptional and I dedicated a lot of time to that as well. I even watched the Virtuous Cycle trailer recently and thought to myself, man, I would love a sequel and lo and behold, here it is. I am loving the tone, the fact they kept the aesthetic (which I realize now the new Lords of Fallen whole ass stole their drip) and the heavy metal OST and if anything they have amped it up. The trailer showed off some brutal finishers, new long range weapon options and a much bigger scope than the previous game but at its core, it is still the Mortal Shell I feel in love with. The characters/ shells are back and it appears they have added some other shells to occupy. Also is that Sester Genessa getting her hands dirty in some of the footage? 

Maybe a different mode where you use Sester and guns only?

    I am super excited and it appears you can sign up for a beta which will be playable in 2026 which means they are getting closer to releasing it. If anything, seeing Mortal Shell again makes me want to play the original again and get the 100% trophy like I did with the Surge games. I'll probably even write a RAVE for it after my replay similar to how I did one for Puzzle Quest Galactrix.

    So yeah, those are my thoughts for now. I saw some other cool announcements but these 3 are the ones that peak my attention the most and I just had to talk about them. I think these 3 games are the most excited I have been for new games in the last couple months and the first games that make me consider updating my hardware because I feel Mortal Shell II might need it and the first fighting game in a long time that actually has me wanting to compete again.

AV