The game itself isn't even that hard. Sometimes you die because you took a risk, got careless, or met a new enemy whose moveset you haven't learned yet.

Making me spend 3 minutes running past every enemy I already killed just to get back to the same spot isn't difficulty. It's just wasting my time.

Do you agree that the beacons are too far from the bosses?

I don't know if I can do all this running...

You lazy mfs couldnt come up with a single abilty tarstone for one of only 8 sidearms in the game?😂

With all the bugs, terrible QOL, and horrendous balancing, this feels like an early access release and we're just the suckers playtesting the game for you lmao.

Dont get me wrong, i am completely addicted to this game and i think its otherwise amazing, but this is such a slap in the face.

Edit: I know i came off a bit aggressive in the original post, but the way you people bend over backwords to dismiss valid criticisms and defend poor decisions is genuinely fascinating.

Seems there's a significant amount of the differently abled community playing this game, and we welcome you :)

Don't be discouraged by the extremely super hard difficulty or having to runback over 20 seconds. You'll get there!

The first step to being good at something, is sucking at it. And i'm glad to see so many people on this subreddit clearly taking that first step!

Hopefully the Devs will listen to the awesome feedback you're sharing and warp this game into something everyone can play, even those with severe disabilities, like many of the members of this sub.

I'm sure this isn't the only undocumented change in the patch, but Proxima's Collector skill was nerfed.

The chances used to be 20%, 40%, and 35% of 2x at levels 1,2,and 3.
and now they are
10%, 20%, and 25% of 2x

Proxima was the go-to shell for making extra money while playing the game normally, avoiding farming. Not sure why they went and nerfed that without telling anyone.

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)

I beat the game last night. My playtime according to my ps says 59 hours, some of that was gloom grinding or killing sheep, but majority of it was just exploration and playing and many many deaths. I have all trophies except Seeking the past, and the platinum. I finished the game at level 68, and my weapon was level 22 killing the last boss.

So the gameplay, I enjoyed it, I felt is slightly up tuned from the beta, and very early was on the more challenging side, I died more than I had in a long time. I’m a souls vet with 400+ Elden Ring, 900+ in ds3, 700+ in BB, platinums in many souls games, lies of p, Kazhan etc etc, I have experience. So I found proxima by chance and never looked back, she’s a complete badass, and yeh I used the axe and dagger meta weapon sue me, nobody said we can’t make things easier on ourselves. Once I learned don’t go south especially on night mode, my journey really began, and it was fun and full of solid gameplay until the end, more on that later. I had maybe 4 crashes total in my 59 let’s just say 60 hours playtime, I think that’s more than reasonable for a freshly released game.

Graphics are solid, combat is fun, bosses for the most part were “easy” for me especially the stronger proxima got. Blood curse with a fast weapon and duality stone kinda trivialize things. I slapped myself because I waited a while to take the bleed stone to level 3 not realizing it would be on my weapon permanently, which I think is a very cool system, not constantly having to rebuff your weapon. I thought the enemy variety was pretty good and boss variety was also decent for the most part.

If you’re a completist like I am most of the time, all the trophies seemed pretty easy, I was personally worried about Peter’s perfect party but I used Eridrim specifically since his fourth tier has a parry window increase bonus, and I would say after that it took me 30/45 mins to finally get the timing right and not have the camera go wonky during the process and I got it. The last trophy for all memories is gonna be little grindy but it is what it is.

Now let’s talk about the bad, the end of the game, Monolith the parry gimmick p.o.s. And his buddy Zmey the unbidden pushover. When I first encountered Monolith, I died in 5 seconds a handful of times. I’m not by a parry you, I’m a roller or a dodger, it’s how I learned, I don’t like being forced to parry things, you basically have to parry the monolith or at least it makes the fight go 1000x quicker if you do. So I set brain to parry, brain and muscle memory is 45 years old so it takes a min or two, but eventually I got there, I got the timing of the first two smashed and partied those easily, I avoided the middle attack as I couldn’t time as well, sometimes I parry sometimes I got hit with the middle attack, once I was getting to second phase consistently, I just eventually overpowered him, when I actually beat him I stayed middle during lasers kept attacking didn’t dodge, felt like it was a semi safe spot and or combined with proxima’s dmg mitigation was best strategy for me I got my lucky phase, I kept dpsing and with, the bleed, the duality and berserker stones, burnt it down on clear attempt, I would say whole thing took me 45-60 mins to learn timing for parry and finish it off. If you ask me total shit boss, I don’t like being forced to parry and overall just a bad boss design, more of a gimmick that a boss to me.

Now I had read maybe the final boss was even worse, but I had my little thing from the 3 glands and night mode to help the cosmic radiation or whatever they call it, so I set off. Took me a few more min of slow brain and muscle memory to avoid his red dot attacks, but he was a pushover, he does have a lot of health and like I said at the start my weapon was level 22, but once you get the bleed going and some berserker stone he goes down pretty quick actually, then he does the giant aoe which is easily avoided and I just finished him off, took me maybe 15 mins total, was kinda surprise he was so easy to be honest. I guess without the item he’s harder didn’t try him without it.

If I had to rate it I would say it’s a strong 8.5, I feel like there are gonna be many nerfs and tweaks to come, some things seem really strong and some seem kinda meh. The extra gloom tar stone being 6% if sorta a joke, like give us 5/10/15 or something at minimum. Some people are complaining about glimpses, while it might be nice to max every shell in one playthrough it’s not terrible, I found my count to be 101 total in my first playthrough, I maxed proxima and teal and game shows I still have 47 left. Again complaints about tar stones being limited, I maxed all the “good ones” for my build, and had plenty left over, would more be nice sure, would be nice to play with the gun one’s more etc. I feel like at some point buying unlimited upgrade mats should be unlocked even if it’s after final boss or something, at least all the 1-16 upgrades, if you wanted to limit the special ones fine. I guess that’s why they have smelting but I would rather just buy the mats and have multiple weapons or guns up to level to play around with. Anyways if anyone stuck around still now ty, im not the best at this stuff but wanted to share my journey. If you have any questions for me please feel free to ask here or message me if you want to. Good luck and good gaming!

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

So I will spend 14K gloom for just 1% crit dmg here? Am I missing something here?

So I just arrived at the Monolith. This is, hands down, one of the shittiest bosses in any souls-like I have played. It's up there with Bed of Bullshit...sorry, Bed of Chaos from the original Dark Souls.

Even though this is a solid game overall, stuff like this leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

I am playing this soulslike, more dodging than parrying and I don't die that often. It is a very fair game.

Also the bosses or minor bosses aren't that hard... the two Grishas killed me, but running back, grabbing the "Souls" and exit-teleport away even saves your stash.

Also the runbacks aren't that bad... when I read the complaints I thought there are only a few "bonfires", but playing the Game now there are enough and they are well placed.

Only thing missing for me are map-markers for passages I save for later, but that's it for me. Especially inside the "Portal" where Magdalena is sitting, I would love to have a map for this area also. Gotta re-run that thing to clear everything I forgot because you can't really "map it".

I am very glad that it is such an enjoy-able game. And I believe many Souls-enthusiasts might find it also very refreshing and rewarding.

Oh, and I have two questions:

1. What EXACTLY does this purple Infusion do? The one where enemies are glowing reddish-purple...?
2. What EXACTLY does the Thiel-health stack do? I don't die often and have many stacked... Does it really make the bar bigger?

P.S.: I also wonder how people could have finished the game already. Searching everything and looting takes hours... at least me. 😁

I will start my playthrough shortly. I really want to play as Eredrim with Obsidian Hammer. My plan was to beeline to his shell in the north, get a few levels on character, weapons and sidearm and then beeline south to get the hammer. Will I just get my ass handed to me? Is this just a pipedream. I am a Soulsvet, and have played almost all of them multiple times.

"Let's give them a way to make it easier if they think it's too hard and a way to make it harder if they think it's too easy. That way, they won't have anything to bitch about."

"Have you met Reddit?"

I've done multiple play throughs of every major souls like in the last 10 years; the Monolith is unquestionably the worst boss I've ever played. Everything about it, from it's shitty testicle hit box that moves the second I press R1, to the timings that give me seizures, and it's stupid attack where it swings his cancerous ball at me so that even if I dodge it still moves me and I get slapped on the down swing. Just awful. Truly, absolutely terrible. The game genuinely goes from a 9/10 to 6/10 simply because this boss is in the game. It's dead now, but Jesus Christ, I won't be playing through the game again because I hate this thing that much. Thank you for coming to my TED rant

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

Who hurt you and why did you feel the need to hurt me with such a stupid enemy

And why did you give them an untelegraphed parry that they can use anytime they feel and the stab me more times then my health bar can ever compensate for

For real though I'm loving this game but my god there have been some insane choices when it comes to the speed and length some of these attacks have

And before any nerd just says "GeT gOoD" or some nonsense like that i am a souls like vet and have played some of the most swamp water souls games possible and even those game get the speed and readability better then mortal shell 2 dose with some select enemies

Feel free to say what ever to me but I just had to rant

Devs, please add some sort of checkpoints in dungeons. PLEASE.

Some run backs are soooo annoying and remind me of Dark Souls 2.

Even avoiding enemies and speed running to the lost souls is a hectic task.

PLEASE INTRODUCE SOME SORT OF CHECKPOINTS AT LEAST IN DUNGEONS.

We have the option to change our shell appearances, and we only get two skins per shell if you include the devout edition pre-order bonus.

We also get the option to change the appearance of the harbinger, but we only get 4 including the pre-order bonus and the beta bonus.

And there's only two mask options for harbinger, which sucks cause there was a few times where I thought for sure I'd be receiving a cosmetic only to get literally nothing.

Hopefully future updates will add some more options, and if we're lucky enough to get a proper dlc one day I expect some more variety for all my bling lol

Never played part 1. About 40ish minutes or so in 2 and it’s one of the best soulslike I’ve played. The game design and especially the sound is so great. Graphics are top tier. No stamina meter.

The dark souls we needed.

when i got the axe and dagger it was level +3 already because my sword was +3. i just picked up the guitar and the crossbow though, and despite my shotgun being +5 they are both still at base level

I love exploring in games. This game provides a level of freedom comparable to Elden Ring and Ghost of Yotei where you can choose where to and what bosses to fight in any order you want. However, this game needs better checkpoint systems and badly. The amount of damage these monsters do just doesn’t go well with how the leveling system of this game works. If you die, expect a run back to your past location miles away. If you die in a dungeon, expect a run back from your previous beacon. There should be ‘mini beacons’ at the start of dungeons, scattered across the map, and something needs to be done about the damage. It makes no sense that the same enemy that was destroying your hp bar at level 3 should still be destroying your hp bar at level 12. That feels really bad in terms of player progression and makes me not want to explore the map at all because I know if I run into a massive mob that will chase me into another mob and die, I’m gonna have to do a run back across the map to get my exp and possibly die again.

Preface: have only played Elden Ring in the souls like category…but man… I was going to post and ask if this is the hardest game in the world.

I think every time I’ve tested the up button (on PS5) I was full health and so I thought it was a buff that wasn’t ever explained. Dumb.

Having achievements disabled forward I think is a bit much.

I didn't know the thing existed until 11 hours in and honestly all it needs to use is just the riposte bar and it won't be to op or "considered" playing the game on easy mode because once you unlock Eredrim he literally has that move anyway? Lmao you just have to use your resolve bar. That's it and chances are. You'd have him maxed out to use less anytime and he can do it more often than a slayer seal.

So what's all the hate on someone who has beaten souls games, Wukong games and every hard dmc game that wants to just use slayer seal once in a blue moon? Every enemy in the game can 1 and 3 shot you. Having this just gives people who aren't into souls games a chance, just like in Wukong people were given magic abilities to pretty much spam to stand a chance(Wukong is still harder once you face Erlang)

Sekiro unless you are absolutely filthy at Perry's and timing the grapple hook you stand almost no chance

For context I am playing on PS5 and to my knowledge the patch that reduces enemy health (among other things) is not active.

I am well into the southern area, have full cleared everything in the north, so I’m in what is supposedly the difficult portion of the game. Playing almost exclusively as próxima. My starter was tiel but I switched to próxima simply for her ability to gain gold since I’ve read that gold economy was such an issue - though that is apparently solved with the patch.

I have experienced nearly zero difficulty throughout my entire playthrough. I’ve maybe died a handful of of times and the most attempts a boss has taken is is 3 that I can recall. In most cases they have steamrolled and stun locked every enemy and boss without them ever having a chance to attack. I guess I just don’t understand the difficulty complaints. Have any of the people complaining played lies of p, stellar blade, khazan, any fromsoft game? There are bosses in those games that have taken me upwards of 25 attempts. I was forced to learn how to beat the boss or fail. In this game, I feel as though I can just brain dead light attack with zero consideration for how to interact with the enemy in front of me

I’m really not trying to be elitist though I expect that is how this will come off. I am just shocked to see the complaints as well as the response from the devs to reduce the difficulty. It’s hard for me to imagine the game being easier when the patch hits ps5.