Mortal Rite Early Access Review
Souls-likes are challenging, plain and simple (blah blah git gud blah blah). Roguelites can be challenging (personal opinion - if you are not dying over and over, is it really a roguelite?). How about we merge the two? Challenging game + challenging game = Challengechallenge. 2xchallenge? Challenge Squared? Anyway….thankfully Night Reign is not out for a few months or my incredibly thought out introduction would be reduced to “The next Night Reign Clone.”
Developed by Round Toast Studios, Mortal Rite “is a fast, action-based melee combat system that allows players to trade blows with enemies and rewards strategy over button mashing (from Steam).” To quote Yoda, “Patience you must have, my young Padawan.” The Souls DNA is ever present here but at the same time, this is a different beast altogether. You, the player, must use the ancient Godstone dagger to become a resurrected champion of your choosing and reach the top of the tower solo or with up to 4 co-op partners.
Combat follows traditional soulslike basics. You have light and heavy attacks and the ability to block, parry, and roll, all governed by stamina. If you try spamming buttons, you will just die exhausted. Each character can also equip up to 4 unique abilities (learned via separate talent trees). Using skills requires focus, which you generate by engaging in combat. This is where that strategy comes into play; equal parts soulslike methodical pacing with choosing your spot and equal parts Doom aggression where you just unleash your abilities and destroy everything. Over time, you learn what risks net the best rewards. Unlike Souls games, Mortal Rite has a large volume of enemies with some sections even swarming you. Most are just cannon fodder but they also serve as easy focus generators. Luckily, there is a training dummy back in the hub area that can be used to try out any combination of attacks without the risk of dying.
In the current state of the game (in early access), you can choose from 4 different characters/classes: Shold, Fia, Dawksin, and the Initiate.
Each character can manipulate a different type of matter, which sets the theme for their abilities. Shold fills the tank archetype with his sword and shield and can manipulate rock. The sword and shield can be converted into a two-handed axe or just go nuclear and summon an entire rock wall that can be kicked into enemies. Shold also has access to taunts for when playing in co-op to keep the attention on you. Fia is the caster of the group and can manipulate fire. While not as sturdy as Shold, she is significantly more nimble, allowing her to dart in and out to get a hit in to regenerate focus. She has access to talents that increase the regeneration rate, meaning less time running into fire and more time setting things ablaze from afar. Dawksin is the rogue-like (not roguelike) of the group with fast attacks and movement to match. He manipulates metal, which causes shrapnel to build up whenever he attacks. The shrapnel causes damage over time and abilities like Recall (rips all shrapnel out) or Pierce (sending shrapnel from range) enhance his moveset. The final class available is the Initiate. If you have played any Souls game, he is similar to the Deprived except with a better rap sheet.
The Initiate can manipulate all matter, granting him access to talents from all three of the other classes. Want to summon a giant lance to pierce armor and then light up enemies from a distance with fireballs? Go for it. Based on my time with the game, Shold is your best bet for a starter character or at least the character that is the most forgiving when it comes to making errors followed by Dawksin and then Fia. Feel free to begin your journey with the Initiate but understanding the other classes and their skills makes figuring out combinations for the Initiate much simpler.
I did mention that this is a roguelite, right? Alden’s Refuge serves as the hub and where every run begins. You can choose which character to play, visit the blacksmith, alter your talent points, engage in PVP, or pick a world to enter. In this current version of the game, there are 6 worlds to choose from, with each one locked behind completion of the prior. Progression is saved across your entire game, allowing any champion you play access to the available worlds without needing to start from the first. Whenever you die, you start back at the spawn point of each level. Everything resets (enemies, chests) BUT you lose nothing (you earn bonus gold depending on how far you made it) and shortcuts opened remain as such (they do and do not - I have reached out to the developers for clarification). Returning to Alden’s Refuge though will reset the world completely. A boss awaits you at the end of every world and killing it opens the path to the next level. These bosses may need some tuning though because, by the 3rd world, navigating the area was more difficult than the actual boss fight.
As you progress through every world, you will acquire loot in the form of gold, consumables, blacksmith materials, and equipment. There are no weapons or armor to be found as the talent trees provide offensive and defensive tools. Gold is used to purchase new recipes for the blacksmith and to craft known ones provided you have the right materials. Similar to most roguelites, loot options appear at times but instead of “Throw 50 fireballs every time you dodge” or “Successful parries heal you,” you choose from equippable gear that boosts a particular stat. Each class (not the Initiate) benefits from one of the primary stats (i.e. Strength for Shold). While not essential, it is probably wise to have one of our four available equipment slots filled with the strength item. Other stats include intelligence, endurance, and health to name a few. There are also items to permanently boost your speed or give back health when attacking. Players have free rein over what to equip and can change them at any time (well, opening the menu does not pause the game…). The blacksmith can craft these items, which stack, increasing the value of the given stat. It is unclear though what stacks and to what limit as I was only able to use 5 speed items, but I had the strength one up to 19. None of the equipment is bound to the character, so you can throw it in storage and have another class utilize it instead of having to farm up and recraft everything.
Mortal Rite is a fantastic blending of the soulslike and roguelite genres. The game is in Early Access but the Discord is very active with regular participation from the development team. Admittedly, the road map listed on Steam is somewhat vague, which may be a turn off for some people. For my experience, I completed the game (6 levels and the boss fight) in approximately 5 hours with Shold. The first level took the longest as I had to get used to everything, and I even reset it all just to spend the one talent point that enabled me to kill the boss. There is plenty of replayability especially with the ability to play in co-op. I have added another 2 hours or so playing around with the other classes so far. If you think you would just be one and done (beat the current content with one character), I would say to wishlist the game for now and see what content releases. If you are more likely to try each class, play co-op, or PVP with people, there is more than enough content and well worth the purchase.
