The combat was addictive, bloody and brutal
If you ask gamers what they want from a combat-focused game they would most likely say one that’s addictive, enjoyable and interesting enough to want to put many hours into. Well, that fits the description perfectly of Mortal Sin, a blood-soaked and brutal dungeon crawler, with fast-paced and addictive combat.
Whilst there were a lot of good aspects about the game, to no surprise the combat was the main standout, I mean it is a hack and slash game, after all. What made it so addictive and fun was that it was fast-paced, bloody and brutal. Who doesn’t like a game where you can slice off limbs? Anyway, as fun as that is the variety of weapons and the different combos you can perform is what truly made the combat so enjoyable.
In terms of weapons, each character has a specific one apart from the struggler, who has access to all skills and weapons. In total, there are 28 weapons so there are quite a few, some are definitely a lot stronger and satisfying to use than others, which can massively impact the overall enjoyment you get from the combat. Weapons and armour can be found in chests and on corpses scattered around the areas, some with much higher stats than others, such as attack, defence and luck.
But the combos regardless of what weapon you used were the core aspect of the combat, they allowed for increased damage and bonuses such as invincibility and explosions. The more combos you perform the higher the chain which in turn resulted in more damage dealt to enemies. I’ll be honest, I didn’t actually focus on the combos and instead just kind of randomly kicked, thrusted and swung whenever I felt like it, it was a lot more enjoyable than trying to master and practice different combos, though if you really want to beat the game then I would suggest not doing what I did.f
If you do want to use combos but have trouble remembering them then luckily you have the option to have a specific one on the screen at all times, the auto-combo system is also very helpful for less skilled and newer players, allowing you to perform automatic combos just by clicking your mouse.
Lack of levels and areas left me quite bored after a while
Despite Mortal Sin having many positives such as a wide variety of characters, fun and addictive combat along with appealing graphics, one thing that it doesn’t exactly excel at is the few amount of levels and areas available.
Don’t get me wrong, the areas and randomly generated levels are designed very well along with the enemies that appear in them, but there just aren’t enough of them for me to not get bored of them after a while. I came across the same levels regularly which given I can’t criticize too much since I had several different playthroughs, so the odds of playing the same levels is quite high, but replaying the same three different areas along with that also contributed to the boredom and repetitiveness.
Mind you there are actually more than three areas, as a matter of fact there are six but the last three you can’t access until you beat the main ones, which are the cave, dungeon and forest. You play 15 levels across the three, five in each area and depending on what one you choose to play first will give you different generated levels for each area, this does make playthroughs slightly less boring by not playing the same areas in the exact order each time and coming across different variants of levels, but it only does so much until it becomes boring anyway. But hey, at least it postpones that feeling only if for a little while.
The maw of sin, trial of resolve and the vessel are the other areas available. The maw of sin involves fighting a few hordes of powerful enemies from the first three areas and you’re met with a massive durable boss in the end, if you defeat it well you’ve completed the game, so congratulations. The trial of resolve is optional, however upon beating it you gain strong passive skills and an achievement of course, who doesn’t want a rare achievement? Finally, the vessel is practically similar to the first three areas in the sense of facing occasional waves of enemies and fighting your way through five different points.
Those three areas do add more to the already limited and repetitive levels, but it’s still not really enough to eliminate the boredom completely, but with that said it’s pretty much impossible for a game to not feel boring after a while, though I think my point of the developer adding in more areas and levels is fair feedback.
The amount of classes however, was the opposite of boring
There were plenty of classes (characters) in Mortal Sin which made the overall experience a lot more enjoyable. Having a relatively big roster to choose from each playthrough was really fun and made each one different from the last despite the limited levels, especially since each class was different in many ways.
Each character had different starting stats, weapons and special abilities, and after playing as most of them it became clearly obvious that some are a lot stronger and more fun than others. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing because there are many games where certain characters are stronger or the smarter choice, but it does mean that the weaker classes such as monk are often left to rot, though I would suggest trying each character once just to get the experience of playing as all of them.
The list of classes are as follows:
. Berserker
. Duelist
. Enigma
. Gladiator
. Hoarder
. Hunter
. Mage
. Martyr
. Monk
. Paladin
. Pirate
. Reaper
. Stalker
. Struggler
. Vampire
. Warlock
I personally found mage to be the strongest, purely because of his time stop ability which was really helpful for getting out of sticky situations, especially when being overwhelmed by enemies. It also allowed me to charge my attack which wiped out several enemies and made clearing the areas so much easier. I also enjoyed playing as the pirate, his ability which allowed him to throw a bomb was very helpful, plus I enjoyed his duel weapon of a sword and gun, allowing to engage in close and long range combat.
So if you do give this game a go I would highly recommend going with the mage or another character with a very strong ability, beating the game is so much easier and makes for a more enjoyable experience.
