Zoe Fortier
Zoe FortierWarning: This article contains mild spoilers for Morbid: The Seven Acolytes.
Sinking my teeth into Morbid: The Seven Acolytes at the tail end of workdays or on weekends felt like marrying Bloodborne with Diablo. However, it added some new sprinklings that, to developer Still Running’s credit, keep Morbid feeling like its own game.
Indeed, the sensibility of an homage is clear and is acknowledged deliberately in the game’s Steam description. At the same time though, Morbid carries its own sense of mid-90s nostalgia that’s both effective and forgiving of lower-spec machines. If (like me) most recent Soulslikes seem like they’d rather threaten to blow up your computer, or are just outside of your price range, Morbid offers an equally enjoyable and challenging experience at a more reasonable price point. There’s also no need to fret about your hardware.
Equally, while Morbid‘s relationship with its forebears is clear and may appeal to long-time Soulslike fans, there’s enough new and fresh going on to keep things moving. These fresh things serve to draw interest that extends beyond the mere cache of the genre. Refreshing here too is that you don’t have to be a Soulslike veteran to understand or enjoy Morbid‘s interweaving threads. You might almost find it more enjoyable without prior experience.
That said, some of the bleak layouts that give Morbid‘s home location, the blighted land of Mornia, its ambiance take some getting used to. Between color palettes and the isometric layout, it’s not always immediately obvious what parts of the environment are 3D. I walked into walls a slightly embarrassing number of times at first. Fortunately, level layouts vary quite considerably as you get into later stages of the game, demonstrating a skilled hand and eye when it comes to keeping the game’s art style alive and moving.
Speaking of art style, I really enjoy the game’s approach to gore and body horror. It’s delightfully gross without feeling repulsive in the wrong ways, and the “is it intestines or fungus” stylizing is not just appropriate for the game. It’s also just plain fun. Tying well with the warped, corrupted reality of Mornia’s surroundings is a well-composed soundtrack that subtly evokes dread or pitches into heightened tension effectively, and at the right moments.
Pivoting round to gameplay itself, some of the mechanics are a little weirdly balanced. This is true mostly for sneaking, as I could sneak up to enemies who were looking right at me, still go unnoticed, and then one-shot kill them. Equally (maybe this was just me) the parrying mechanic doesn’t seem to respond as intended or in a timely manner. I generally ended up avoiding it in favor of dodge-rolls.
That said, mini-bosses, bosses, and generally more mobile enemies provide a fun level of challenge. You have to be precise between your strikes, dodging, and stamina management. Note, though, that basically everything you’ll want to do in combat takes stamina.
This isn’t usually an issue as the recharge periods are fairly quick and generous, but you’ll have to be smart about it when fighting bosses and mini-bosses. Health management is also something to keep pretty constantly in mind. The capacity to heal is on the limited side, and dying can set you back pretty far depending on how your exploration’s gone up to that point.
Another stat you need to keep an eye on is described as “sanity” in-game. While this is nothing new as everything from Call of Cthulhu to Amnesia and more have done it, I am (personally) over it. This mechanic could (and perhaps should) be better classed as something like “resolve” or even “fear”. It would have the same narrative and mechanical effect.
In terms of combat more specifically, picking up different weapons as you progress through the game enables not just different gameplay styles, but also switching up your approach to combat in response to different kinds of enemies. This, together with interesting creature designs and enjoyably varied boss fights, keeps combat from becoming stale or repetitive. The difficulty scaling of boss fights feels tough but reasonable. It leaves victories feeling well-earned without leaving losses overly demoralizing.
For the sake of quality of life, especially in combat, I’d suggest playing with a controller. While the controls do feel smooth on the mouse and keyboard, especially after a recent update that improved your movement speed and corrected some directional controls, I found myself happier with a controller’s response time.
In between bouts of combat, some of the side quests present in-game do feel a bit like “fetch and retrieve.” In an overarching story that is more sparsely scattered through lore tomes and the occasional NPC interaction though, providing incentives to range afield and explore marries well. The downside of this is that the direction you’re “supposed” to go isn’t always clear, leading to some mildly frustrating wandering at times without much to show for it.
This goes for your inventory too. While I appreciate the variety of weapons on offer, you have limited space available to you. Significantly, I personally never found a shop or vendor to sell or trade items. This essentially forced me to either waste or drop things to make room for new items that I wanted to keep. It’s a frustrating oversight as Morbid‘s obvious awareness of its genre forebears didn’t seem to include the realization that players might want to favor certain builds and sell or trade items that would become extraneous.
Finally, Morbid‘s narrative treads on some familiar ground in its opening sequences. An appointed hunter (called a Striver) is tasked with killing monsters and curing Mornia of its corruption. The narrative direction taken with the Acolytes though brings something fresh and surprisingly empathetic to a genre usually known for being enthusiastically bleak. Hence, I suppose, the “punk” in horror-punk.
The goal of the boss fights, as it happens, is not just to eradicate something evil. It is also to restore in its place something loving and beautiful. To put it bluntly, I think that’s pretty dang cool. All in all, Morbid: The Seven Acolytes could use a little extra TLC to truly balance its steep challenge with the overall quality of life. Still, it offers an enjoyable jumping-off point for fans of body horror and/or players looking to explore Soulslikes for the first time. It should also whet the appetites of Soulslike veterans with its careful balance of the new and the recognizable.
A PC review copy of Morbid: The Seven Acolytes was provided by Still Running for this review.
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🔥317Morbid: The Seven Acolytes
$28.99
Pros
- Ambiance is great
- Wonderful creature design and art style
- Combat is enjoyably challenging
- Fun, creative approach to gore effects
Cons
- It's past time to move on from "sanity" mechanics
- Level layouts can get a little confusing
- Inventory management is slightly too restrictive
