The family that slays together stays together.
Developer: Dead Mage
Publisher: 11 bit studios
Reviewed on: PC
Code Received
The warm, familiar voice of the narrator breaks through as the camera pans down into the Bergson house that rests at the foot of Mount Morta. He tells you that Kevin, who has the enthusiasm and sense of invincibility all young teens do, is finally ready to join his father and sister in saving the land from the evil that is swallowing it. He is excited to show off his skills, and now you have a completely new character to play, level up, and learn more about. These are the kinds of things Children of Morta rewards you with upon death. Instead of feeling defeated you are treated to a gorgeously rendered, concisely narrated peek into the life of the Bergsons. A large, close-knit family with a legacy marked by conflict, and driven by duty. The way Children of Morta weaves it’s story into and around it’s expertly crafted rouge-lite dungeon diving is unlike any game that has come before it.
You’ll be spending most of your time in Children of Morta fighting through procedurally generated dungeons. There are a variety of environments to fight through including dark caves, ancient ruins, and arid city streets. Every time you enter a dungeon the layout is made up of randomly stitched together rooms, but it does a good job of hiding the seams thanks to intricately detailed art and lighting. The coolest part of the dungeons is how side quests are mixed in. You’ll often get requests from family members and the items you’ll need will be randomly added to a dungeon. This means you’ll come across a discrete, unique room while plundering that will contain a special encounter. It’s a fantastic way to weave story into procedural levels and feels special every time it happens.
Dungeon diving would be nothing without competent combat, and luckily Children Morta delivers that in spades. On the surface the combat seems quite simple, but the more you play and unlock the deeper it gets. As the story progresses you gain access to more playable characters, all members of the Bergson family, that all play differently. You start with John who is the patriarch of the family and your standard hack ‘n’ slash sword and shield wielding warrior. You also have Linda, the oldest daughter, who fills the role of the archer and plays like a twin-stick shooter. There’s also Lucy the fire mage, Kevin the dual-blade wielding rogue, and several others. Even at its most basic level, each character feels unique and competent.
The game really opens up when you factor in each character’s special skills and the random items you’ll find during your dives. Each character has a robust skill tree with a variety abilities and boons to unlock. While most only apply to that specific character, some also effect the entire family at large, reinforcing the game’s themes of family. In addition to the skills, you’ll also find unique charms and relics that bestow upon your character a huge variety of abilities. You can find items that give you powerful shields, special attacks that cause massive damage, and charms that provide temporary buffs. These abilities are randomly strewn through out the dungeons, so they make every run exciting. Sometimes you’ll get a bad roll, but everyone so often you get that perfect mix of abilities that allow you to steam roll all the way to the dungeon boss and those moments are legitimately exhilarating.
For a rogue-lite, you actually keep a lot of progress upon death. Character XP and levels carry over from run to run, as well as the gold you collect from fallen enemies. Called Morv, you use this gold to unlock family-wide upgrades like more health, higher critical hit chance, and faster movement. These upgrades are unlocked through Uncle Ben, John’s non-playable brother, but who still factors significantly into the story. You can also unlock dungeon-wide upgrades like the amount of Morv enemies drop. It’s very generous when it comes to the penalty of death and you always feel like you are making some progress every time your character falls in battle.
Then we wrap back around to where we started. The narrator breaks through with an update on the Bergson family while the corruption seeps ever closer to their manor. It really can’t be overstated how amazing every aspect of this game is. From the fantastic writing and character development, pitch-perfect sound design, painstakingly hand-drawn and lit pixel animation, and finely tuned combat; Children of Morta is a remarkable achievement on almost every level.
