GAME REVIEW: Children of Morta (2019)
If there’s one thing that is severely lacking in my life, it’s good couch co-op games that I can play with my partner. It seems like the gaming industry has made a collective decision that local co-op is no longer necessary, and that we should all buy a TV and console per person in our household if we want to play with our family and friends at home. Well, I hate that, but thankfully there are games like Children of Morta by Dead Mage and 11 Bit Studio to make up for this significant lack!
So, my partner and I picked this up on a recommendation, not even realizing that we could play together, and we’ve been playing it for a few weeks now. It’s rare for me to say that a game is perfect, and though I haven’t completed the New Game+ run-through yet, I am pretty close to inclined to say that this game is very nearly flawless!
First of all: art. Holy McHell, is this game gorgeous. It’s done in pixel art, but it’s extremely elaborate (you won’t see me doing any pixel-stitch of this game, that’s for sure!) and magnificently colored. The music goes well with the visuals too, meaning the atmosphere in the game is spectacular, from start to finish.
The game is centered around a family of people (the Bergsons) who live in a mystical place on the edge of a beautiful forest, which is slowly becoming corrupted by a dark mountain god, and only the Bergsons have the power to defeat it. Unfortunately, a resurgence of the corruption hasn’t happened in a long time, so grandma Margaret needs to do some research into what causes the corruption.
The gameplay is very much in the style you would recognize from Diablo, which makes for awesome couch co-op. The game isn’t too long, with three levels that have 2-3 sub-levels within them, meaning there are three sub-bosses and one final boss in the game, along with mini-bosses at the end of (and occasionally within) each level. There are six Bergsons and one other rando (Apan) who can be used for a variety of techniques. My partner and I have mostly been using the father, John (sword and shield) and the younger daughter, Lucy (ranged fire magic), though we’ve kept pretty much all of the characters alive and high level with little trouble. Other options include older daughter Linda (archer), older son Mark (close-combat monk), younger son Kevin (dagger rogue-type), cousin Joey (hammer-wielding tank), and Apan (mid-range). The progression is swift and the game is challenging, but not Soulsborne difficult, which is good for casual gaming.
Combat-wise, each character has a base attack, a special attack, and a rage that can all be leveled up and added to. There are also runes, charms, and divine graces, which add various buffs and whatnot to keep things interesting. The enemies tend to come in swarms, with the levels offering obelisks with further boosts. There are challenge rooms, story rooms, and item rooms all to be found within the levels. Sometimes you can find characters who will later show up in the shop, which is usually just past the end of the level, who will give you more gems or fix your runes, etc.
Story-wise, I have no issues with what they were telling, but I was perhaps a little disappointed that my predictions for the story were far cooler than what actually happened. [Some mild spoilers for non-essential plot in this paragraph…] The characters are all blacked out before you can add them to your party and there was one person (the aforementioned Apan) on the left, whom I was convinced was the grandfather, Adam (Margaret’s husband), who went missing when looking into the corruption decades earlier. Since it is stated that he had gone missing and was only presumed dead, I was quite certain that it was the father who would show up in the third level and join the party. He is, after all, a Bergson and only Bergsons can defeat the corruption. Instead, they give you Apan (whose name is even almost Adam!), who is just some random person from elsewhere in the world who wanted to help out and her presence doesn’t really add anything to the story. I’m not sure if she was a DLC character or what her deal is, but I frankly think that my version of the story would have been much better. [end spoilers]
There is a lot of sadness and darkness in the storytelling, but it does follow a… let’s call it a Final Fantasy X-style road of “we’re not going to accept this, we’ll find another way” and I do love that in a story. It’s not especially deep or anything along those lines, but overall, it’s well done and executed. It shouldn’t take particularly long to beat the game—a gamer with unlimited time could do it in 1-2 days quite easily—but we took our time to get to know the world and play around, do some quests, and so on. There are some fun and tragic things you can do in the levels that are fairly random-gen, making the levels interesting despite their inherent challenges.
If there is one flaw to the game, it’s simply that it is still very buggy sometimes, mostly in the sounds in the third area. We’ve had a few frequent moments where the sound takes a second to catch up with us, but last time we played, the audio completely bugged out (silence, followed by chaotic catch-up) and we had to reset the game (fortunately we were almost done that run when it got so bad that we couldn’t continue). Beyond that, it’s bullshit that AOE lair effects hurt the players but not the enemies. Otherwise, I really don’t have much to complain about here.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for something to play at home with your kids or sweetie, or online with friends and family, I highly recommend you check out Children of Morta, especially if games like Diablo are fun, but you’re looking for something a little shorter/more accessible.
