Morbid The Lords of Ire Review

Another indie souls-like?

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Platform: PS5 PC Xbox X|S Switch

Reviewed on: PC

Developer: Still Running

Publisher: Merge Games

Release: May 17, 2024

Time Played: 10.5 hours

Genre: Souls like ARPG

ESRB: M

Intro:

Morbid The Lords of Ire is the latest in a long line of games with the souls-like label, if your looking for a small fix before the release of a well known DLC coming out soon, this may be a title you want to check out. But before you go out and buy it out the gate, let me explain the unique mechanics this game provides and ultimately give this game a rating.

Where it starts

The great corruptors known as the Gahars returned and seized the factions of Ire. It’s up to you, Striver, to go out and bring down the biggest and strongest of them. But it won’t be a simple walk in the park. Each area you need to explore will be full of nightmarish creatures ready to stop you every step of the way. Do you have what it takes to rid the Gahars of their flesh?

Can the kids watch

There was very little conversation in the game with nothing to worry about, there was however blood, so much blood. Every weapon smack causes gallons of stuff to splash all over the surrounding area. You’ll even find some enemies bathing in blood, it was pretty gross. And some of the baddies can be grotesque and frightening.

Sanity

One of the few unique mechanics in the game would be the management of Sanity. While in combat every time you get hit you lose a little sanity, fall below a certain threshold and you are insane, giving you faster attack speeds and making your stronger, at the cost of less defense and experience gain, enemies may also revive as spectres. The inverse of insanity, being Enlightenment, grants you more experience and your attacks have a higher Impact. There are also items available that can manipulate your sanity levels.

Combat:

The fighting in this game is very straight forward. No special character builds it’s all melee, you do have a gun with one free shot per fight with more shots at the cost of a consumable. You manage stamina while dodging and attacking. There is a riposte, or parry, with very forgiving timing, that would send the enemy reeling causing a lot of damage to their balance. If they lose all their balance, they were open to a very powerful attack. If you were good enough could also sneak up on unwary foes to take them out in one shot.

Weapons:

You with have a plethora of weapons to choose from, after you find them of course. They range from slow two handed hammers to fast dual wielded daggers. Depending on your favored playstyle you can carry two weapons at a time for a fast swap in the middle of a fight. They only have a few different stats to keep an eye out on each, damage, speed, agility, and impact. The next thing to worry about would be how many rune slots and what runes to put there.

Runes:

The most fascinating part of this game would be runes found and equipped onto weapons. There wasn’t a stat increasing level system, your effectiveness came down to your rune usage. Runes give an increase to a stat with a small decrease in another stat. After a weapon is fully equipped with runes you could upgrade the weapon by having it absorb the runes and their effects, at a smaller degree. Once completely upgraded a weapon can produce a grand rune with the effects of all the runes used up to that point, giving you a lot of control on how well your weapons help you in combat.

Skill cards:

As you defeat enemies and explore you gain experience and skill points. Those skill points are used on the different skill cards you can find. You can have up to three skill cards equipped at a time with a lot of points needed to increase their levels. These are what you would use to change your build around, more health, sneakier movement, and messing with sanity levels you have some options to play with to build the perfect character.

Quests:

Every boss in the game had a quest attached to them. A big main quest baddie at the end of the areas, and a sub boss hiding somewhere. Given to you by the residence of the sanctuary for new weapons or unlocking the next area. There were very few quests overall, but it was a small game, it helped to give some sense of purpose while traveling the lands of Ire.

Outro:

Morbid: The Lords of Ire was a simple game, blindly moving my way through areas trying to find save havens in between the groups of tough enemies until I find a boss at the end. The visuals give a sense that this is a cheaper game, but some decent work went into the combat and mechanics making up for things not looking as smooth as other games. The only thing that really bothered me would be some of the palette choices, a little to drab for a dark fantasy.

The story was a little convoluted, not a lot of back story, or story for that matter. An old enemy appeared and took over and you play the only person around that can save the land. I wasn’t invested in the story, more interested in mastering combat and enemy tactics.

The gameplay had it’s rough patches with some minor bugs but for the most part ran good enough. Sometimes it seemed like the game put far to enemies in my path for me to deal with at once, but running away worked perfect, and on more than one occasion I wanted my safe spots to be a lot closer together. The long trek through enemy territory was quite nerve wracking when I was out of healing items and a long way from my previous meditation area. The sanity mechanic was interesting but overall felt unnecessary. The buffs acquired were nice but working to keep at a specific level didn’t feel worth the effort, most of the game I state at the default state of mind and managed just fine. I did enjoy playing with runes and weapons however, creating some really mean grand runes that could be moved between weapons made for some very interesting fighting styles I would never have tried in other games, the convenience was phenomenal.

There was a new game plus offered, in a sense. There didn’t seem to be any reward offered for a new game plus, just challenges I could put myself through to play again, like permanent insanity or enemies at an increased difficulty. Same game with the same items in the same spots. I was annoyed by the fact I could pick up a weapon I already had and suddenly have two of the same thing, with no way to get rid of one, it felt disorganized.

I had fun playing the game, but I fear the term souls-like might be used to loosely anymore. I thought I had a decent idea of what made a souls-like, difficult combat, dark story, respawning enemies when resting etc. This game has most of that however I didn’t lose any experience on death. Making death not nearly as stressful as a souls-like usually does. The combat did have it’s moments of difficulty when fighting a new boss, but the forgiving window to parry an enemy and overpowered skill cards once maxed took a lot of that away. Not that it’s a bad thing, it feels pretty good to kick some ass with what feels like minimal effort. Have you played this game yet? Let me know what you think in the comments below, or say hi or something, I would love to hear from you. While you do that I’m going to give you my final ratings.

Visuals weren’t great, but there weren’t terrible either, I’m giving it a two.

There was a little story, but it didn’t invoke any emotions or anything. I could have skipped through all the dialogue and had basically the same experience. I’m giving it a one

Gameplay wasn’t tough to figure out, the only things I would dock it on would be minor bugs I ran into and poor enemy placement, it’s getting another two.

There is some replayability with the offer of a new game plus, if you like the game enough to add some challenges to a game play or have an easier time grabbing some achievements. No rewards for attempting is kind of a downer, I’m handing out another two.

I had fun, the combat had it’s challenging moments and trying out different weapons and runes was great. Overall it was a good experience, I’m giving it a three.

Giving Morbid: The Lords of Ire an average score of two out of five. Placing it at the best end of the bottom shelf.

By the end it did kind of feel like a souls-like hear and there, but didn’t quite scratch that itch. It’s not a terrible game, and you can get it on the Nintendo switch for playing on the go, however from the few people I’ve spoken with they didn’t like it. If your looking for a smaller souls-like to hold you over before the next big title comes out, there are much better options out there.