The Corruption, a cruel and evil entity, is invading the medieval-fantasy world of Rea. Monstrous creatures are appearing everywhere, as darkness increasingly engulfs the once verdant landscapes. This most classic preamble obviously requires a hero to stand in the way of evil and restore peace to the world. Except that here, it is an entire family who bears this burden. In turn (or two by two if we play in coop), the members of the Bergson clan will follow one another to clear the dungeons of Rea. Apart from the forest that surrounds the family home, the action takes place essentially in three different types of environments: caves infested with spiders, an oriental-inspired desert town, and an underground city housing automatons and installations. mechanical. Some escort or defense quests sometimes slip into the random generation of levels, and bosses naturally punctuate each important level.THE BIG FAMILY
Artefacts of various kinds allow the gameplay to be renewed regularly, whether divine graces granting bonuses throughout the current course, rechargeable relics to be triggered at the most opportune moment, temporary charms, obelisks affecting all players for a few minutes, or even runes modifying the attacks of the characters in a more or less radical way. All these bonuses disappear when we return to the Bergson house, but it is still possible to permanently improve our characters, whether through a skill tree that is unlocked as experience is gained, or thanks to the Book of Rea and Ben's Workshop, both of which allow you to improve certain characteristics in exchange for the coins collected in the dungeons. All these elements are not really a surprise, they only confirm that we are indeed dealing with a rogue-like. But Children of Morta has more than one trick up its sleeve...
Difficult to resist the charm of Children of Morta, even if allergic to large pixels may be a little gray at first. Fortunately, the pixel art does not actually lack quality and, above all, the gameplay does not suffer from any flaws.
One of its particularities comes from the possibility of embodying six different characters, all members of the same family but offering very distinct fighting styles. We start with John, the only fighter to own a sword and shield. Linda prefers using the bow, while Kevin is adept at daggers and concealment. Mark lures enemies to him with a whiplash, then performs martial arts moves with his bare hands. Finally, Lucy launches devastating fireballs as big Joey lands slow but powerful hammer blows. Even if some characters are much more agile than others, you have to make good use of dodging in all cases, which makes the fights even more interesting. The game uses a fatigue system to encourage us to change fighters from time to time, and thus make them all gain experience points. This principle is all the more important, and well seen, as Children of Morta offers a system of "transversal" skills. For example, once Lucy reaches level fifteen, she will cast a decoy every five minutes...even when the player is controlling another character!
When Kevin reaches level twenty, all characters have increased critical hit damage. From level fifteen, John will appear to protect any family member who should have suffered a fatal blow. And so on for each of the six members of the family, which leads to unlocking a total of twenty-four of these very special skills (in addition to the sixty more classic and individual skills). Apart from this family aspect which affects the gameplay, the other great particularity of Children of Morta concerns the importance of the narration. While this aspect generally takes second place in rogue-likes, it is essential here and skilfully distilled through many small scenes displayed during the return to the family home. Some come to reward a successful quest or an object unearthed in a dungeon, while others are played over our victories and our defeats. Sometimes anecdotal, sometimes touching, these mini-cutscenes strengthen the bond between the characters and the player, who almost feels like part of the family.TWO IS EVEN BETTER
Thus presented in small touches, the narration also participates in the end in the feeling of progression typical of rogue-likes. It should also be noted that the game is much less repetitive than other titles of the genre, thanks among other things to this scenario which is constantly progressing. On the other hand, the lifespan is not exceptional since you can see the end of the adventure in a good dozen hours, and it will take about twenty to get all the characters up to the maximum. In the hot/cold department, we can also mention the co-op mode, which really increases the pleasure taken in browsing the dungeons, but which is limited for the moment to local. The online coop mode is indeed planned by the developers, but it will be necessary to wait for a patch to see it appear. We also hope that the next updates will also correct the few small interface problems still present.On the other hand, the lifespan is not exceptional since you can see the end of the adventure in a good dozen hours, and it will take about twenty to get all the characters up to the maximum.
For the time being, the game does not manage the automatic switch between the keyboard and the controller (the first device activated remains master), sometimes displays the commands of the controller when playing on the keyboard (and vice versa), is a bit miserly in tooltips, and sometimes gets tangled up when selecting two characters in co-op mode. All this is not catastrophic, but a little extra polish can only do good. Finally, it remains to address the issue of graphics, which will delight some players and leave others much more circumspect. The pixel art used here favors very large pixels, and ignores any notion of perspective. This is somewhat shocking at first glance, especially when the staging dares to zoom in on the characters beyond the default value. Then we get used to it…. and we even end up appreciating the great precision of the animations, the quality of the lighting effects, and the beauty of certain panoramas. If the screenshots sting your eyes, don't get overly offended and trust us: Children of Morta is clearly worth the detour!
