Children of Morta is a good game. It could, with some tweaking, even be a great game. But for the time being, itâs just a good game. If youâre considering this game because you want an APRG/roguelite hybrid with tons of playtime, Iâd consider Heroes of Hammerwatch instead. Children of Morta does have more character, prettier art (wow the art), and a more narrative focus- so consider this game if you want something with some more bells and whistles.
This is an interesting one. Itâs a Diablo style ARPG, with some roguelite elements and a focus on story. Most of the other indies Iâve discussed in these posts donât have a lot of sticking power- you beat the games and thereâs little to no reason to come back.
Children of Morta does have sticking power- but suffers from some design issues that make me want to really deep dive it. The gameplay loop is really satisfying and fun, but there are moments of frustration littered thoughout.
The game has two primary modes. The main story- which is much more ARPGâish, and Family Trials, which is more roguelite-ish. Iâm going to tackle them separately, starting with the main story, as theyâre very different experiences.
For reference, I played on Nintendo Switch and on the gameâs âhardâ difficulty for the story, and ânormalâ for family trials.
--Main Story--
You dive into dungeons, explore until you die, then spend your gold on additional stats and do it again. As your characters gain levels they transfer passive benefits to the rest of your characters, encouraging you to play the whole cast. In addition, if you play the same character over and over theyâll become fatigued- getting a health penalty until you switch off of them for a run or two.
When you return from a dungeon, youâre greeted by the narrator who gives you some more information about the characters / the world, and then you do it again.
While itâs neat that thereâs a constantly evolving story, I have to say that I could sure have used less of it. The story is at itâs best when weâre watching the lovingly animated sprites interact with one another- they can be expressive and full of character. A great example of show, donât tell.
Unfortunately, most of the story does the opposite. For the most part, the story is quite literally told to us via the narrator. Some classic âBen felt sadâ kind of stuff. And thatâs... fine? But I didnât care about the story or the characters (who I didnât really know) despite all the effort that went into the storytelling format. Itâs a story driven game where the story feels tacked on at the end and isnât all that exciting. Itâs not bad but itâs not good either. Itâs just kind of there, taking up game time that could be spent on the actual fun parts of the game.
I think the big issue is that it doesnât leverage the fact that itâs a video game to tell that story. Itâs basically an audiobook. The moments that elicited the most emotional response to me where story events that occurred in dungeons where I needed to rescue an NPC character- where the narration was kept to a minimum and I could just focus on saving some cute critter that did the heartbreaking thing just a few seconds ago.
Letâs move on from story for a second and talk about gameplay.
Firstly, the gameplay loop, like I said above, is fun. This isnât a surprise. Games that are part of a successful genre like this one are often fun, because theyâre built on top of a really solid base.
But the game suffers from some serious issues with itsâ enemy attacks. An attack has a windup, to telegraph an action, an active component, and then a window of opportunity at the end. Pre-lag, action, post-lag.
The enemies in this game have very short pre and post lags. This leaves enemies capable of quickly attacking without much time to respond, and not much opportunity to punish them.
The players, on the other hand, have very long windups for whatever reason. Often, in games a windup for a player will be near instant to avoid an attack feeling laggy- see Hollow Knight for an example. Not in this game. This means that even if you start attacking in an enemyâs windup, you will almost certainly get hit and might not even hit them back because many enemies will immediately retreat after striking.
And itâs not just that they have long windups on their attacks. Open a chest? Hereâs a window of vulnerability. Activate an obelisk for a defense or attack buff? Window of vulnerability. Activate your rage bonus to enable your AoE to clear an oncoming mob? Hereâs a big fat window of vulnerability. I found myself not using my rage bonus (effectively a super bar that buffs your character) at all because I would get overrun by any sizeable mob worth using it on in the time it would take to activate. It just turned into a boss killing tool. Unless, of course, I was ranged.
And, let me remind you, this is a genre where there may be over a hundred enemies on a floor. So even though you may be able to compensate for the difference in frame data 1 v 1, you almost certainly cannot do it while swarmed.
And you canât always compensate either. Thereâs a midgame boss who is stationary- summoning enemies to fight with. If you sit in melee range and start dumping damage on them, theyâll raise their hand and then slash forward- doing about 1/2-1/4 of your health (depending on how much hp youâve invested in) in a single blow. The melee units probably need to hit this guy like, a hundred times to kill him- for the record.
The issue here is that the windup (raising the hand) doesnât actually leave enough room to dodge away from it. At least, with my reaction time (which I have never had an issue with before.) The hitbox on the swipe is so large that if you try to âdodgeâ the move as you see the windup, you will dodge back... and still get hit. I found myself having to hit a couple times and then pre-emptively back up just in case, essentially having to predict a windup that wasnât always there. You end up using all the heals the game supplies you to help with the mobs to restock after getting slapped almost unavoidably... or slowing down so much the fight drags on and it becomes much harder to win. And more deflating to lose.
In the end, I lost for 45 minutes then just switched characters and cleared it effortlessly. But I shouldnât have had to just âpick a different characterâ to one that wasnât destined to get slapped. I should have been able to play around the windup. And this issue is not exclusive to this boss. The core problem is the same one the basic mobs have!
In addition, your dash takes time to recharge- and characters only have 1 or 2. If you need to use a dash to close the gap, to say, hit a ranged unit- youâre left with limited options to evade enemies and their very fast attacks afterwards. If youâre out of dashes as a melee, youâre going to get hurt.
This leads to a massive difference in melee vs ranged gameplay. There are two ranged characters, and theyâre on an entirely different level than the melee ones. Itâs not really comparable. A ranged unit only has to dash defensively, and both ranged units have skills that give them very strong kiting abilities allowing them to play significantly safer than their melee counterparts. And since they donât have to close the gap, they have a higher damage uptime too- the ranged characters arenât just safer but they do more damage.
Melee characters end up needing way more stats in order to function because they will take damage. Thereâs no perfect play thatâll let you perfect clear a dungeon- your frame data is too much of a disadvantage for that to be true. So as a melee you need hp and dodge chance to survive, and damage in order to kill enemies quickly so they donât run you over in your range. Ranged units, on the other hand, can invest purely into aggression.
It was about the middle of the game until I got my second ranged unit. Remember what I said earlier about the game punishing you for spamming the same unit? Even if Iâd only wanted to play ranged, Iâd have been forced into a melee unit. In my specific case, I actually jumped around a lot and played mostly melee just to unlock the full skill trees- but the game really puts the heat on the player.
Finally, lots of the melee kits just arenât good without loads of stats or without all their abilities unlocked. This means that most characters you get will flat out suck until the midgame, because they donât have the tools they need to succeed. The monk, for example, has the ability to dash-attack folks and suck people to him... but has such piddling damage output that if you reposition enemies early theyâll just slap you silly. Itâs not until he has access to the AoE dash-jump and AoE knockback that you get the ability to deal lots of group damage, separate the enemies, and start picking foes off. Of course, by the time you have these skills, the gameâs starting to end.
Remember, melee characters become viable by basically gaining enough stats to ignore how bad their kits are in the context of the greater game. That means you start hitting a point where the difficulty of a dungeon is mostly due to how underleveled the character youâre playing with because you have the stats to brute force the gameâs challenges. As the characters also pick up levels and you get access to more and more gold per run, the game becomes progressively easier until you find youâre very unlikely to die even in a brand new area.
So in the end youâre left with a game with a fairly tough start that just gets progressively easier and then just kind of ends since you blow through the third act so quickly. You donât even have time to unlock all your toys before the game is over. And even if you wanted to play another dungeon, thereâs nothing that wonât just kind of buckle over- even with underleveled characters in endgame dungeons.
There technically are roguelite elements to each dungeon run- but theyâre fairly light. You get runes, which are random drops that buff an ability but they basically all amount to âyouâre better nowâ and donât change your playstyle. Some active abilities, of which you can collect two but who knows how many youâll see or if thereâs any real decision to make there, and some more passive abilities as well. Nothing that really varies your experience from run to run- even with these elements your runs will feel the same.
The Main Story is overall still fun just due to the core gameplay, but itâs really just okay.
--Family Trials--
Family trials is an extra game mode, where you play through 9 maps (with 2 bosses and 2 shops, and more maps during harder difficulties) as one of the main 7 characters with the skill tree gone and replaced with a starting set of skills. As you level up, you are granted 3 level up options to pick from- and you gain multiple artifacts and bonuses as you continue to craft your full build. In other words, itâs much heavier on roguelite elements, and has much more sticking power as a result of it.
It amps up the roguelite elements that were weak in the main story- and can lead to some different feeling builds and more interesting decision making. I consider this a huge win, and itâs something Iâll definitely return to.
The problem, however, is family trials also amps up the worst parts of the game. The characters in this mode are no longer snorting super stats, which means the family trials normal mode is significantly harder than the base gameâs hard mode. 5 out of the 7 characters are just bad. I beat it once with the archer and once with the monk, and I have to say playing it as a melee was a struggle. It wasnât strange for there to be 200 some enemies on a floor, with no safe rooms, and they all required something crazy like 5 hits each for me to kill.
So my strategy ended up being relying on random equipment to kill things for me while I just dodged around. On runs where I actually tried to invest in my characterâs ability to kill, it simply wasnât enough to clear a wave of mobs even with all my abilities hitting them for AoE meaning that I was pretty much always in danger of being swarmed by the 60 something units per room. I literally watched my equipment drones solo a boss while I just jumped around the room, because that was just way more effective than actually striking it myself. I was second fiddle to my drones.
The final boss also gets a buff- the three times I fought him they were in floating purple crystals that would fire lasers towards each other in a grid, punishing you for stepping in them. They would also get more mobs.
So basically, as a melee, you can easily get punished for approaching the boss at all- getting lasered, or pinned into a corner and surrounded by mobs with no way to escape. A ranged unit can keep their damage up during this time, killing either the oncoming mobs as they approach or the boss itself, but as a melee you just have to sit there and hope you donât take too much damage.
Overall it left a bad taste in my mouth. Sure, the game wants me to win once with or at least try all 7 characters- but why would I want that? The gameâs just frustrating when playing with everything melee.
With that said, itâs still super fun as one of the two ranged units. So if you treat it as a two character game instead, or play in coop with at least one ranged character (and the other character as a support), it can still be tons of fun.
Itâs not just me. I ran into numerous threads of folks who beat this on the hardest difficulty with ranged units, who couldnât do it on normal with most of the melees.
--Final Thoughts / Summary / Recommendations--
The game has a lot of potential. The upgrades are cool. Some of the kits are really unique and exciting. It feels good to power up and the core mechanics are really fun.
The main story is fun enough, but doesnât give me a reason to come back and the difficulty just collapses. Iâd love a set of âpostgameâ dungeons on a file that just had ramped up difficulty. So essentially what NG+ is, but without requiring me to replay the whole thing over and over again.
Something I didnât mention before is the game does have some issues on switch. The end screen lags every time and once crashed on me, numerous audio bugs, etc., Iâd prioritize PC for this one but itâs still mostly fine on the Nintendo console.
The enemies need to be re-examined. The game could be made a lot less frustrating and close that melee/ranged gap drastically if they just re-did a lot of the enemy attack animations. For windups, you want the duration of the playerâs escape + 0.25 seconds (average reaction time) + some buffer at a minimum. This means they should be at least half a second and often higher.
The windows of opportunity need to be extended for ranged units and hit-and-run units. The hit-and-run units in particular cause melees to have to chase after them because theyâre not even vulnerable for a full attack for most characters. Often you have to just leave them for last because you canât feasibly chase after them in a crowd, like being in the thick of it wasnât hard enough.
Playable melee characters need shorter windups on their own attacks. If I use an AoE stun, itâs because Iâm surrounded- giving me half a second to a second of lead time on the move just means I eat a bunch of free damage from the mob that the move is designed to help me against. This can be compensated by larger post-attack lag if necessary, but itâs ludicrous that youâll lose most attack contests against basic enemies.
Melee units in particular could probably benefit from a dash enhancement. Thereâs an ogre unit who walks up to a player and swings, and leaves only enough time for a single attack and dash back before theyâll land a second hit. And theyâre in the first area. This means that you end up having to strike the ogre once, dash away, wait for your dash to recharge, get in range to trigger the attack so you can maneuver in, hit him once... then dash away. And then do that ten times. For a regular enemy. Perhaps rewarding aggressive dashing (partial dash refund on if you attack right after) can enable melees to dash aggressively to threatening units and still get out safely without having to sit around and wait for a cooldown to engage. In the ogre example, you could wait for a swing, dash to the other side, strike, then dash through him as he tried to club you again- giving you the ability to stay engaged without taking a long break to sit and think.
They could probably use a bit of a stat buff in Family trials too. Specifically where damage is concerned- if Iâm going to jump into fifty enemies and my attack has a full second of windup time I better be cleaving through these guys. Which Iâm not right now, by the way. Instead Iâm just running around laps activating relics and hoping theyâll do the work for me.
But hereâs the thing- these things are mostly fixable. Thereâs not going to be a change to the upgrade system for the main story, so itsâ longevity is what it is. And the main story itself isnât going to change, no matter how... just kind of there it is.
But attack windups? Dash refunds? Thatâs all doable. And frankly a lot less work than the Family Trials mode was.
The team did a good job, and I honestly mean that. I think mostly the game needed some stronger playtesting before launch.
I am a bit saddened to see that in the year+ since the gameâs release, and with the launch of Family Trials, that they missed the mark on the player experience for most of the cast though- given theyâve had plenty of time to collect feedback on it.
My recommendation is- worth a play if you can get it on sale. If not, check to see if theyâve made any significant balance tweaks to melee vs ranged play. If they have- go for it! If not, maybe hold off until the next big Steam holiday.
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