An Average Pixel Analog to Hades
Children of Morta by Dead Mage is a solid rogue-like dungeon crawler. It has fantastic pixel art and sports a varied roster of characters. Unfortunately the game plays it fairly safe and lacks unique selling points which makes it easy to draw comparisons to its competition. Children of Morta has the unpleasant position of being compared to other rogue-likes, namely Hades. Whenever I boot up Children of Morta, I’m constantly reminded how much better Hades is, whether it is with the environments, the combat encounters and the general level of polish. Children of Morta is a fantastic effort by a relatively unknown studio, but lacks that extra level of effort to make it truly worthwhile.
The Bergsons, a multi-generational family, reside on the peak of Mount Morta. One day, demon-like entities appear and start corrupting the local wildlife. John Bergson is able to rout the demons, but notice that their numbers are not thinning. The matriarch of the family, Grandma Margret proposes a solution, to enter the depths of Mount Morta and liberate the three gods who inhabit it. In doing so, they hope the gods will grant them the power to destroy this evil. She imbues the Bergsons with the power of light which allows them to retreat home mere seconds before dying. It is up to the Bergson family to venture into the mountain and towards the darkness to release the gods.
The dungeons are divided into three biomes with two to three levels in each biome. Players start with choosing from two Bergson family members but eventually it grows to a roster of seven. The gameplay is most similar to the aforementioned Hades, with a few mechanics inspired by Diablo 3. Each character has three skills, a super move and a dodge roll. In the environment, there are chests to loot, shrines to activate for temporary buffs and traps to avoid. On each run, the player can find Divine items that either grant a permanent buff or a handy item that can be used once or on a cooldown. The randomized dungeon layout helps keep the game feeling fresh after multiple runs. After falling in combat or clearing an area, players will retreat back to the Bergson manor where they see special events, improve their stats and read up on the lore.
The pixel art aesthetic clashes with the readability of the game. Text is extremely tiny and hard to read when playing on a TV, even with the UI set to large. Environments are hard to parse. It is difficult to tell what objects are interactable. It took me around an hour to realize that urns are breakable (similar to the Diablo games) and may contain extra loot. Enemy attacks are telegraphed, but attacks from smaller enemies are hard to discern due to their low pixel counts. Traps blend too well within the environment and it was hard for me to notice them until after numerous failed runs.
Children of Morta could have benefited from another round of playtesting. The ranged characters, Linda and Lucy are overwhelmingly broken. It is easy to cheese the game by having them snipe at monsters safely behind blue and gold gates. Melee characters have a much harder time, especially Kevin who has a very short attack range with his daggers. The game’s difficulty eventually balances out, but not without numerous level ups and skill increases. I also encountered several visual and audio bugs such as screen flickering when loading the Bergson manor or sound effects stacking on top of one another.
Children of Morta checks all of the boxes expected from a modern dungeon crawling rogue-like but doesn’t offer anything innovative. There is nothing wrong with sticking with tried and true gameplay features, but it highlights the game’s flaws compared to other games in the genre. The game’s readability and imbalance between melee and ranged characters are not enjoyable but instead aspects that are tolerated. The best analogy I can think of is… hamburgers. Children of Morta is like a fast-food joint that makes a decent hamburger but doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself. The longer you eat there, the more you start to notice that the seats aren’t as comfortable, the fries aren’t as crispy and the service isn’t as fast as its competition.
