Children of Morta boasts a beautiful art style and challenging hack and slash gameplay that is reminiscent of titles like Diablo and Torchlight. There’s a lot of intriguing elements thrown into Children of Morta and, because I didn’t get that much time with the game, I didn’t have the chance to experience a lot of what the game has to offer. However, what I did get to experience was fun, challenging dungeon-crawling gameplay that really tests your skills and ability as a player.
The storyline in Children of Morta revolves around the Bergson family. The family has watched over a location known as Mount Morta for generations and act as the guardians of this mystical place. After some good old-fashioned corruption spreads throughout Mount Morta, the mountain becomes a nightmare that’s filled to the brim with monsters. You’ll have a slew of heroes you can choose from, each with their own inherited talents. As players might expect, there are heroes who prefer close-up combat while others prefer standing at a distance.
During the demo I played, I got to play as one of the close combat members of the Bergson family as well as a spell-caster. Both characters required me to drastically change up the way I played because Children of Morta is not an easy game and you’ll die quickly if you don’t change up the way you approach things with different characters. I typically prefer ranged characters in these types of games, so I was more comfortable playing as the spell-caster. It’s easier for me, personally, to stay alive if I can keep my distance from massive hordes of enemies while I shoot an endless amount of spells into them. Even if you do encounter difficulties, Children of Morta gives each member of the Bergson family a special ability that allows them to enter an awakened mode of sorts for a short period. During this state, you’ll be able to more easily cut down hordes of enemies and stay alive.
Children of Morta will also allow you to play through each dungeon with another player in local co-op. I didn’t get to experience the game with another player for too long, but we did get to fight one of Children of Morta’s bosses together. We aptly got wrecked. I wouldn’t say that co-op elevated the gameplay in any way — we’ve experienced multiplayer in titles like this time and time again. It’s just nice to have the option to play with another person.
As I mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of beautiful pixel scenery to be found in the game. From the house of the Bergson family to Mount Morta itself, there’s tons of colors and a solid attention to detail in each of the game’s locations. While I only got see one dungeon type, I’ll be curious to know how the others appear once the game finally releases. I should mention that the Bergson family house, in particular, is very appealing on the eyes, and I can’t wait to see how the other characters in the game interact with this location. Speaking of interacting, there’s two non-playable members of the Bergson family who act as experienced craftsmen and can upgrade your equipment and forge a variety of things that’ll help you as you try to conquer Mount Morta.
Children of Morta is going to be available sometime this year, and it’ll be coming to Xbox One, PS4, and PC. I did ask the team at PAX East about a potential Switch version as this genre is still largely absent from that platform’s library, and they informed me that they’ll be focusing on the other versions of the game first before announcing anything else. So we’ll just have to wait and see.