Four years ago I reviewed Morbid: The Seven Acolytes, a really enjoyable and challenging top-down Souls-like that contained some fantastic eldritch creature designs and an interesting range of combat approaches. Fast forward to today and I’ve now finished playing the Lords of Ire, a somewhat surprising sequel that shifts the perspective to a more traditional third person one. Given my positive experience with the first game I expected this one to have plenty of ideas of its own to warrant looking past the uncanny similarities with FromSoft’s output but was this the case?
While changing the aesthetic so drastically could be a risky strategy the core designs are relatively faithful to the Lovecraftian nightmares of the original game. Given the smaller budget and resources of the developers the game holds up pretty well graphically too. The returning heroine, The Striver, makes for an imposing presence whilst NPCs are grotesque and memorable. A regular pattern of finding these in levels before they return to your hub makes for nice gradual progression with the first managing to make it back despite having had their legs and face chewed off by evil creatures. Sound design is solid too with attacks having a decent weight to them and atmospheric effects really setting the scene. Voice acting and music are good too.
The storyline and lore here is pitched somewhere between a continuation and a reboot of the original game. Once again you are a mysterious solitary warrior who must go forth and slay a series of monstrous acolytes to free the land from their tyranny. Rather than a fully continuous world the action takes place in a series of self contained zones that are accessed via the hub once unlocked. This feels very FromSoft and is a proven approach. Areas benefit from some well designed shortcuts and there are many threats and traps littered around the environment that will prove lethal to the unsuspecting adventurer. Each area has a very distinct design – in fact sometimes too distinct as there is a certain lack of tonal consistency here. Alongside the stereotypical snowy and fiery areas later environments take huge inspiration from the giants of the genre with a Gothic townscape that is straight out of Yharnam.
Combat takes a little getting used to as despite following many of the standard approaches of the genre there are some idiosyncrasies of its own. Standard light and heavy attacks abound with defending and counter attacking being a viable approach too. As you progress through the game, however, it becomes clear that much of the combat is heavily biased towards the riposte mechanic. This technique is activated through holding the block button and tapping light attack just as the enemy is about to strike you. Whilst many enemies can be defeated without this it becomes essential later on, especially against bosses whose HP pools are too large to whittle down. The positive to this approach is that it does reward learning enemy attacks and working out the correct timing but it does make mobs a test of memory rather than anything else.
At its best, Morbid: Lords of Ire sets waves of different enemies your way and working out the safest and most efficient way to dispatch them feels great. However, towards the end of the game there did seem to be long sections with the same basic enemy repeated ad infinitum and the pattern of riposting became monotonous. This is a shame as that section is capped off with some memorable environments and a really challenging final boss. These kinds of niggles perhaps show the difference between the solid Souls-like and the games that they are influenced by.
To combat the hordes of vile beasts you find a pretty extensive range of weapons of different types from close quarter brass knuckles to ludicrous two handed war hammers. Weapons vary in damage and impact, the latter of which affects enemy posture bars. The pattern of ripostes does make any build viable in theory but weapon upgrades are limited by the amount of runestones available throughout the level so once you invest in one weapon it becomes difficult to switch to another. I also found the issues with heavy weapons from the first game continued here as they were too slow and stamina intensive to be effective.
