When first beginning a new game, I usually dip my toes in for 15-30 minutes or so, just to get a lay of the land before starting in earnest. It’s telling, then, that I ended up playing Morbid: The Seven Acolytes, a new pixel art soulslike with serious Bloodborne vibes, for well over an hour. Even then, I found myself drawn back to it every time I stopped playing, determined to push a little deeper and find a way of overcoming every one of its tricky boss fights. Morbid: The Seven Acolytes does have some shortcomings that become apparent the first time you get stuck in a labyrinthine mess of dark pixels that make it difficult to tell which areas you can and can’t dodge to without hitting a wall. However, there are also some things that it does significantly better than other games in the soulslike genre, with its story being particularly noteworthy because of the way it combines abstract weirdness with enough actual information about the world and its villains that you won’t need to consult a wiki to figure out what’s happening.

Morbid: The Seven Acolytes tells an actual story rather than playing coy with its history

Morbid: The Seven Acolytes opens with your character, a nameless white-haired woman, washed up on a beach, surrounded by similarly-dressed corpses. So far, perfectly standard for the soulslike genre; a random character appears in a weird place filled with monsters and despair and, for reasons that aren’t immediately apparent, proceeds to slaughter many of those monsters. However, you begin to find brightly-colored books littered around the world that stand out from the drab surroundings, and these unlock lore entries that spell out in no uncertain terms what’s happening around you. Not only that—defeating bosses unlocks lore delving into their backstories. Everything from areas to factions is explored and explained.

There’s a lot to like about the writing, even if you’re attached to the old way of hinting at a story rather than clearly spelling out the conflict. For one thing, the game’s lore entries are wonderfully concise, with many of the story’s events being abstract enough to allow for interpretation.

I’m hesitant to outline too much of the story for fear of ruining a very uncommon storytelling style in the genre for anyone, but suffice it to say that Morbid: The Seven Acolytes is a game about evil gods called Gahars who require a host, and these hosts—some of whom volunteered because of religious zealotry, while others were tricked in a monkey-paw fashion—became the eponymous Seven Acolytes, a corrupted group of enforcer-hosts the Gahars conquered the land with.

There’s more to the story, obviously, with the playable character’s motivation and the origin of the Gahars being revealed in lore entries—while still leaving enough to the imagination to retain that distinct soulslike feel of being in over your head—but I’ve been waiting years for a game in this genre to feature a story that isn’t a big ball of mysterious nothingness, and I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone else who’s been waiting for the genre to spawn a game that bucks the popular trend of obfuscation.

The game’s many weapons and items lend themselves to completely different strategies

Almost all of Morbid: The Seven Acolytes‘ mechanics will be immediately familiar to anyone who’s ever played a soulslike. You have a faster light attack, a slower heavy attack, a dodge (which in this game also allows your character to run if you hold it down—I’ll circle back to this decision later on), and a block. All of these inputs drain your stamina, which slowly regenerates as you aren’t using it, so many fights boil down to a game of timing where you’re trying to land as many blows as possible while retaining enough stamina to dodge out of the way of your opponent’s next attack. Early on, this is very difficult. However, once you’ve beaten your first Acolyte, you gain access to Blessings, which are basically equippable buffs. Each Acolyte you defeat earns you another slot to equip a Blessing into, and these range from increasing your stamina regeneration rate to doing more damage to bosses and “elite” enemies. Blessings can be upgraded, too, by spending the points you gain when leveling up. It’s a great system.

The weapon system is also a highlight. Early on, I opted to use a large, slow morning star that drained a great deal of stamina with each blow because heavy attacks were often enough to finish off regular enemies. That put me at a disadvantage against opponents who strike quickly or summon magical bolts, though, so I switched to a fast-and-powerful sword called Sane’s Bane as soon as I found it. This sword was my everything for an hour or two, combining a large slash radius with powerful damage and fast-enough speed. The downside, however, was that having it equipped slowly drained my sanity meter, and powerful phantom enemies begin showing up once your sanity starts to run out.

To counter this sanity drain, I had a stockpile of sanity-restoring items equipped and ready to go, but that wasn’t always enough. That led me to dive into the upgrade system; enemies and chests often drop runes that can be equipped onto your weapons (both melee and your more situational ranged weapons), and some of these restore a percentage of sanity per hit. By equipping one of those onto Sane’s Bane, I managed to offset part of the drain and go longer without having to dip into my items.

Even if you end up with a god-tier weapon, some of the boss fights can be incredibly challenging. Thankfully, you aren’t limited to the single-use healing items you find around the world. You also have the Stone of Dibron, which is basically an Estus Flask that can be restored at save points. Hidden in environments (usually in the areas that proceed or follow boss fights) are bodies that grant you an additional Stone of Dibron charge or increase your gun’s maximum ammo. You’re bound to stumble across many of these upgrades while exploring for new weapons or rare runes.

Area design and a context-sensitive dodge button cause lots of unnecessary problems

I have no issues with the relatively slow default walking speed, nor the fact that running consumes stamina. In fact, the stamina and speed are balanced just about perfectly. You always have an option for attacking, but you can rarely afford the stamina cost of the easiest option. I like that. The decision to map the run button to the same button as the dodge button was a questionable one, though, and it causes some issues that become apparent during a mid-game boss fight against a giant toad. There’s a short sound cue before it shoots its tongue at you, and the tight dodge timing required to dodge this attack highlights the fact that there’s a short delay to your dodges that I can only chalk up to the button also being the input for running. Whether that’s the case or not, I had many dodges during this fight canceled despite pressing the button before the toad’s attack.

Dodging feels fine for most of the game, fortunately, but there’s another minor issue that’s more ubiquitous: acidic blood. The art style is every bit as macabre as the title suggests—this isn’t called Morbid for nothing, and there’s a whole lot of disturbing and gross imagery that’s only palatable because it’s in pixel art form—and that means that it doesn’t take much for the ground to be covered in blood spatter. The problem is that some enemies shoot out acidic blood that looks remarkably similar to normal blood spatter, and this acidic variant both damages you and interrupts your attacks. It should be easier to see.

“Should be easier to see” sums up the main problem of Morbid: The Seven Acolytes, actually—the art is very vague about what’s what. I’ve attacked what look like barrels, only to realize that they’re decorations hanging in trees. I’ve tried to roll away from enemy attacks, only to realize that what looks like a field that can be moved through is instead a giant rock. The combination of this unclear area design and a few areas that are designed as labyrinths can be a killer. Both mazes are found in the early-to-mid game and were the only points where my enthusiasm for Morbid: The Seven Acolytes‘ gameplay started to wane. Once you power through them, the area design cleans up quite a bit, with the city and necropolis having an obvious “forward” direction while hiding secrets in out of the way alleys and corners, but the repetitive, same-y mazes were a bad call, and failing to distance yourself from an attacking enemy because the foliage makes it difficult to tell what can and can’t be walked on is just frustrating.

Morbid: The Seven Acolytes‘ art and music is good but constrained by genre standards

There was obvious effort put into Morbid: The Seven Acolytes‘ pixel art, and it shows, but I can’t get past how difficult it is in some areas to determine what is and isn’t solid or harmful at a glance. And even if that weren’t the case, the moodiness of the visuals (which is obviously standard for the soulslike genre) means a lot of the colors are muted. This game’s storytelling might have broken through to the next level, but I’m still waiting for a soulslike that doesn’t have to be dark and dreary. Why are evil gods so into grey and maroon, anyway? Where are the oppressive gods who like hot pink and neon green? Seriously, though—the pixel art for enemies and bosses is excellent, and the art team deserves props for the amount of grotesque detail that they packed into bosses. It was a video of a boss swinging a fetus around as a weapon that originally sold me on this game (I can’t help but buy into that kind of insanity), and keeping the art disgusting and bizarre without overstepping is a fine line that the game walks well.

I feel similarly, if slightly more positively, about the soundtrack, which also excels during boss fights while being held back by the genre’s moodiness. While walking around, there’s a steady stream of atmospheric fluff, though some areas (particularly the gardens area) use chord progressions that are actually pretty good. It’s during some of the boss fights that the soundtrack shines. Not all of them, though, and we’re talking about fewer than seven fights that last a few minutes each in a game that lasted me seven hours. The standout tracks can be truly special and connect with the boss in a meaningful way—the baby-hammer boss fight begins with a music box, while a fight against a pianist’s lackeys is backed by a baroque piece featuring a harpsichord and strings that’s probably the best boss theme of 2020—but most of the game is spent with moody strings and horns being moody. If the entire game had the variance and creativity of the boss music, this would be an easy 2/2, but what’s here is good enough for a 1.5/2.

Story: 3/3 Gameplay: 2.5/3 Visuals: 1/2 Music: 1.5/2 ★★★★★★★★☆☆ – 8/10
*Click here and scroll to the bottom for a detailed explanation of what these numbers mean

*A Steam key was provided for this Morbid: The Seven Acolytes review. It took me a little over 7 hours to beat all of the bosses, but your experience with games like this will determine how long it takes you.

Morbid: The Seven Acolytes review – Grotesquely addictive first appeared on Killa Penguin