stunning art and music, but that's where the positives (for me) end. as a roguelike, it's very subpar.

gameplay was fun the first few runs, but then it falls off in the later areas because it gets repetitive. ranged is overpowered. there's no reason to pick a slow melee character like joey or john unless you want to give yourself a challenge. the enemies don't have tells for when they're attacking and have weird hit boxes. if you're playing co-op, lagging and glitching out is inevitable if you're not the host.

the story is bad. good premise, bad execution and terrible ending. it's like the devs had different ideas for the tone and direction of the story, and instead of making a single coherent plot they shoved all the beats they thought of into the final product. following the bergsons is a nice, heartwarming tale of familial love and sacrifice, and the instant you step out of the house you're barraged by how awful the world is. one of the very first events you can encounter in the game is a wolf cub surrounded by monsters who have just killed its mother , and in the last areas you help a man find a new power core to fix his wife's? daughter's? life support machine, only to have her organs literally explode because it's too much power . the game is very gratuitous with its npc violence while also having wholesome family bonding moments.

the ending... the ending is horrible, full stop. spoilers for the entire ending -> ou is a being from another world who lands on morta and falls in love with the goddess of the land, rea. they love each other very much, he helps her with the land and its people, and eventually create the three spirits and have a child. and then ou becomes corrupt because he's jealous that his son is "stealing" his wife's attention, kills (?) rea and his son, then throws the worst tantrums that can only be pacified with human sacrifice. i admit it was nice when john refused to sacrifice his newborn daughter to temporarily sate ou and instead sought to end the cycle entirely, but that's the only good thing i have to say here. until it's all thrown out the window because after defeating ou in an intense fight, rea reappears and forgives him for everything?? and everyone lives happily ever after... you don't even learn most of that until you've saved the third and final spirit.

the ending really feels like a slap to the face and like i wasted my time. there were a million different ways to handle it, and the devs chose one of the worst ones. do not bother with this game if you wanted a satisfying story and conclusion. there's other, better games if you wanted a fun roguelike experience for the same price. 2/5, at least the art is amazing but that can't fix a broken game with bad writing.

Children of Morta is a very fun game to play, I would highly recommend, but with the maximum of 2 players on coop it loses a LOT of potential. I bought it to play with 4 friends, unfortunately I couldn't because the game doesn't allow, so I asked for a refund. Beyond this issue, the game per se is really good.

i'm really not sure what to say about this game, or how I should feel about it. Minor tangent ahead with spoilers.

Some unquestionable pros are... the art style, clearly a lot of detail and love was put into everything. The narrator is a real treat. Character and God designs are really nice. The family dynamics and lore feel real and comfortable. I always enjoyed the small cut scenes with the family.

Cons would be the overall story and some aspects of gameplay.

Some characters are just a chore to play. There's no reason not to cheese with ranged. It's to the point where I'm not sure HOW you would complete this game with certain characters outside of co-op without some real struggles. You can say "get good" but some overpowered characters like the fire girl feel heavily nerfed and can only shine with a partner since she can't run and attack. She gets some helpful skills, but when you get mobbed by enemies it's a slog. God forbid you play a "tank" who moves way too slow to be worth the playstyle. Put him against a speedy boss or fast enemies and it's agonizing.

The story... really disappointed me. It was never perfect, but I was willing to ignore that as long as there was a satisfying conclusion. The contrast between the warm family house scenes and the shocking violence of the world could be described as 'preserving through the reality of war and tragedy because of the comfort of loved ones'...

... but to show straight up torture and execution scenes (which would last for quite a while) and then wrap up the main conflict with 'oh yeah the big bad was just jealous of his own child thats why hes ending the world and having the main family sacrifice their children to pacify him for a century or two but his wife said its ok now so the world wont end no more' was a bit much to me. i have no problem with the violence, but you have to commit to it. Choosing to close with a 'yeah this area is pretty much destroyed and hundreds of people were killed and tortured but all we needed was a little love and patience!' was... a choice.

i've seen some people say that it's just a reflection on the reality of God's (such as in Greek myth) and how little they care for humans and mostly do as they please, but if that was the goal it could have been explained much better through lore beats. Why does the main family have such a close connection to the Gods if in the end nothing they do really matters anyways? did Rea just want to see Ou get his butt kicked and THEN she was willing to stop the suffering? .

It sort of makes you feel as though everything you did in the story was useless. If that was the point, then cool, but make that more obvious rather than so sudden... it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Playing with my friends was a good enough time, so if you just want a fun little multiplayer experience, go right ahead. Just don't bother getting too invested in the plot imo