Morbid: The Lords of Ire Review (Switch)

Morbid: The Lords of Ire is another challenging, intense Soulslike that takes you on a dark journey through a nightmarish world. As you progress through the game, you face off against formidable enemies and navigate treacherous environments.

The game is a sequel to Morbid: The Seven Acolytes which was a 2D action RPG. Can Morbid: The Lords of Ire shake up the Soulslike formula and share the stage with the best of the best?

You play as Striver, a female character set on a dangerous mission regardless of any odds. There are five factions within the land of Ire. In order to progress, you must defeat the servants of deities among five acolytes. On the surface, this is essentially all there is you need to know about the story — it is that straightforward.

Of course, there are other bits and pieces of story put together in the flavor text amongst enemies, items, weapons, and more. That kind of lore would be the type you piece together in order to gain insight as to what happened with the world in the first place… but it isn’t necessary to understand past the main point of the story.

Upon starting, you enter a standard tutorial mode that tells you what to do to perform each action within the game with HUD pop-ups explaining this. You rest at what appear to be shrines, which you can meditate at and gain fast travel options while interacting with it. Most enemies will, as typical with the genre, respawn upon resting there, but not with significant, already beaten battles.

While the story might be a bit generic, there are a few good things to say about the gameplay. There’s riposting, as well as a standard stealth mechanic which involves crouching and keeping low to sneak up on foes and deal critical blows. Enemies also have a “posture” meter below their health bar which, when depleted, it also allows for critical blows to be dealt. If you’re used to the standard Soulslike control scheme, you can rest easy with this game. There’s nothing out of the ordinary that you would find trouble to get used to.

Among the many items you can collect, there are also a list of weapons that you can obtain as well apart from the default sword you gain from the beginning. Upon defeating certain foes through the progression of the game, you will gain skill points accordingly. More will be said on this later, as it is a very important aspect to utilize.

If you are in the mood for difficulty, do not let this game fool you. It is definitely one of those games that allows you to rationally and critically think for yourself about where you’re going, how to approach a particular, potentially hazardous scenario, etc. If you want to play the game solely for this factor alone, then I would absolutely recommend it.

The game does not “hold your hand” whatsoever, making it very suitable for someone that simply wants to explore and figure things out on their own without much guidance.

Over time, you will eventually make it to a place called the Hall of Redemption, which is essentially this game’s version of a “Firelink Shrine” for comparison’s sake. Here, you will find an assortment of NPCs that are willing to support you in your cause, in order to help you progress within the story and the game itself. Many of them provide useful assistance, but one in particular that I naturally found the most useful would be Yan, the Blessed One.

Upon interacting with this strangely tall, pale figure, you gain the option to use your accumulated skill points in order to strengthen your character’s attributes, such as health, stamina, and more.

You will also eventually come across Atoz, The Infuser, who allows you to infuse your weapons to customize their attributes like damage, speed, agility, and impact. From another by the name of Professor Maximus, you gain the Morbid Menagerie, which will give you extra information on enemies that you encountered throughout your journey and more the further you progress.

There is a weapon you obtain fairly early in the game called the Spectre Blaster, which allows you to shoot a gun once you have the required Spectre Slugs, which you can gain more of through item pickups and killing enemies. Other than your melee attacks, it allows you to get a bit of extra range against your enemies on the battlefield.

This game’s unique system is called Insanity. The Insanity system, however, shouldn’t significantly impact your playstyle. As you progress and defeat enemies, your sanity meter can either go up, go down, or remain stable. When your sanity goes up, your experience points multiplier increases, stamina consumption decreases, and you deal more guard damage. On the other hand, when your sanity goes down, you both deal and take more damage. If it drops low enough, you may encounter “specters” of recently defeated enemies right after defeating them.

Within the gameplay, there are also a few quirks, as well. For example, if you die, there are certain enemies that will devour your corpse upon death. You also have different items that can help you outmaneuver some of your foes for a limited time, such as an item that turns you invisible, and as such assists in your stealth.

The soundtrack in this game is great. The game looks decent on the Switch version, almost reminiscent of an old-school PS2 title in visual fidelity. Once you play it, you would quickly find that it’s obvious to see where Still Running had to “cut corners” in order to accommodate for the Switch’s hardware. I didn’t encounter any bugs on my playthrough, so that’s a plus.

There are a few extra things for players to do, such as explore hidden areas to find Easter eggs, which in turn have beneficial items to utilize on the journey. There’s flavor text among the loading screens that feature either mobs, weapons, or other lore details about the world with typically an image of the model accompanying it in rotating fashion.

Personally, I wish the game had doubled down on its darker themes rather than just trying to imitate the standard Soulslike formula while adding some variation. Morbid, similar to its name, could have been something even more unique than the final product by deepening its nature to present an even darker, grimmer world that needs saving. This would have likely given it a more prominent place of its own among the plethora of Soulslike titles, causing it to stand out on a far larger, better scale against the competition.

Especially prevalent along the early game, there is a constant recycling of old enemies that becomes a bit monotonous in nature. You will see and have to fight the same enemies with the only difference being distinctions in their placements across different areas.

The area layouts, especially in the early game might leave you a bit confused on where you’re going, especially with the exclusion of a proper map item that could have benefitted the player in guiding them. Rather, the path is not that linear, so you have to figure out for yourself where to go and whether it makes sense to go down that specific path compared to the other paths laid out for you.

The innermost details of the game can be wonderfully horrific, but a lot of it doesn’t stand out on its own. The world at times can be seen as very generic, and only stands out in some aspects compared to the traditional Souls games. A majority of the characters that assist your cause within the Hall of Redemption miss so much of the potential of being memorable.

There are new characters, texts, and voice lines that accompany your progression, but it generally feels as though you are mostly there to just interact with them and nothing more. These characters do not hold a sense of depth that you would find in other Soulslike titles that expand upon vast and intricate quest lines in order to further a specific goal. They help you, you “help” them, and that’s it.

Morbid The Lords of Ire is a slightly above average game that tries to reinvent certain aspects of the Soulslike formula, but falls somewhat short.

The main draw of buying the Switch version of this game compared to others would be the portability aspect in undocked mode. By comparison, the game does much better on its other available platforms both visually and performance wise, but that does not make the Switch version unplayable or a slouch.

It just makes it a decision for the game’s consumer whether they would prefer the somewhat rare opportunity of having the portability for a Soulslike title like Morbid on the Switch compared to the vastly more powerful platforms. 

Morbid: The Lords of Ire is out now for the Nintendo Switch, priced at $29.99. It is available for purchase on the Nintendo eShop. The title is also available on Steam, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One.