Children of Morta is a roguelike lover's dream. By taking all the best parts of the genre, Dead Mage crafts a gorgeous fantasy world that is packed to the brim with intelligent combat systems, upgrade paths and heart where challenge becomes an increasingly rewarding prospect.
Children of Morta has all the trappings of familiarity. Being a roguelike with stylish–if not gorgeous–pixel art, developer Dead Mage has put itself into an already large box that is brimming with similar games. But Children of Morta is infinitely more than those familiar parts. It is a gripping game that takes the best elements of popular predecessors and funnels them into a tight, beautiful package that challenges players with accessible combat while managing to warm the heart with a meaningful story and breathtaking world.
Offering high praise to Children of Morta is effortless because across every hour spent crawling its many dungeons, I was taken aback. Here is a game that offers fantastic, expressive pixel art akin to Hyper Light Drifter. There were the random, overwhelming odds of The Binding of Isaac and the constant growth in power from Rogue Legacy.
Yet Children of Morta does not impersonate these legacy titles, merely briefly conjures up their specter before pushing itself back into the forefront of your mind. The game bears the soul of the best roguelikes and brings in its own ideas to become something equally as pungent, carving out its own path due to a perfect storm of mechanics, narrative, and execution.
A darkness is spreading across the world and its root, the Corruption, is stirring beneath Mount Morta. Tasked with conquering this evil force is the Bergson family, who for generations have lived in relative peace near the mountain. With a growing threat looming John, the Bergson’s patriarch, and his daughter Linda set out to investigate.
Children of Morta is unique in how it integrates a family dynamic into the genre. When the game starts, players can select either John or Linda who both control differently and fit into different RPG archetypes. John is a sword and shield user who is able to block attacks while getting up close to enemies. Linda uses a bow and arrow, doing less damage but also being able to keep distance from a threat. As the journey continues, four other members of the Bergson family are added to the roster, each providing different capabilities. Daughter Lucy is a mage and wields fire attacks, Kevin is an assassin who can rapidly move and slash with his two daggers, Mark acts as a monk who rapidly uses punches, while Joey wields a massive hammer as a brawler.
The Bergson family are all capable fighters but players may begin to acclimate to two or three of them and have a preference to take into dungeons. What makes Children of Morta interesting is how each of the Bergsons feel like wholly unique characters with their own twists. Stamina bars, special meters, and unique resource gathering are all different or entirely unique to that person in the family. Each member has a skill and upgrade tree that makes them increasingly powerful. One character’s dodge may damage an enemy while another simply serves as a way to avoid damage.
Because the Bergsons operate as a family unit, the gains of one benefits the whole. As the Bergson house–which serves as the player hub–expands, there will be opportunities to invest the currency Morv into universal upgrades. Reaching a certain point in a family member’s skill tree may cause them appear in the midst of battle when certain conditions are met. Rely too hard on one member and they may become exhausted and require a couple runs before they can be used again.
Playing through each dungeon is a rewarding experience. The depths of Morta constantly change as each run presents a randomly generated experience yet maintains the same biomes and bosses the deeper players go. Each dungeon floor can be massive, asking brave players to uncover the fog of war in hopes of discovering helpful runes and avoiding deadly traps. Combat is extremely fast, often requiring quick thinking, relying on skills and keeping an eye on their cooldowns. Many times I would have to kite enemies around long corridors to kill small fiends while avoiding stronger beasts that can dole out massive damage. When they can be reached, bosses offer a significant challenge that rarely cools even after a number of upgrades.
Exploring the dungeons of Morta, I found it hard to resist uncovering each inch. Players will encounter obelisks that offer temporary benefits such as increased luck, a damaging blast that emits from the character, increased movement speed, and more. Run-specific charms and relics grant benefits that last until death. These factors greatly increase the lifespan of a Bergson during a dungeon run. At one point, I became obsessed with chaining together obelisks hoping for increased movement speed so I could rush between other obelisks and turn a Bergson into an engine of death.
The thread tying Children of Morta together is a deeply personal family narrative that follows the struggles and triumphs of grandparents, cousins, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and parents. The pregnancy of John’s wife unfolds as players progress through the game. We watch Lucy and Kevin train outside until they are finally strong enough to roam the dungeons. Inside the dungeons, players encounter rooms that may contain notes or pieces of lore that open up a bit more about the world at large.
Guiding the player through Children of Morta is a sage narrator who speaks over the action with a wizened voice. He speaks with the warmth of a cozy fire, voice grumbling as he narrates the Bergson’s fear over the growing Corruption or about their joy at taking in a stray dog. It injects Children of Morta with a kind of love and personality players may not expect from a roguelike, a genre which tends to veil gameplay with an extremely thin story.
What helps the story further come alive is its gorgeous artwork. Pixel art games may have a tendency to blend together, each one getting lost in their reto-leaning flair. However, Dead Mage’s use of pixels allows each Bergson to come alive, expressing their feelings through fluid movement and subtle details. Monsters are terrifying and the attack animations used to defeat them are equally impressive. Personally, the only flaws I found in the game was that it needed a touch more enemy variety to make its sometimes exhausting grind worthwhile.
Children of Morta is an incredible roguelike game. While it can become ferociously difficult nearing the end of the journey, its use of character variety through each Bergson family member provides an avenue for experimentation and reward. And it’s this family dynamic that acts as the glue for Children of Morta, making an otherwise familiar game become so much more. This is a heartwarming, mechanically sound game that any fan of the genre will appreciate if not fall in love with.
