It's fitting that "Mortal Shell" gets under someone else's skin, as it shamelessly parades the epidermis of "Dark Souls". Most "soul-likes," be it the industrial horror of "Surge" or the cyberpunk fantasy of "Hellpoint," at least try to dress differently. Mortal shells are different. Dressed in dyed plate armor, with a great sword slung over his shoulder, he stands proudly, screeching, "Come at me, brother."

It's a near-madness of courage to ape so directly one of the most acclaimed games of the past decade, but for a game designed by just 15 people, "Mortal Shell" could pass for a From Software nightmare dojo. It understands the appeal of "Souls" that many imitators don't, while making just enough changes to give it its own personality.

In Mortal Shell, set in the tragic fantasy world of Fallgrim, players are spawned from the abyssal plain as nameless, skeleton-like creatures for an opaque purpose. In fact, little is known about the world of Mortal Shell. Long in decline, it is a place so starved of meaning and significance that memory itself has become a scarce commodity. The only thing that is clear is that a giant trapped in a tower asks you to retrieve three "sacred glands" containing a sacred substance known as nectar from different parts of the world. If you give him the glands, he will give you power in return.

All you need is that power. All manner of nasty denizens roam Fallgrim, from club-wielding bandits to tongue-tied giants who will try to smash you to pieces with their Mjolnir-like hammers. Some of the enemy designs are superb. One I particularly enjoyed was the shuffling zombies, pinned up with swords. Not only do they pull out these swords and hurl them in extremely dire ways, but they react even more dramatically as they approach death, making them tricky to kill without taking damage.

Combat is, as one would expect from this type of game, a mixture of light and heavy attacks, blocking, dodging, and getting your shit kicked in. However, there are a few key differences that, when combined, have a significant impact on the flow of the combat. The first of these is right in the title of the game. You are born looking like a skeleton, but you are as sturdy as a cardboard box in a tsunami. Luckily, the world is littered with corpses, deceased warriors who, once discovered, can be possessed and brought back to life.

Not only are these mortal husks considerably tougher than you, but they also have different combat specialties. I spent most of the early game with Eredrim, a paladin-type with a health bar longer than a sword that deals damage every time he kills an enemy. Later on, I switched to Solomon the Scarer. With a perfect balance of health and stamina, Solomon specializes in generating Resolve and can unleash special moves and attacks (Scholars are known for their combat prowess).

Along with being a class, the shell also serves as a second life. The first time you respawn and are "killed," your skeleton is knocked out of its shell. Once back in the shell, your strength is fully replenished, but you can only be attacked once in your skeletal state before dying. (Other than that, you can fight as normal, and I guarantee that players will try a "shell-less run" within a few weeks of the game's launch.) The second time you die in the shell is the last. This doesn't make much sense from a narrative standpoint, but being basically invincible makes the battle much easier.

Whether you use the shell preferentially or change shells like you change pants, the core abilities always remain the same. Unlike Dark Souls, the Mortal Shell has no block button. Instead, there is the "Harden" ability, which turns you to stone and temporarily deflects all damage. While this may sound like a pretentious block, there are several important differences. First, hardening does not consume stamina, but it is temporary and takes a few seconds to recharge after use. Second, one can "harden" at any time during combat, even in the middle of a dodge or attack. This can be used to feint, wrap around an attack to make it easier to land, or to prevent damage from an enemy counter.

Hardening is Mortal Shell's most unique combat feature, but not its most important; the most drastic change to Mortal Shell's Souls method is the absence of the Estus Flask. There are pickups that, directly or indirectly, provide health when consumed. However, the primary method of regaining health in combat is parry. If equipped with a special talisman, the enemy can be temporarily stunned by deploying the talisman at the appropriate time during certain attacks. It is also possible to perform a special repost, which reduces the opponent's strength back to one's own, as long as one's own strength remains.

Initially, the lack of an Estus Flask makes "Mortal Shell" tougher than "Dark Souls" because you have to master the tricky technique of effective parry. This is because the only way to master effective parry is to master effective parry. The parry window is small, and many of the enemy attacks are designed to throw off your timing. However, once you get into a rhythm of solidifying, parrying, and dodging, you can not only survive Mortal Shell's enemies, you can annihilate them. My opponent took advantage of an opening and drained me of my strength. No problem. Just stand your ground, wait for the attack, and siphon off their strength like a delicious blood milkshake. This is very satisfying and creates a thrilling back-and-forth in each individual run. Just when you feel like you are on the verge of extinction, you can crawl back up with a few deft catches and make it to the next checkpoint.

These three elements (parry, hardening, and shell type) bring a wonderful dynamism to Mortal Shell's combat, and as a result, it definitely scratches the Dark Souls itch. Everything else about the game is decent, but could be better. For example, when it comes to locations and environments, the majority of the budget seems to be spent on one particular area. It's a vast obsidian temple that starts out strange and gets more surreal the further in you go. By comparison, every other location is mundane. A gloomy forest, a frigid ice cave, a haunted catacomb. All are well-sculpted, but in concept and structure, Fallgrim is no roadrunner.

There are also problems with the weapons. In all, there are four weapons to choose from, one of which, the hammer and chisel, is simply superior to the other three. Not only is the concept of stabbing the enemy with the chisel for light attacks and striking the enemy with the hammer for heavy attacks cool, but its speed and ability to stagger the opponent make it far more useful than the long but slow martyr's sword or the powerful but slow smoldering mace. As a result, once I had this weapon, I rarely touched the rest of them, except to see how much worse they were than hammers and chisels.

Narratively, Mortal Shell is enigmatic and fun. I liked that each shell has its own backstory that unlocks along with new abilities and existing relationships with the NPCs you occasionally encounter in the world. It's touching when Sester Genessa, who stoically guides you through the harsh lands of Fallgrim, is suddenly moved by the appearance of a new shell you've discovered. Nevertheless, it is difficult to gauge how coherent Mortal Shell's fragmented lore is. One thing that struck me was that the enemy does not always seem to be well attuned to its surroundings. One does not need to read the lore to know why bell gargoyles perch atop the undead chapels of the Dark Souls, why basilisks lurk in the Abyss, or why silver knights guard the Anor Londo. They feel innate to their environment; in Mortal Shell, it is hard to understand why barbarian-like warriors and dominatrix-like female assassins roam the obsidian temples. At times, Mortal Shell's enemy list feels like a D&D pick-and-mix, cool to fight, but not very coherent.

These are obviously high-level criticisms, but since Dark Souls is a high-level game and Mortal Shell openly invites such criticism, it is fair to make such comparisons. Nevertheless, while not a masterpiece, "Mortal Shell" is a competent fighter. Both its world and its story are fun to investigate, with glimpses of brilliance hidden among the gloomy environment and ambiguous characters. Ultimately, "Mortal Shell" is not a "Souls" game, but it is the best non-Souls game I have ever played.