THE BEST HOT MESS! Ender Reviews: Anno Mutationem
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- Опубліковано 8 сер 2022
- This is my review on Anno: Mutationem. an interesting case study that defines the definition of quantity and quality with a beautiful art style and awkwardly paced story and gameplay mechanics.
MY TWITTER: / galicender - Ігри
Duuude I remember about a week ago for some cool indie games and a few caught my eye. I decided to pick up a few of them along with ANNO: Mutationem. Maaaan I never expected this game to be as good as it is. The world building in this game is actually insane. I’m completely immersed into this one. Will have more to say when I’m finished the game but so far combat is manageable, but everything outside of combat is perfect. The side quests are actually fun asf to play and the main story definitely got my attention. For some reason this game reminds me of paper Mario: ttyd and idk y (in the best way possible)
Please tell me what you thought the story was when you're finished. Because I haven't a damn clue.
Cool review.. thank you 🙂👍
I finished this game 3 times, and I agree with a lot of what you said here. The core gameplay loop in my opinion needs work, as it does feel clunky and inflexible at times. Although when maxed out it is more fun. However if you aren't doing NG+, it can take you towards the end of the game to get there. It's quite basic in my experience. Though it did feel fun crafting better weapons, though that is held back by the fact that the weapon variety isn't that great.
The skill tree is ok, but it's nothing to write home about. The entire "basic" branch of the skill tree is basically: "increase your health by this much", "increase inventory space", "Increase damage", "receive more money on Christmas if it's a Tuesday." I did like the upgrades you can get through the expertise branches though, since some give you new moves. I get that some moves are less optimal than others, but the more things I can play around with the more fun I can have. I just don't like it when skill tree upgrades focus on stat increments rather than adding cool mechanics or upgrading existing mechanics.
Regarding story and characters, idk if this is an unpopular opinion, but Ayane carries the game in this department. I get people find her annoying, but I don't mind her. She actually has a personality. I enjoyed hearing her comment about the world as we're exploring it. Ann's personality is just too basic for me. Her interactions with Ayane were the highlights of the story for me in terms of the characters, because we get to see how they feel about eachother and what their relationship is like. Unfortunately I didn't see much character development in this game besides (spoiler warning) Ann learning to accept what she is and that the incident with Ryan isn't her fault. Every other character remains rather static. (More spoilers) I wish the relationship between Ann and Amok was explored. I wish we could see the two talk and interact more, really get to know who this hinterland entity is, what they believe, how they became this way, etc. That would've been the highlight of the story if it happened. It would've been a very interesting dynamic to explore. It's a shame cause the whole concept of hinterland has a lot of potential for exploration. I also wish Ayane's story and history was explored more. In terms of NPCs, I did have some fun talking to them, but a lot of times they offer a very small amount of dialogue. Though some NPCs have a charm to them. Also (Spoilers) Masked woman is just a plot device. End of story. She had so much potential for character exploration, but she just amounted to being the "mysterious woman" that urged you to continue onwards. I wish there was more to her story than just that.
What really grinded my gears, which you've mentioned already, is how a lot of the worldbuilding is left vague, or completely unexplained. Learning more about this world and it's characters is akin to trying to piece together pieces of a massive puzzle whose pieces are scattered across the world. I didn't particularly mind the hunting for clues aspect of that, as I like solving puzzles and uncovering mysteries through exploration, but even when I did piece stuff together, things still remain unexplained, and that is really frustrating. I did enjoy doing the side quests though, even if I wish there were more of them.
(Spoilers) The damn villains though. The evil professor guy C, is literally the embodiment of the "while you were out partying, I studied the blade" meme. I found him SOO ANNOYING. IT'S LITERALLY AN EDGELORD WITH A FEDORA. He constantly talks like an edgy know-it-all anime villain who always without fault gets his ass kicked. How am I supposed to take him seriously xd. This guy is the existential threat to humanity? I get that it's not really "him" but still. I hate it when characters say shit for the sake of sounding cool, without serving any other purpose. And Absalom is another character we know nothing about. So is Castor. Like WHO ARE THESE DUDES?? WHY ARE THEY SO POWERFUL? HOW DID THEY BECOME THIS WAY??? So much unanswered stuff...
(Spoilers end)
Strongest most positive things about this game are as you said it's artstyle, and it's soundtrack. They are what convinced me to buy the game. Noctis is the coolest location ever. I just wish we could access more parts of it instead of that small area we get to walk around in in the game, and that one group of rooftops. Like I wish we could walk by the main menu location, that would've been so cool. The soundtrack also has a lot of banger tracks. My favorites being the self-titled Anno Mutationem track, Awaking, Synthetic Life and Nocturne Maze. This soundtrack is full of bangers. It really makes this world come to life.
In terms of exploration, there is a decent amount of content you can uncover by exploring the paths least traveled. But also a lot of exploration in this game involves looting every single box-shaped thing in sight. I hate when the first instinct I have when entering a room is "open all the boxes cause my OCD brain said so."
In terms of customizability, I wish there was more. You can buy a couple new cars, you can buy a few new outfits, but that's about it. Also most of the time you won't even be seeing your cool new outfit since you'll be spending the majority of your time in combat, which reverts you back to your combat suit of choice, of which there's only 2.
In terms of replayability, there isn't too much reason to replay the game more than like 3-4 times. You'll quickly run out of content to explore as ultimately, the world isn't that big right now.
In the end, I did enjoy this game, for what it did well. It definitely has soul to it. It had a vision. An under-explored, fragmented vision, but a vision nonetheless. A lot of games don't have that, and it shows. There is potential here. You put it pretty well by saying "It's the best hot mess." Lol.
just finished reading this essay and.... damn. I'm glad my video sparked this out of you it was interesting to read about this game from your perspective.
This game is a good foundation for something far better. I hope it was a learning experience for the devs and their next game will be more fleshed out.
@@chillax319 could not agree more!
Couldn’t have said it better myself. It was so fun to play despite the huge storytelling flaws. The writer leaned too heavily on overused anime tropes and humor, making the emotion of the characters not fit the moment. Couldn’t keep track if any secondary characters or new plot threads. And please no more redacted documents or mysterious conversations about “they”. Somehow I enjoyed this hot mess.
You mixed up the virusses.