ANNO: Mutationem

I like it. The cyberpunk setting and the mix of 2D pixel art with 3D environments gave it a strong visually. The story and world were engaging enough to keep me interested, and the action-RPG elements felt solid throughout. It is an enjoyable experience.

It is a RPG with 3D exploration and 2D metroidvania-type combat. I'm not going to say anything about the story to avoid spoilers but I think the overall plot was alright and (English) voice acting is quite decent. Main story took me about 12h to complete. My only criticism in this area would be the last 15-20% of the game where the overall pacing drops slightly and some repetition creeps-in. While the RPG elements are not particularly deep, the combat is done rather well and you are always rewarded for going off the main track and exploring the map. The game has a lot of charm in its soundtrack and graphics, it has really solid art direction where it blends quite well 3D environments with 2D pixel sprites, ANNO Mutationem also seems to take heavy inspiration from Cyberpunk and SCP-universe in its world design, numerous references and easter eggs. Pretty fun and underrated game.

Totally recommend! If you like cyberpunk, nice character designs, attempts at a neon genesis story with some art also giving homage to evangelion, strong combat, light detective work, and cool towns to explore - you will love this game! It is a little too light on exposition until the very end; and putting the plot together doesn't feel as satisfying as some other stories that do something similar, but it is still super cool and super fun and felt fresh to play. 7.5/10

very good

На скриншотах выглядело лучше. И вот что мы имеем: кривые анимации, херовая боёвка(сама устроена классно, но видимо сюда звали Бабадзаки), ничем, вот реально ничем не завлекающий сюжет. старт непонятно с чего, спустя 30 минут все так же не понятно. в общем рефанд

Хорошая игра на прохождение. Красивый киберпанковский стиль, своеобразная необычная графика, неплохой разнообразный саундтрек. Боёвка простая, но не надоедает, хотя сложность игры маленькая. На первом прохождении доступен максимум нормальный уровень сложности, и только на НГ+ открывается "адская" сложность, которая воспринимается сначала даже легче нормальной, т.к. ваншотишь всех за прокачанного персонажа и только под конец повторного прохождения становиться сложнее. Сюжет подаётся довольно пафосно, вроде в целом хороший и интересный, однако присутствует много всякого, что нормально не объясняется или существует просто так(может быть что-то не дошло до релиза). В общем, хотелось бы увидеть продолжение, которое было бы больше и продолжило историю с залатыванием тех дыр, что есть. А ещё в dlc разрабы по приколу запихнули мини-клон игры [spoiler] Enter the gungeon) [/spoiler]

Just 100%-ed the game. A sci-fi hack & slash with quite alot of focus on exploration and noir/mystery. Love it overall, but i'd like to point out some icks before praising it: Cons: - huh. that's weird. I can't think of one! - kidding. some quests felt too obtuse or vague, so you could take forever to solve them if you're not looking at the right places. - combat felt janky and rough but after my first playthrough and going into NG+, using a controller felt way better than keyboard. i strongly suggest a controller for this one. - the transitions between combat and exploration felt jarring at times. sometimes you spend hours just exploring or talking to people, and then you're thrown into a few moments of combat which can feel off-putting. there is more combat towards the end, but the game throughout does not have a good ratio between the two imo. This also meant that players had less time to get used to the combat controls at the start. a Practice mode or Boss-rush mode might've been useful here, the former for training and the latter for players seeking a challenge. Pros: - music is banger. quick trivia: two of the artists, Haloweak and Ghostfinal, also worked on osts for Punishing Gray Raven! - Story is pretty decent with some twists, what seemed to be a sci-fi noire eventually boils down to SCP shenanigans. there are some loose ends or 'plot holes' but imo not everything in a story needs to be explained, and some are better left in the dark or to the player's imagination. - Pacing and jarring transitions aside, I found the combat pretty fun, I just wish there was more of it. I'd give it 7/10 but I'm also a big fan of VA-11 Hall-A (their cameos were cool) so that's 8/10 from me :D Edit: They added a boss rush mode YAY

I'm going to change my review to recommended, based on being able to finally get past the insufferable climb-to-escape-the-red-blob section. There is a VERY SPECIFIC TRICK to this, I suggest you note this down so this misery doesn't happen to you: There is a chase sequence near the end of the game where you have to outrun a giant red blob that insta-kills you if it touches you. You have to climb vertically to escape it. When you get to this section (you will know it when you do), you CANNOT make a single mistake, every second counts. I got soft-locked at this stupid section and no matter how many times I repeated it, I could not escape the blob until I watched a YouTube vid of some other player who got past it. I carefully observed what they did to figure out the secret. You start with a cutscene showing the blob coming for you. In order to outrun the blob, you must not try to run to the right until you see the in-game HUD return, marking the end of the cutscene. Otherwise the control system jank will prevent Ann from running, she will just stand there while you hold down the run button. Quickly make Ann double-jump onto the wall on the right. As soon as she grabs onto the wall, rather than climb, immediately turn her to the left and double-jump + thrust her to the wall on the left. Do not try and climb the initial right wall, this will waste precious seconds. Only by immediately turning Ann around and jumping her to the wall on the left can you outrun the blob. This section is absurd in that regard, and this is the ONLY way to get past it. You can literally divide players between those who instinctively tried to climb the right wall before jumping to the left wall, and subsequently NEVER got past this area, and those who immediately jumped to the left wall without trying to climb the right wall, and as a result managed to clear this section on their first try or two. This one unconscious decision makes or breaks your ability to continue. It's ridiculous. When you get to the top, you will need to press L to roll-dodge through lasers. (I didn't know you could roll through lasers without taking damage until I watched another player do it on YouTube, it's non-intuitive and the game doesn't teach you this.) The Blob will continue to pursue you, so don’t stop. With that out of the way, yes, I can recommend that you buy and play Anno Mutationem. I enjoyed it apart from the above trouble. The graphics and art style are beautiful, as everyone else agrees. This game proves that lighting and shaders really are everything, they have a much bigger impact on visual flair than texture resolution. Also, even though the characters are pixel-art style, and many textures are relatively low-res (about the same as Minecraft at 64x or 128x texture res, not really bad), nearly all of the other assets in the game are actually fairly high-poly count with curves and complex models, and as a result it doesn't feel like a pixel-art game. It is much more visually dynamic and detailed than, say, Cloudpunk. I really like it. The framerate of the animation on characters, especially the protagonist, Ann, is 60fps, with a lot of minute attention to detail. Watch her hair move while she stands still and breathes in and out, there is a lot of motion detail here. Something actual pixel-art wouldn't be able to deliver. It's really kind of amazing how they modernized the pixel aesthetic with good animation. I'm not an artist so I can't understand how they did it, but my eyes can certainly recognize and appreciate it. The settings and areas are very nice to look at. The cyberpunk towns you visit are AWESOME. I love it! Why can't more games be this FUN to look at? You will enjoy just running around exploring the towns. The interiors you visit are also very comfy, like Ann's apartment, the Sicilian Jar bar where her sister works, and their old home behind the bar. SUPER comfy. The dock town out in the ocean is also really cool. There are just a lot of cool location ideas in this game with a lot of visual flair that showcase how much fun the concept artists had. As for underground base areas, a lot of people complain about them being too much like dungeon crawling. However, they actually have very cool Black Mesa or Deus Ex: Human Revolution-style aesthetics to them, two highly acclaimed games praised for their visual design which also have lots of labyrinthine underground areas. Are the people complaining about the underground base levels really gamers? The music is addictive and fantastic. The soundtrack is absolutely worth purchasing, and the gamerip is also worth finding for the extended track length versions. It has been a long time since I heard a video game soundtrack with electronic style that was this catchy. Make sure you buy the soundtrack as a separate standalone purchase, and not the version that comes "included" with the game, which can only be played from within the game while it's running, as others have mentioned. Check out the track "Underground Base Area A" for a good example of how phat the beats get in this game. The first half is ambient and the second half is combat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLLOGy8S2E0 The characters are fun, with interwoven, well thought-out relationship backstories, IF you read the bios. Ann is a courageous action hero girl. She has a mysterious traumatic past which is slowly revealed to the player through flashbacks and emails you read in the conspiracy organization's base computers, much like in DX:HR. Ann's personality is tonally consistent with her past and origins. People complaining about her being cliche for being stoic aren't thinking about how dumb it would be for her to be ultra cheerful or funny or whatever. She's damaged, she has a guilt complex, and she joined a private agency that's basically a bounty hunter / detective agency that the police outsource jobs to, in order to feel like she was making up for it. She's the Atoner through and through. Her personality makes sense. There are moments here and there during cutscenes where her expressions and the tone of her voice during dialog reveal the complex emotions underneath the tough demeanor. She has a more complicated inner life than some reviewers appreciate, I guess they're used to childish anime and games handholding them with extreme caricatured emotional outbursts. Her voice actor gave an excellent performance and should be praised. Then there are the players who complain about your super hacker sidekick, Ayane, being too energetic and cheerful. If you consider Ann's stoic personality, Ayane is exactly the way she needs to be to contrast and balance her. They have the Kirk and Spock thing going on and it works. Anyone who doesn't like her must be one of those, "No Fun Allowed," people. Ayane is silly and loveable. She's a big computer nerd and internet addict who gathers information for you and has a suitably dorky personality. She's also got an illness and is wheelchair bound, and is sheltered by her rich father. Again, her immature shut-in personality makes a lot of sense on paper. There is a touching scene where Ann promises to take Ayane to see the ocean, because she has never visited it. Really, you have a game with two girls going on an adventure, and people complain that one of them is too girly and the other is not girly enough. Tough crowd. Story pays tribute to SCP and Evangelion, but is much closer to DX:HR, and Half-Life / Stranger Things / Montauk. It actually references the Kabbalah Tree of Life correctly, in context of other dimensions (The Four Worlds). It's not just ignorant use of symbolism because they thought it looked cool. These ideas have become more common, but it's handled well here. It's certainly not boring or unambitious, people complaining it goes off the rails or delves into "magic" have very narrow imaginations. I do wish the game took more time to explore the characters and mystery lore. DESERVES A SEQUEL.

Sawdawg, thanks bro.