ANNO: Mutationem

Developed By: ThinkingStars

Published By: Lightning Games

Price: £19.49 / $24.99

Action, RPG

 

ANNO: Mutationem is a game that tries to be a lot of things. It tries to be a semi-open world game with side quests to track. It tries to be a Metroidvania set in a cyberpunk setting. And it also tries to be a rather in-depth hack-and-slash game. However, what matters is if ANNO: Mutationem is able to succeed at being any of these. 

A Brother In Trouble

ANNO: Mutationem’s story starts off fine, but it gets more and more convoluted as time goes on. You play as Ann Flores, a bounty hunter of sorts with a mysterious disease known as Entanglitis. One day, Ann finds out that her brother, Ryan, is trying to find a cure for such a disease via dangerous means, and thus Ann tries to go after him before he gets himself killed. 

As time goes on, more and more is added upon the story, with not enough foundation to hold it up. By the end, I was confused and unsatisfied, with a lot of whiplash as the tone snapped my neck harder than an un-maintained roller coaster. That isn’t to say there aren’t parts of the story to enjoy, just that this game desperately needs a sequel to explain some things. 

Best Sidekick

In fact, one thing I want to commend ANNO: Mutationem for is its characters. Ann Flores is a fine character to play as, with a history that’s intriguing to learn. Furthermore, her partner Ayane, who is typecast as an annoying sidekick, is actually a character I found less annoying and more endearing. She genuinely cares about Ann, and her annoying talkative nature only made me like her more. 

Sadly, this does mean the other characters suffer in terms of development besides maybe Ann’s adoptive father Holtz. I can’t say I really cared for many more characters, perhaps a few, but not her brother Ryan. 

Also, the cutscene direction is rather weird. Sudden, snapping changes can happen that just have no in-between to make it feel smooth. Plus, many a time, a cutscene will just end with characters staring at each other for around five more seconds before it finally fades to black, which is rather awkward. 

One small thing I want to point out that did bother me was the subtitles. Many times, too many times to actually count, the subtitles didn’t match what the characters were saying. Most of the time, it’s not that bad, and only sometimes does it feel like the sentence was meant to be different. Like I said, not a big deal, but something that should be fixed. 

Exploring the Cyberpunk World

Anyway, the story doesn’t really do it for me, but what does is ANNO: Mutationem’s beautiful visuals. This game adopts a sort of 2D/3D perspective where the world is 3D, and the characters are a beautifully animated 2D. Sometimes I even think they are animated in 3D for some frames; it looks so smooth. 

The art direction is quite stellar, which makes exploring the cyberpunk world of ANNO: Mutationem quite the visual treat. From the neon colors to the holographic lights, the only spots that are unsavory to look like are those that are supposed to look that way. Not to mention the lighting is spectacular; it truly makes this a visual showcase. 

This really matches up well with the designs of the environments and the people within them, though you will notice who is obviously more important than others. Most people on the streets wear regular attire, but then you’ll see someone that is obviously Suzi the Sphere Hunter.

In a game like this, I would say the visuals matter a lot, but there’s still gameplay to consider, and I’d say I’m rather mixed on some parts of the gameplay. So let’s start from the beginning, the open world segments. 

So a good chunk of ANNO is going around the world, talking to people, scavenging stuff, buying items, and accepting side quests. Like I said, there is fun in exploring the world, but I really enjoyed most of the side quests as they only served to expand upon the world or offer fun little stories to learn from it. 

This was also where you purchase most of your items. From the stores around, you can buy or craft weapons, purchase new chips to upgrade your weapons, and consumables that will heal or help you in some way. 

Slashing My Way Through

The next part of gameplay is the combat. Now, the game goes into a semi-Metroidvania state when you are in the combat segments, with bits of exploring rooms from time to time. However, it doesn’t completely follow Metroidvania, as, while you do get new abilities to traverse into new areas, it almost always feels linear. There are no completely new areas to go to if you backtrack, just new items. The rest is going in one direction.

Actual combat was fairly fun, but some parts of it I don’t like. The combos are satisfying to pull off, especially with some weapons over others, though I did find myself spamming specific moves because they were more useful, or just bypassing enemies completely. You can even unlock new combos and moves along with stat upgrades and more with two different kinds of upgrade currency. There’s also parries and dodges to keep yourself defensive when most of the time I was being offensive. 

You also have a devil trigger like mode where you become faster and hit harder. It’s built up through combat to be used whenever you press the right buttons. This mode is good for dealing damage, but it didn’t feel as great as I was hoping it would.

Failed To Hit

My biggest issue with ANNO: Mutationem is some of the unnecessary difficulty, specifically with the bosses. One of the first major bosses you encounter is this annoying section where you have to protect two engines from encroaching ads while also taking on a big boss that has a shield you need to destroy to start doing big damage. This got irritating fairly quick, and didn’t really go away when later bosses either had annoying mechanics or also relied on ads. 

Another smaller issue, but one that annoys me, is the hitbox situation. Sometimes my blade would hit the enemy, but they didn’t actually get hit by it. This happened a lot with enemies that have large arms poking out from their sides. The hitbox was definitely just their torso, as my blade went right through their arms to amount to no damage. That got frustrating. 

Sadly, the sound design and music don’t do much to make these issues feel less impactful. Sure, the sounds were fine, but I barely noticed how good they sounded except for maybe the parry sound. Alongside that, I barely acknowledged the music, which was sad because I usually like the kind of music that accompanies cyberpunk settings. Yet, it did nothing for me here. 

Final Mutation

Overall, ANNO: Mutationem wants to be a lot of things, and in some ways it succeeds. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have fun with exploring the gorgeous world and solving interesting side quests. Even some of the combat was fun when it wasn’t frustrating. It’s a game that needs some work that can definitely be fixed post-release with patch support. However, it will be hard to fix some of my issues with the story. 

My feelings of ANNO: Mutationem are conflicting. On one hand, I want to recommend it to people who like this kind of game, but its flaws mount up too much for me to do so. What I will say is that, with some support, this will be a game worth playing. Maybe wait for a sale, which should give it time to buff out the noticeable scratches. They have said they are working on patching the game, so I believe they’ll get it in a better state soon.

 

Verdict

Not Quite There

 

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Reviewed by Freelance7. Game provided by Lightning Games.