Anno: Mutationem (2022)

I saw a lot of articles and reviews this year talking about that fact that there's no room for 7/10 anymore and that's a shame because some of them can feel just right sometimes (talking about Immortals of Aveum or Robocop). Well I guess this is my perfect 7/10.

This is a 2D action RPG with retro graphics, so not exactly following any trend. The story is meh, the gameplay is okay and it doesn't have anything special. But it has this cyberpunk eye candy pixel art, a good OST, good pacing and fun boss fights. That's all I needed to be invested enough during the short 10hours of gametime it took me to get to the credits.

The game is presented with 3D environments filled with 2D pixel art characters. Sometimes it looks good and sometimes it doesn't.

The story was intriguing at the start seeming like a sci-fi crime thriller, but then it gets into magic and other dimensions. It lost me at that point. Also, too many emails and documents to read through. I just started to tune it all out.

The combat is good. It all happens on a 2D plane like a side-scrolling action platformer. The game provides enough attacks and weapons and challenging enemies to make that fun and satisfying. I do wish it provided new attacks and weapons at a faster pace though. There are a few things that feel off about the combat such as the main gun being a burst fire weapon. Shooting as fast as you can pull the trigger like a semi-automatic or holding down the trigger to fire an automatic weapon would have felt much better. Ann has a powerful transformation she can use temporarily after building up enough meter from landing hits. The transformation regenerates her health which is great, but I wish I could attack at the same speed as I could with Ann in her normal form. The attack speed is way too slow in this temporary powerful form of hers.

This game has one of the most beautiful cyberpunk worlds I've seen. The 2D characters and 3D environments work great together and it has an amazing electronic-synthwave sountrack. Truly a visual and audio masterpiece.

But how does it plays? Well... It's good... not great. The plot is a convolulted mess and the spanish translation is absolutley awful. But even with those problems, I still enjoyed it. The world is really that pretty, the main characters are cute and the boss fights can be quite intense.

You can read my full review in GamerFocus (in spanish).

And you can pet the bartender cyber-dog! But he won't like it.

This game has done more to make me love cyberpunk again than certain AAA game.