Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden

minecraft piglin gamplay with duck hybrid

TLDR: Fairly solid turn based tactical stealth game set in an interesting world. Pick up on sale. [b][u]General Thoughts/Overview:[/u][/b] BASE GAME ONLY REVIEW Mutant: Year Zero: Road to Eden (MY0) is a real-time exploration in an isometric style, into turn based combat, clearly built upon the XCOM reboot framework. We are stalkers, mutants who explore “the zone”; the most vibrant and living radioactive ‘wasteland’ I’ve ever seen, in search of scrap to keep their settlement running. Thus we are the best equipped to go on a rescue mission to recover the settlements chief engineer, who has gone off chasing a legend. We fight or evade ghouls, who want to kill and eat the survivors of said wasteland, as we make our way through the maps and along our journey we collect the aforementioned scrap and the occasional relic of the before times which we trade for gear, upgrades, and perks. [b][u]Pros:[/u][/b] [list][*] The unpicking of the maps was [i]fun[/i]. If you like tactical stealth gameplay, then this will bring you joy. It is incredibly simplistic, and you’ll quickly find the optimal strategies, but it is satisfying. [*] An interesting world full with lovely graphic and sound design. The game looks decent, at the very least it has great ideas. The characters are quite unique in their designs, and the environments to explore are interesting and well themed. The ambient sound is lovely, and the voice acting is solid, making the whole experience pleasant. [*] The interactions between the characters were well written and enjoyable. Each character has a different view of the world, and depending on who you have highlighted and in the party, they’ll comment on the things you find and see. The attempts at humour can be world breaking at times, but quite a few of the jokes land anyway. The interactions are a nice touch giving the characters… well… character. It’s a shame the game is so short here because these individuals are fairly memorable as they are, a little more time to cook and some character stories could have made them unforgettable. [/list] [b][u]Cons:[/u][/b] [list][*] Everything in MY0 feels half-baked or just gimmicky. From the mechanics, to the skills, to the equipment, to the story, to the town, to the maps. Everything. Not a single part of this game feels fully finished, realised, or polished. I don’t know if it was restrictions of a small team, development time, money, or what, but it feels really bad to see what could have been. [*] Game feels slow and extremely repetitive, which is mental for how short and fast it is. The movement is ponderous, the tactical combat becomes stale quickly, and the lack of meaningful equipment upgrades or subquests and stories just causes the game to just flash past in a bad way. Speaking of which… [*] A predictable story with no urgency robs the game of tension, entirely. You’ll always be ‘just in time’, there is no consequence for exploring everything, taking all the time, or making a million trips back to the settlement. It’s a jarring contradiction to the tone the game tries to set. [/list] [b][u]Suggested improvements:[/u][/b] [list][*] Oh my GOD do we need to move faster. Even a hold shift to run would make MY0 infinitely better to play… but it would also shave a couple of hours off of an already tiny playtime. [*] More/better/alternative uses for resources. The lack of real use for scrap beyond as a stand in for gold is really quite sad. [*] A way to respec. Either I failed to pay attention to the level up process and the meaning of the tree, or it’s badly explained. Either way an option to respect at the bar for a cost would make the game significantly better to play and allow an earlier chance to test the skills. [/list] [b][u]Overall Recommendation:[/u][/b] I was going to give MY0 the thumbs down, but as I wrote my review I realised that was entirely due to the technical problems I had with the game that [i]no one else seems to have[/i]. For whatever reason I couldn’t play this on some days. No reasons given, no explanation found. But as I sit and type it out I think this is actually worth it on sale. Even if you have technical difficulties. The gameplay loop is satisfying, even if it is samey, and I found the style and art design unique and worth looking at for a while. I don’t recommend this for people who want to kick in the front door and shoot everyone. That won’t work here and you’ll hate it. I don’t recommend this game to people looking for a deep and meaningful story, or a complex and challenging game. Even on the hardest difficulty this is laughably simple with my making it through with no casualties without issue. Had I known how easy it would be, I’d have played it on ironman mode for the additional achievements. Finally if you didn’t enjoy the XCOM reboot’s combat, you probably won’t enjoy this as it’s basically the same. I recommend this to people who enjoy stealth games and would take great pleasure on finding a guard a little out of alarm range, and proceeding to unravel the patrols one at a time until the boss is almost alone. I recommend this to people looking for a simple and generally mindless play-through as if played in the above style the difficulty is so negligible it could be a walking simulator. And, inversely to the above, if you enjoyed the XCOM reboot’s combat, you’ll probably really enjoy this. Overall, this game won me over despite difficulties which had me give it ‘one final shot before uninstalling’. It’s not a must have, but it’s solid, and if you can get it on sale for a few quid, it’ll eat an evening or two just fine. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44852412/]My curator page[/url] with reviews by genre. In case you want to find more games, or even reviews, like this one.