Based on the few hours I've played of Mycopunk, I enjoyed it, but it's weird how this game has two mechanics that I feel very strongly about - one positive, and one negative - yet I do not really care for the game in general all that much.
Let's not beat around the bush, the first of these mechanics is: regenerating ammo for your weapons, by dealing damage with your other weapon. This is such a genius bit of design, which incentivises you to use your arsenal to it's fullest extent, without it feeling like the game is nerfing you to do so. I've seen other games use things such as weapon durability, or certain enemies having specific armour types, or simply by forcing you to do so. And while there's something to be said for all of these in certain contexts, the way Mycopunk does it has to be one of my favourite implementations of such a mechanic. It's beautiful in its simplicity. You shoot stuff, which allows you to shoot more stuff. And because it even regens the ammo currently in the magazine, it even lets you skip out on reloading in combat. So you're bobbing and weaving, and you never stop shooting.
It's such a shame then, that the gunplay is rather middling. It's not the worst I've ever had, but this game feels very 'Borderlands' with its shooting. As in, don't turn damage numbers off, because that's the only feeling of impact that you'll get from these guns. Except, without having the weapon variety of that game. I don't necessarily hate this type of shooter, but it's so dependent on the enemies to give you that weapon impact.
And there, the game does... fine? Shooting pieces off of the enemies feels alright, and I like how you can disable certain enemy weapons by firing at specific parts of their body. But the artstyle and vibe the game has also makes it feel a bit hollow. You're just shooting some random bits of metal. I don't feel particularly powerful when I kill a microwave. And god, can the enemies get annoying as well. I know that I'm still figuring out the best combination of tools to get through things, but you can really get stuck in a deathloop if an enemy with a mass of weapons spawns far away from you, and you don't have the tools to deal with it.
Speaking of the artstyle, it's so 'bleh'. Not as in that it's bad, I think it has a certain charm, but man if it doesn't just make me go 'bleh' every time I look at it. I've already said that it makes shooting enemies feel less impactful than it should, but it also makes navigating the map feel so strange. It's like I'm trapped in a never-ending maze. Everything looks the same, and looks so lifeless.
Combine that with the fact that maps are way too big, and it's a recipe to get lost. You do have a vehicle that is plenty fast to traverse that map, and honestly, your walking and sprinting speeds aren't exactly slow to begin with, but man does it feel like there's a whole lot of nothing between you and your objective. I just feel so empty when I'm walking around. I think that's somewhat of a 'me' thing, because I'm not a fan of this kind of artstyle in general, but I do also think that it makes Mycopunk more difficult to grasp at a glance.
Now, the second mechanic that I feel so strongly about, is the loot drops and crafting system. When I see a weapon upgrade that says "+17,23% damage, -10,79% fire rate," I want to put down your game immediately. Almost nothing makes me more tired than seeing a game say "Hey, pull up an online calculator to see whether this gear that dropped is better than what you have." Not just that, but this kind of loot system almost always comes with the promise of an infinite grind. You're never going to get the mathematically best loot drop, but if you just grinded for one more mission, perhaps you could!
You tell me a weapon upgrade has 25% more damage and 15% less fire rate, alright, I'm interested. It depends on the actual gunplay involved, but at least I get the idea that I'm making an interesting trade-off. You tell me a weapon upgrade has 17,92% more damage and 11,56% less fire rate, I'm gone. And I'm not even going to get started on crafting materials.
In a similar manner, I was also immediately put off by the player hub in the game. I don't know why every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ co-op shooter needs this ♥♥♥♥ nowadays. Some actually do something nice with it, like giving you a weapons range to try things out, or just allowing you to ♥♥♥♥ around a bit while you're waiting for your friends to join. But despite actually doing the latter in Mycopunk, I still did not like the inclusion of a player hub. In most games, I feel like it's just the developers putting it in to allow you to show off your skins before the game - because nobody will be paying attention to them during the game - and thus, to get you to want to buy and/or grind for cosmetics.
And while I didn't feel that as much here as I did in games like Killing Floor 3, Vermintide, or Darktide, it still serves to piss me off. Mostly because of the vibes of the game I think, because it also wants to have a bit of that "haha isn't capitalism bad" aesthetic that every game in existence goes for nowadays. Like, I agree with you, but "corporate debtslaves sent on a hostile planet" is such a non-vibe in this era of gaming. You have to go above and beyond to actually make it have any impact, and Mycopunk just doesn't.
All in all, as I said, despite the things I've brought up, the worst part is how I don't feel strongly about the game as a whole. I'm giving it a tepid recommendation because, well, I enjoyed my time with it so far, and will probably play more of it. But it's also a game that goes in one ear, and out the other. In a month's time, I will have forgotten all about it, and would not be likely to pick it up again.
With all these things in mind, I think the ~€10,75 that I paid for this game was... about adequately priced. I think I'd rather have paid €10, but I'm not going to be splitting hairs. For other players though, I can imagine the base price of €15 being more than fair enough for the time you'll spend playing it. If you're more of a fan of the trappings of the extraction shooter genre, with its numerous crafting materials, utterly random and annoying weapon stats, and the endless grind, then you'd probably like Mycopunk. Me? I'm indifferent about it.
