Biomutant. Objective Marker the Game.

     

     Biomutant was released over a week ago now. And all I can say after about 40 hours of playtime is that this is the perfect game for people who need something to occupy their hands while they watch a TV show. Many people called Death Stranding a walking simulator, but at least that game had interesting characters and an engaging story.

     Let's just jump right in. The combat is boring. This is weird to me since my initial impression was actually pretty positive. At first, it felt like a generic but competent battle system built around dodging and parrying like Arkham or Assassin's Creed. This is until I finished the tutorial and starting to build my character. It did not take me long to figure out that this game is not actually built for melee combat. While part of this can be blamed on me for going for a magic attack build, my brother who went with a tank melee build reported many of the same experiences. Engaging enemies in close quarters has far more risk than reward. If the encounter you are in features a giant enemy, specifically the reptiles, it is almost impossible to clear the encounter using only close-range attacks. You are basically forced to engage at a distance with either psi-powers or gun attacks for about 90% of the encounter and even then, ranged attacks are so much stronger, that melee only exists to look cool.

     If you want to be cool and fight a large opponent up close you lose half your life when they use an elemental attack (the same was true for my brother, the tank build). No matter what weapon I used, dual swords, two-handed swords, hammers, or fists, it never felt like I was hitting my enemies. They don't react and there is not a satisfying sound effect. (I am aware a recent patch added sound effects however I played on console and beat the game before the patch came out.) As soon as I learned the rad wisp spell, the game was over. This spell homes in on all enemies around me and deals magic damage, and I could cast other spells while it was active, pair this with the ki-lighting power, which deals even more automatic magic damage to nearby enemies even faster, and everything melts. And I can use a third spell while those two are active. If being bombarded by a million wisps and being shocked by infinite lighting was not enough, I can also summon an orbital laser. What if I run out of magic? Oh, I'll just use my automatic rifle that never misses big enemies and has more than enough ammo in a clip so that my energy is recharged completely by the time it is emptied. For the latter 20 hours of the game, every encounter went the same. I activate both continuous spells and then shoot either AOE or single target projectiles, and if all enemies are not dead within 8 seconds (which is rare) the I riddle the survivors with 45 bullets that freeze them in place if they don't die in the next 3 seconds (basically only bosses would survive this long). If necessary repeat. The final boss only took 3 minutes because it had 3 forms that have health bars divided into thirds and trigger mini cutscenes when they are depleted.

      Ok, so the combat is easy and boring, but it's open-world so it must be cool to explore right? Yeah, no. The world is more empty and hollow than the game's mechanics. Items and combat encounter only exist at points of interest and mission locations. I once went over 40 minutes without running into any enemies because I decided to explore a part of the map where I did not have a mission. All the while exploring empty buildings where the only difference is the color of the gas that is blocking your view at the time. There is also an absurd amount of loot to collect in these areas, the only problem being that it all sucks and is not worth the time to look for or pick up. All the best equipment can be obtained from quests anyway, not that you need good equipment to beat the game. Once again I am aware that future patches are going to try to fix many of these issues, and that is great for any future players of the game, but I don't think I will be playing again for a while.

     This was one of the most boring games I have ever beaten. I eventually just hit a point where I just wanted to get the game over with so I could see the end of the story. And that is rare for me. Typically I am a completionist and never beat games until I have cleared all side content, but I just couldn't care less in this case. Even Immortals Fenyx Rising was engaging enough for me to clear the map, and that was also a mediocre game. 

     I also want to briefly mention that the use of a single voice throughout the entire game was a neat idea, it was not suited for a video game. This would have worked okay for a novel or something, but in a game where I am supposed to be emersed, it makes it so that I can't differentiate the different characters and overall makes them all very forgettable. That's not to say the narrator did a bad job, his performance was great, but it just felt like I was listening to an audiobook. The NPCs had so little personality I just started skipping all the dialogue halfway through. All I needed to know was where to walk, fight for 5 seconds, then quick travel back.

     Speaking of quick travel, the load times. holy shit dude, they are way too long, even on PS5. Also, you know how if you drown, or fall down a pit in Zelda you just respawn nearby? Well in this game it is instant death and you have to wait through a whole loading screen to get back to the game. This is just the icing on top of all the performance issues. Every time I jumped from too great a height, or go into a new area, the game would stutter and freeze to the point that I feared crashing every time.

     But despite all this, I don't regret my time with the game. It gave my lizard brain something to do while watching anime. Solid 6 out of 10. I hope to hear the game becomes much better after a few updates.