A good RPG is a lot like a good relationship – it starts with a spark of interest that makes you gravitate closer and closer as you learn the ins and outs. Before long, you’re making your mark on it and absorbing pieces of them in turn, and if everything works out, you’ll remember the good and bad times for days to come. Even after the next open-world RPG comes along. Sadly, Biomutant is more akin to scoring that busty brunette that everyone at the bar ogles but never has the nerve to speak to, only to find out a couple of months later that you have nothing in common and the whole relationship was based on aesthetics.

I will admit, I was (and still am) enamored with the visuals on display here. This is the first “new” title I’ve played that has truly met my expectations of what next-gen would look like – and it’s not even specifically made for those consoles. Every strand of fur looks so lifelike, I wanted to reach out and pull it just to see if I could. From top to bottom, every light bloom, the slight ripples in the water, and pieces of random junk (we’ll get to this later) look astounding. It’s just a shame that almost everything else feels so hollow and empty.

The title opens with one of the most original aspects of the game, which is the token character creation. You can pick from a few different breeds of small mammals that look like an amalgam of bats, cats, and Mogwai, with features that look equal parts genetic crossbreeding, and ugly dog contest photos, followed by picking a specialty from there. It’s once you actually start to spec your character’s abilities that the fun starts – leaning too hard one way or another will greatly change how you look. If you lean heavily on strength, you’ll end up with this enormous anthropomorphic-looking version of Sloth (from Goonies, not the real-life animal). Placing more points into intelligence will do the opposite, leaving you with something that looks a lot like the Brain, getting ready for his next fruitless attempt at taking over the world. This set my expectations on the high end in terms of how much I thought I would be responsible for crafting my fate in this journey. Spoiler alert: it’s not a whole lot. There are a fair amount of morality choices to make, and they are crystal clear as to what the outcome will be; if you happen to replay this game, which I only did briefly to speak about it here, the game plays out the same damn way with only minor changes, such as the other warring tribe being painted as more of the bad guy than the other.

Every good relationship starts with a compelling story, and this one misses the mark in a few ways. Instead of taking one key component and slowly unfolding the rest as you proceed, the game throws its major plots at you rapid-fire and shifts between them quickly without giving you time to catch up, thinking you know exactly what the nonsensical names of creatures, items, and areas that were clearly inspired by Dr. Suess are. Not only do you need to digest why everyone knows who you are, but you’ve got to thrust yourself into the midst of a civil war between rival clans, all while some larger than life creatures want to destroy the tree of life that allows you and everyone else to keep on surviving in this post-post-apocalyptic setting. It’s a lot to digest and at times, really hard to follow despite it essentially being the plots of Ferngully, Ghost of Tsushima, and Fable mashed up and presented in a way that can’t find its footing.

From start to finish, there are only three voice-over actors, and not in the Bethesda likes to recycle the same handful of talent for its hundreds of characters kind of way. You’ve got the light and dark sprites that show up here and there around some of the key morality choices, and the narrator. That’s it, assuming we’re not counting the incoherent gibberish that comes from the furry cast. If you’re the type of person who plays with subtitles on, this is going to make every narrative bit feel like you’re hearing it three times: once from reading the subtitles that often run so far ahead I was able to skip them to move along to the next bit, once as the previously mentioned gibberish, and then finally by the narrator who doesn’t even follow the subtitles all that faithfully. I haven’t been this annoyed since the Guildmaster informed me that my health was low every time I received but a scratch in Fable.  Luckily, the game lets you customize this aspect to some degree, but the downside is this didn’t come to light until I was deep into the double digits level wise, and there are a few areas within the menus that are unclear as to what it changes. By the time I was within the second act, I had turned off all voiceovers and began skipping the text bits and making up my own story (if you must know, it closely followed that of Afro Samurai), only stopping to pick the evil moral choices. Honestly, I wanted this world to be wiped from the face of the world. Pretty or not.

I’ve followed this game since its public reveal, and one thing that really intrigued me was the “gun-fu” combat. I was thinking it would play out like DMC, my personal favorite from the long-running Capcom series, and on paper it does, but is executed in a way that you can button mash your way to success on the normal difficulty. The end result is combat that feels like a less punishing, button-mashing-friendly version of the Arkham Asylum series – that’s not a bad thing, but it lacks depth and quickly becomes somewhat boring. As you progress, you will unlock additional combos and weaponry in an attempt to keep the action fresh, but changing the equipment is anything but fluid in the midst of battle, as you’ve got to hold a button on the D-pad and then select your next tool of death from a radial. The gun part of gun-fu is also kind of lacking, with no option for ADS or locking on to your target, you’re left to free aim on enemies that typically close the gap as quickly as possible. The one standout feature from the combat is the sheer number of enemy types that the game throws at you. Despite its downfalls, the wide cast of wildlife, enemy rodents, and everything in between is massive and sells the idea that this is a fully fleshed-out world.

When you’re not listening to the narrative ad nauseam or committing rodent genocide, you’ll spend your time solving some of the lamest puzzles that have graced the gaming world, crafting, and exploring an open world that still manages to box you into where it specifically wants you to be. The puzzles have some variety to them, but it’s few and far between, with most tasking you with matching yellow and white segments within so many moves. This is just a mild annoyance, but the exploration portion is much more egregious; invisible walls litter the world and in turn, make you take specific routes through winding chasms and around bodies of water using a map that fails to point out the obvious paths, essentially only showing your current placement and areas of interest. I found the map to be completely useless outside of quick traveling, but enjoyed the inclusion of the ripples that highlight objects or areas of interest, which made finding something to do much easier. That is, when there is something to do, as the large open-world setting has a number of dead spots that you’d think would have some randomly roaming enemies lingering around.

If you’re looking for a fun time, and not a long time, Biomutant checks off most of the boxes, but lacks everything that makes RPG heavyweights great. If you’re looking for a deep narrative, a world where it feels like your choices matter, or combat that requires more than busting your X button, only taking brief pauses to hit Y, I would recommend waiting for a deep discount. Similar to your favorite superficial ex, it’s pretty easy to handle, and it gets boring rather quickly.

6 out of 10

Pros

• Downright Stunning Visuals
• One of the Largest Rouges Galleries Out There
• Accessible Combat

Cons

• (Overly) Accessible Combat
• Invisible Walls Mar Exploration
• A Rehashed Narrative
• The Narrator That Doesn’t Quit

Biomutant was developed by Experiment 101 and published by THQ Nordic. It launched on PC, PS4, and X1. The X1 copy of the game used for review was provided to us and reviewed on XSX. If you’d like to see more of Biomutant, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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