Introduction:
Biomutant is a game, alright. It's unique and weird visually and in storytelling. It's an open-world RPG, with Kung-Fu-style combat containing both melee and shooting. Though, it falters flat face-first on the crumbling pavement of a long-lost civilization half-way through the game. It's also narration-driven because the new breeds of this world are speaking in gibberish tongues.
Let's slowly digest this weird specimen of a game into segments so we can understand this game better.
Story:
To sum it up, the world is dying and you'll need to save it. How? By saving the Tree of Life, it's slowly being devoured by World-Eaters and you'll need to destroy them before they des... eat the world.
Aura:
There's a karma system in the game, called Aura. You can choose to be good or evil, which doesn't add anything special when making major choices.
For example, you can join either the Jagni or Myriad tribe with two different looks on the world. Myriad, the "good" tribe wants you to destroy the World-Eaters and free the Tree of Life to restore balance. But Jagni, the "evil" tribe wants to destroy the Tree of Life by letting the World-Eater do their thing. But get this, even if you've chosen the evil path YOU STILL need to "fight" the World-Eaters in a way, not fully defeat but... Subdue them to do their job better?
Tribe wars:
One of the main questlines were you takeover enemy tribes by defeating them, or by persuasion. At first it was a nice switch from saving the world and helping a tribe in need, expanding forces to gain power and take control. Later on after capturing ONE fort, FIVE more are remaining, and follow the exact same formula. So you're repeating 1 quest 5 times? FML
Luckily, after capturing 3 forts, the 3 leftover forts are surrendering. You can get the option to end this questline earlier, I didn't just to see if there's anything new or worth mentioning. THAT WASN'T THE CASE! Don't make the same mistake I made! End it as soon as you get the prompt, trust me! Spare yourself the trouble!
Narrator:
I can't believe I've to mention this, but I'll make one thing crystal-clear: IT'S NOT THE SAME NARRATOR from The Stanley Parable, like some make out to be! I can't believe some people are THIS dilutional. It's seriously a 10 second research away for delivering the right information! With all proper credits:
Kevan Brighting did narration for The Stanley Parable
David Shaw-Parker did narration for Biomutant
With that out of the way: The Narrator tries his damn hardest to make out this weird story, lost civilized contraptions and not to bore you with the silence. While I do appreciate the whole narrative side of exploring ancient buildings, after a while it can get annoying. At times the narrative nature of performing ANY small ACTION, a whole bunch of nothing gets spout into your ears.
For example, you try and loot an ancient house, open any loot you might stumble across, and you hear this narrative phrase: "You can't loot without eyes"
Brother, you can't talk WITHOUT MOUTH!
Now, the Narrator can be turned-off, but I didn't like the silence. Funnily enough, there's a slider that you can adjust on how frequent you want the Narrator to talk, I set it to 5 out 100, still talks too much...
Wordy words:
In this gibberish language, words and names gets thrown at you. Clinky klanks (metal), polym (plastic), pingdish (satellite dish), huggle (sewer rat) YOU NAME IT! And with all these weird and cute names the Narrator says in perfect English what is what, it sounds almost like toddler-talk from a teacher! It's so damn weird!
I don't blame the Narrator, I blame the writers for making this new dystopian game of wordle and try to make sense of any mundane household item, like a washer? "Clothes soaker", toilet? "Flush stool", piano? "Stringplonks"... wat?
Combat:
Combat is a lot of fun, a wild variety of melee and ranged weapons to choose from. You can switch pretty slick in combat from melee to ranged. You can activate Super Wung-Fu abilities by performing any combination, which differ with what weapon you're using. Very cool, but after some time repetition starts festering on combat like rust on metal as well.
You can fight the repetition to an extend by switching weapons, making the combat more bearable, but you've got to do that a lot to not get bored.
Boss fights:
The first two Word-Eaters were great and funny to battle. The last two were more of a burden to do. Minibosses are mediocre, tiresome and always the same.
Mutations:
Or "Psi-Powers", same thing. Most of them are bland, but the Mucus Bubble is my absolute favorite! Just roll around, gather small enemies, jump and throw them left and right. It never gets old! But Turtleform is so damn useless and expensive, you can use it to slide down from any hill, no damage on enemies on impact either.
Exploration:
Walking sim, almost no encounters, loots-a-plentiful. Plain as white shores.
Hazards:
Areas that are hazardous can conflict damage overtime if you're not well protected. Like radiation, biohazard, hot, cold and low-oxygen areas. In early game that can be tricky, have equipment that protects you from such hazards, later on it doesn't matter. Once you've unlocked all mutations you can spend unspent bioblob points to resistance.
Mounts:
You can tame wild mounts by gathering "pip", which are fruits or nuts hanging from orange bushes. Collect one, interact with a nearby mount, and it's all yours. Alternatively, you can buy one from a "Livingthing Broker" (these names are killing me)
Other than quest-related mounts, all mounts are the same. Aesthetically there're different but a transport is still a transport.
Vehicles:
Seven types of vehicles you can get in Biomutant. Very disappointing, here's why:
-Mekton, a giant mech and the first one you'll get. It shoots through enemies like butter BUT can only be used in the Dead Zone, NOWHERE ELSE.
-Googlide, a waterslide that helps a great deal traversing through waters.
-Gullblimp, capable of sailing through the winds of the Kluppy Dunes, guessed right, can only be used there.
-Octopod, an ONE-TIME USE submarine to defeat the 4th World-Eater.
-Batnam-Nam, reward from the WORST quest in the game and is the WORST summon, capable of gliding great distances. BROTHER, WHAT!? At the time of getting this you can glide already! With an Automatron upgrade
-Mekanofingro, a mechanical hand equipped with a finger-cannon, very silly. However, you can shoot your OWN gun while mounting a beast.
-Shark. Googlide reskin, same premise.
You can also modify some, but it's mostly aesthetics.
Crafting:
This feature is fun, you can craft any new weapon from the loot you've gathered to make more powerful weapons. You can use a workbench in any village or tribe to add addons or to strengthen the material using scraps from dismantled items.
Crafting is such a joy, but choosing the right base/stock/etc is such a chore, and you'll spend some time on what's hitting harder than the last selected item.
Conclusion:
The story's a mess, the Narrator's trying his best but the writing is failing in place, the repetition is inevitable. You can say all you want about Biomutant, this is what you can expect. So many great ideas are thrown against the wall to see if it sticks, like cooked pasta.
People can still love chaos, like looter-shooters, learn the ropes. Like opinion-based reviews, potential buyers still have the choice of ignoring all of what is mentioned, whether it's negative or an early warning.
At the end of the day Biomutant is, or was a game with great potential, but later on in-game you can see the rushed state it was in on release.
Fine early stage of the game, later becomes repetitive. No redeeming qualities.
3 / 10
"He says you made them weaker, but they won't give up"