Biomutant Review
We all go through our lives on a certain path. It is full of turns and the main ending is that no one truly gets out unharmed. Biomutant is a game giving you more than just paths, but choices in light and darkness. You will be able to skate on the grey sometimes, but at the end of the day, you will have to make a choice.
Biomutant Story:
You start your journey abruptly venturing off into the world already in this apocalypse land full of hazards. Until you meet up with an old friend named “Out-of-date” who is wheelchair-bound. He tells you your story and what your purpose is. Saving the world from the World Eaters as well as restoring the tree of life.
You also obtain memories from people you meet that remind you of what happened to Mom and Pop. An act of revenge is the course that is part of what fuels you. A vicious person named Lupa Lupin killed your Mom and Dad, but there is more to the story. It is up to you to decide on both light and dark paths as you also help people around the area. Uniting tribes or tearing them apart. Saving creatures or killing them. It is all up to you and whatever fuels you to the results.
Each move you make you will also feel like someone is watching and waiting to strike. But you do have a target on your back, especially after you choose a tribe to support. In every journey you start with a fork in the road, so which will you choose?
Gameplay:
This is the main definition of a video game and I want to start by saying I personally like that aspect. There is a lot to do and a real choice system in how you tackle everything in this world. I am on the light path using the saboteur class. The Saboteur class is pretty cool, having started with two melee weapons, but honestly, you can build your character up to handle all weapons. I get the perks of it, but it seems not that important.
You will also pick your resistance which comes in 4 forms of Ice, Fire, Biohazard, and Radioactivity. There is a choice to dump all your points in one vs. the other or keep its balance in between two. After that, you go into body modification where you put more into strength, agility, intelligence which morphs your body. I made my character both strength and agility. Figured the saboteur was more ninja than anything.
This is where you are an animal version of Chuck Norris or pretty much any action star. You have your variety of dual-wielding guns and blades. Two-handed swords and Bos as well as rifles. It is up to you to put skills in certain attributes and unlock combos. There is a learning curve as you can’t lock on to enemies. This hinders your gameplay as you will miss a lot unless you are directly looking at an enemy.
There is a perfect dodge that will slow all enemies down for attack, but the timing window is a bit small. The best part is chaining the dodges for a perfect slow-motion effect that leads to nice attacks.
The enemies throughout the map come in all shapes and sizes. From giant rodents coming out of the ground that breathes fire or acid. Then other factions just want to bully you. However, do not worry since you can save at any time which makes sense for a game like this. An open-world where you can get attacked at any moment. It is a rule to save before you know a boss fight is going to happen. But keep in mind, the auto-save feature works really well.
The World is Yours!
There will be scraps around the world for you to gather and many chests to find. Crafting is crucial to enhancing your gear and making better weaponry. I like that I turned my one-handed weapon into a two-handed weapon. That also goes with turning a pistol into an auto rifle. This is the level of creativity I was expecting with Biomutant.
You will have options of different rides to use in different terrain. Wildlife mounts all around the world that you will need a special fruit to tame. Once you do tame them you can call upon them at any time. Since you are not a great swimmer, it is wise to go with the jet ski that is fully customizable as well. For the hazardous terrain, you have a mech suit fully upgraded depending on the side quest you perform.
Taking in the areas and exploring the world as a whole is a must for a full experience. You will find shops and old tech to mess with, but it still begs the question of were there people before human-like animals?
The Bad:
Honestly, the only issue I have is combat. Biomutant has a promising combat system but it needs a lock-on feature for it to be played well. Especially when you have to deal with multiple enemies at a time with a free camera. I mean you have guns that should at least have an auto-lock feature, but no it does not.
Hopefully, we can get an update that adds this feature for Biomutant. This is the saving grace of today’s games for sure.
Also, release the mercenary class that was exclusive to pre-orders. That made no sense to hide that behind a pre-order gate.
Conclusion:
Biomutant is a game that I have not seen for a long time taking a lot of liberties with anthropomorphic beings. Yes, there are games like Crash and Ratchet, but nothing of this scale really without boundaries and customization. There are human-like games like Skyrim, but Experiment 101 took a chance here. Their characters are not the cutest and the combat can get brutal depending on how dark you want to be. But, at the end of the day, this is a great game with full exploration.
The story is all over the place, do not get me wrong, but I can get behind it. 13 hours beating it if you just want to do the story mode, but 60+ hours if you are a completionist. On my second playthrough going a full dark path I am 30 hours in and my character is on the god-tier level. But that is the beauty of it. You can make an all-around badass to make this game your toy box.
Biomutant gets 4.5 beastly paws out of 5. Pick it up for yourself and give it a chance. Definitely has a lot of replay value for you to enjoy. It is available now on PC via Steam, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One with both having a next-gen upgrade. – Beast Out –
Verdict:
