ANNO: Mutationem

[Riff Machine 2,105]

I've been playing this a lot lately.  It's a 2d/2.5d hack and slash side scroller with some lite RPG elements.  It's pretty cool visually.  The way the developer used the 2.5d to give it almost a pixelated 3d view for some map navigation within the towns.  The sprites are well done and animate quite well.  I did hate the constant pause after some dialogue cut scenes that seemed to drag to the point I thought my game had froze.

 

The story is very cyber punkish but not as dark as cyberpunk 2077.  It's got a more anime vibe both aesthetically and visually.  You play as a woman working for an investigation agency that gets dragged into a weird conspiracy to destroy the world.  Typical anime story.

 

I was enjoying it quite a fair bit as I said.  The encounters were balanced and never seemed to crazy...

 

Until the end.  Literally, the second last "encounter" of the game is the biggest pile of dog shit and jacks the difficulty up to insane levels.  You're tasked with protecting someone within a shield, but are bombarded by the most powerful enemies in the game as well as assorted drones that explode near the shield.  So, with that said, trying to deal with all of this at the same time is rather hectic and the final wave is damn near impossible due to the amount of enemies you have to face.  That alone turned me right off the game.  I shut it down, deleted it and will not go back.

 

For a game that was so balanced and decent throughout, completely unbalancing the second last encounter is the most dumb fuck, dipshit, stupid ass design decision to ruin what would other wise be a good game.   If it wasn't so cheap at the time, I never would have played this and while most of my time was decent with it, the end ruins the experience.