Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden

Mutant is a tactics RPG I thoroughly enjoyed, but has some caveats that you should be aware of before buying.
Before that however, what you can expect from the 15-or-so hour romp through the game:
Incredibly beautiful, lush visuals with a good variety of environments.
Entertaining and likeable writing. There's a tinge of humour in there, but it's kept light and steers clear of the sardonic nihilistic pitfall that's easy for post-apocalyptic games to fall into.
Great sound direction. Weapons have a meaty thunk to them which makes every hit and kill feel satisfying.
Engaging and well thought-out turn based tactical combat with a unique real-time stealth component to it.
Now, onto the caveats:
1. This game leans more towards the "tactics" side of tactical RPG.
Just about every aspect of combat is finite across the entirety of the playthrough except for ammo. Limited money, limited shop refreshes, etc. You need to plan and ration stuff because you cannot just grind your way through difficult encounters.
2. The stealth part of the game is not "optional".
A key part of the game is the stealth system. With this, you can wander around the battlefield and pick off unsuspecting enemies with silent weapons, before "going loud" on the rest of their companions. Almost EVERY encounter will be significantly harder, if not outright unwinnable, unless you fully utilise this system; turning the game into some kind of psuedo-puzzle RPG rather than a tactics RPG. As long as you follow the formula (stealth kill absolutely everything you can) you will (probably) not lose.
Some criticisms:
Party balance isn't the greatest. There's very little reason to ever use anything but the first three party members for 80% of the game. The remaining 20% you can substitute the third for the fifth, while the fourth just isn't really useful at all.
A lack of minimap is mildly irritating when you're trying to systematically comb maps for resources and encounters.
Inter-party interaction just kinda disappears after you get the fourth member. Couple that with the fact that everyone has unique exposition for set-piece locations (and only the person you're controlling at the time of encountering them will say anything), you kinda feel like you're always "missing" a bit in terms of dialogue.
But all-in-all. A great game and worth a look if you're into the dudes-on-a-chessboard genre.

At first glance, it might seem similar to XCOM with its tactical combat and strategic elements. However, upon closer inspection, it falls short in several critical aspects, such as the depth of gameplay and narrative. The mechanics come across as simplified, and the overall experience lacks the polish and complexity that fans of the genre might expect. That said, if you approach it with lower expectations and aren’t seeking something too challenging, it can still serve as a reasonable choice for casual, light entertainment. It offers just enough to keep you engaged without becoming too overwhelming.
동물농장.

YOU CAN CONSIDER THIS A NEGATIVE REVIEW
I decided to post it as positive since I really liked the story but it was a close call.
I know we don't get many good games like X-Com series in this genre. Many of these turn-based tactical strategy games miss the strategy part and sadly, this is one of them. As I said, I really really liked the story but the gameplay made it very difficult. Let me give you a list of why:
1) Strategy: There are 5 characters in the game (+1 in the DLC). All of them have active and passive abilities depending on their "stereotypes" and somehow they decided to force you to just pick only 1 of the said abilities at a time per character. You can't pick the invisibility if you want "Run'n Gun" ability active. YOU HAVE TO PICK AND USE ONLY 1 OF THE PASSIVES AT A TIME. Same even goes for active abilities. That completely kills the variety, strategy and stereotype.
2) Abilities: There are abilities like "Jump" or "Eat Corpse to regain missing health" and guess what? You can't use them outside of combat. You can't position yourself or regain health after the battle. Reason? I don't even know. I learned it the hard way after I spent 10 level ups worth of points in the Corpse Eater ability. +There was loot stuck on a car and I couldn't even get it even when my duck could fly.
3) Items: You can buy weapon attachments, armor, grenades etc. but you can't sell anything. Reason? I don't know. Also shop doesn't even renew much. It showed me just 3 new items in my 30+ hours of gameplay.
4) Controls: If you change your Ambush key on keyboard, many things bug out. You won't be able to exit combat (It shows the name of your newly registered key but shows space bar and doesn't work). You can't register some keys like "Y" for some reason. Sometimes you have to use Space key to close notes even though it's not space anymore.
5) Balance: Every zone is balanced considered you taking out the "wandering" solo enemies first before fighting the main guy/group. But that sucks because your damage nearly always falls short for 1 point. Enemy you suppose to kills have 16 hp and your damage total for 1 round equals to 15. So what do you do? You look for weapon parts and force yourself to upgrade one of your weapon to balance it back. How do you learn it? By dying first. You have Jump/Fly abilities but very few of the zones have the high ground structures. Ambush key bugs out and you are forced to fight sometimes. Hit chances go as: *Enemy is out of sight *25% *50% *75% and *100%. Game wants you to use the glow sticks for +25% hit chance but throwing anything just ends the round, so why would you? You lose 1 character damage which is better than having 25% hit chance. I tried many different approaches to fight and I can clearly say that in many attempts; they have much higher hit chance than yours. (Also early revive bot is just ridiculous)
6) Fear of Missing Out: THIS ONE IS THE WORST: I mentioned that we have 5 characters right? Whenever you interact with something or wander into a new area, only the character you use to "walk" reacts to it. You have to reload and use another character to learn how they feel or think about it. This even applies to some critical story points and IT MAKES NO SENSE. It really made me feel like I'm missing out of story. Another important addition to this is: Many dialogue/monologue triggers when you are really really close to enemies and when you are engaged in combat, they stop talking and doesn't continue the conversation after the fight.
Misc:
*Sometimes after an ambush your flashlight automatically enables which forces you into a combat you don't want.
*Sometimes hide button doesn't work when you are at the edge of the enemy detect circle.
*Some subtitles are different than the voice line, which is kinda irresponsible considering the game came out in 2018.
*You have to adjust your zoom level to switch between floors which is a lazy design and leads you to make mistakes here and there.
*There is no minimap and sometimes you hit a new zone entrance unwillingly and find yourself in a loading screen.
*Also some of the phone numbers in the game is actually used in Turkey, I've added them to my contacts and can see their Whatsapps, which is another irresponsible detail.

A little clunky and old fashioned at times, but I love the premise, and the characters. The gameplay is turn-based, kinda like Divinity but with guns.

Amazing game and probably one of the best team based tactical rpg I've played in a while. My pros and cons after beating the game.
Pros
+ Good story and likable characters.
+ Very solid tactical rpg.
+ Game is quite challenging but fair. Combat is really fun and simple to understand but still needs good strategy, careful planning, and smart usage of skills to win battles.
+ Game does away with the mundane grind and you level up immediately after a battle.
+ It's a small and linear game but it does reward exploration with more lore, resources, and new equipments.
Cons
- Early game can be severely punishing and frustating.
- Combat can randomly bugged out on you at times.
- Really short game which you can probably beat in 8 to 10 hrs.
- Resources are very scarce and it's very easy to mess up your playthrough at higher difficulties just by running out of health kits or valuable resources.
- The stealth mechanics in this game is quite a weird one and way different from other stealth games. Every enemy has a peripheral circle that will automatically alert them immediately once it touches you. It doesn't even matter if you're hiding behind a wall or their backs turned at you. Once it touches you, you immediately engage with them in battle.
- Underwhelming final battle.
It's a fun game and eventhough it's short I did enjoy every minute playing it. It's an amazing tactical rpg and a steal if you can get it on sale.
- My score 9/10

There is not a lot of variety in which to beat the enemies. characters have fixed skills and some of those skills show up on different characters. less variety in that sense. XCOM had variety and you got to choose from many useful skills. Killing all enemies seems mandatory along with picking them off one by one and using silent weapons. Not much room to get creative but overall decent. Aside from those deficits, I love the game, 15 hours in. Only one game surpassed my expectations when relating it to XCOM, shoutout to Othercide!

It's a great game overall. You can go full stealth or boom-boom mode, your choice. The game has an interesting lore, but it's kind of short. That being said, it's a 10/10.