ANNO: Mutationem

Anno Mutationem is a 2D hack and slash with 3D exploration and some RPG elements. It has a strong cyberpunk anime aesthetic clearly inspired in Neon Genesis Evangelion and Ghost In the Shell even with some homages to them here and there. The game makes great use of 2D sprites over 3D backgrounds, the pixel art is gorgeous, the textures and color palettes used are very nice and the lighting and particle effects are great. It is a very good looking game. The music is great too specially during boss fights, as it is full of pumping electronic tracks enhancing the most epic moments. Character designs are hit-or-miss, main character is okay but the villains are just ridiculous and impossible to take seriously and the side-kick character is very annoying. The atmosphere in the cities is quite strong and well done though.

The game uses 3D for exploration and 2D for combat and platforming. Cities and open spaces are typically exploration sections in which NPCs, characters and some quests or puzzles can be found, and there is no combat or platforming during these 3D sections. The 2D parts typically take place on dungeons or in closed spaces like corridors, and the game seamlessly transitions between these two modes even inside the same location. Controls are snappy and responsive during combat, there are a few short-range weapons like swords, greatswords and double-edged swords, and long-range weapons like guns or rocket launchers. There aren't many weapons, most of them being very expensive and only a few of them could be found on the wild. Combat is quick and fun but enemies can be a bit spongy. Battles combining short-ranged and long-ranged enemies in an enclosed space require some thought and there is a number of different moves and epic finishers that can be executed. Money can be collected to purchase healing items, weapons and upgrades, but it is hard to come by and there aren't good places to farm for it (if any), the player can collect and sell junk but it doesn't yield much money. There is a bartender mini-game that yields money but only on the first playthrough (and I think it gets locked after completing all its levels?). Anyway, money is hard to get and at least in my experience it is best used in getting healing items as some bosses can be quite difficult and frustrating. Healing items take a while to take effect, which increases the difficulty.

Being an RPG-like game there are some cities that can be explored plot-wise and revisited mostly at will to complete some quests, the few of them that are present in the game anyway. Most of these quests suck, devolving into fetch quests or just going from point A to point B, or being so obtuse that there is almost no sensible clue about how to solve them, like the elevator puzzle. There are good quests though that makes you pay attention and gather clues through observation but there aren't many of them. There are dungeon stages that comprise the most of the enemies and bosses of the game, with most of the latter having quite cool (but hard) battles. These dungeons are mostly underground and have a lot of corridors, and some puzzles about doors, moving platforms or levers. In terms of platforming the level design is good (with the occasional frustrating section like the red lasers) and there is some backtracking to do but overall the dungeons are a little dull in contrast to the beautiful and colorful open spaces of the cities. The last dungeon in particular drags for far too long, it is annoying to traverse and cointains huge exposition dumps that are not fun (more on that later). It also contains surprise bosses and sudden difficulty spikes. The game is fairly linear, there aren't many cities and they are quite small, so there is not a huge amount to things to do here. That's a shame because I think that was the best part of the game and I wish there were more urban stages as the dungeons take the most part of the runtime.

In terms of character progression there isn't a traditional leveling system. Instead the game features a tech-tree that can be unlocked using two different kinds of EXP points. Blue points are acquired by defeating enemies (I'm not sure if these can be farmed as enemies seldom respawn) and are used to acquire more combos for the weapons, improve the speed of shots and things like that. Red points are obtained during special story moments and are used to increase stats like health, defense or offense and such. Special traversal abilities like double jump or wall climbing are acquired story-wise at no cost. There is not enough EXP to unlock the whole tree (and I don't think grinding is viable) so skills to upgrade must be chosen carefully. Weapons can be customized with chips giving them elemental damage and such but these chips are hard to come by and very expensive to purchase, also I'm not sure about what kind of enemies are susceptible to what kind of elemental damage, but chips can be swapped between weapons so there is some experimentation to do for the players willing to do it. Hacking is an integral part of the game too as some doors must be hacked in order to gain further access, via a timing-based minigame,and hacking abilities can be improved in the tech-tree by using blue EXP in order to ease these puzzles and provide more rewards like money and EXP. There is also a fishing mini-game too, and a DLC that includes a top-down shooter dungeon-crawler mini-game based on the side-kick.

The story is about a woman that is part of a private security company or something that is looking for her missing brother, which will lead to the uncovering of some conspiracies. Honestly the story easily the weakest part of the game, it is a complete mess, it barely makes sense and it is very hard to follow due to the amount of characters and the little information we have about them. The futuristic world is explained very slowly, with big concepts like complete mechanization of living beings, parallel universes or psychic/magical powers being introduced suddenly without any explanation whatsoever, and characters coming and going out of nowhere. The dialog is terrible, characters talk in a weird and mysterious way alluding to unexplained events, almost nobody identify themselves on introduction, and there are numerous translation, spelling and grammar errors in the script. There are also weird bits of anime-like humor that clash horribly with the more serious moments of the game, the tone can change from one scene to the next without notice, and in my opinion very few of the jokes land. The worse offense in my opinion are the HUGE exposition dumps in the last part of the game, delivered by the overused and dumb trope of the censored files that the player has to find and read, having key parts of them blackened out like if they were classified reports. The game does this a lot in the final dungeon, it makes harder to understand what is going on as there are big revelations near the end, it gets tiresome quickly and it was completely unnecessary.

Despite all the negatives I mentioned I do recommend this game because it is quite fun and it looks and sounds great. I liked the 2D-3D transitions a lot and I hope more action games take that route and provide rich areas to explore. There is an interesting world here that in my opinion it needs to be unfolded and explained in a better way, but it just looks like a bunch of cool concepts mashed up and rushed out. It fell short on many of my expectations but I want to judge it for what is instead of what it isn't, and it isn't a bad game at all. I don't think there is much replay value though unless you're really invested in the story or the sidequests, or if you want to try out other weapons and combos. I can't recommend Anno Mutationem for its story, but I can recommend it for everything else.

I came here for a silly 2d Cyberpunk and ended up with an Evangalion/SCP storyline with a Hollow Knight gameplay.

2.5D Cyberpunk 2077 mixed with SCP and a few VA-11 Hall-A shoutouts
Deep character development.
Amazing sound track
Side Quests
Skill Trees
Weapon Upgrades
Character outfits!
List goes on!
Amazing experience, I can not recommend enough!

Plot: acceptable.
Translation errors: sometimes make the situation in the plot funny.
Content filling: secondary content is evenly distributed as the plot progresses.
Gameplay: throughout the game, there were no questions about the controls and interaction with the in-game world.
Possible disadvantages:
Not all languages ​​have the correct translation.
Among the bugs, I was unlucky to encounter a map that sometimes disappeared, which was fixed by opening and closing it completely, and markers for secondary tasks could simply disappear (careful reading of the task description may help).
Verdict: I recommend
The game is good, but unfortunately too short. Of course, I would like more.
But for those who are ready to go through all the same, there is NG+

This game is a little gem which it if it got more polishing it could really shine, but still I loved this game so much it became one of my favourite ones I ever played in 2024.
- The artstyle, with the mix of 2d/3d makes it looks pretty cool ingame;
- I enjoyed the characters in this game, (though some deserved more development);
- soundtrack is another pro, I enjoyed it (Vanguard Sound sounds something? If you played Girls Frontlines it should);
- Gameplay as the rpg parts are okay, but it deserves more polishing and more complexity in general (one of the reasons people heavy criticise this game, and ngl they are not wrong);
- I liked the story but I the last part of it as some plot holes imho ruins a bit itl;
- some minor bugs which fortunately it didn't block me to continue the game or ruin too much the immersion.
I recommend it, but avoid the collector's edition (you can read the reasons here

Anno: Mutationem is an intriguing game that I personally enjoyed even more than I expected. The game mixes environments in a 2D and 3D setting while exploring which I found to be very cool and creative. There is quite a bit for me to explain in this review, but I will go into detail with my experiences while I was playing.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Interesting story with lots of mystery
References from other games
Fun hack-and-slash gameplay
Lots of weapons for you to get and use
Tons of side quests to do
Beautiful pixel art style
Cons
Parts of the story were forgettable
Enemies sometimes end up being sponges halfway into the game
The ability to weapon switch is too slow
Level design near the end of the game suffers
There is a glitch with changing costumes
Story
The story starts with Ann Flores who is on a mission to find N540 to help cure her Entangleitis. Along the way, she finds out that her brother Ryan, has gone missing and she must now go and find her throughout the many cities he has been to. While also getting help from her best friend and hacker Ayane Misuno.
The story for Anno: Mutationem is really interesting, it has some moments with it that do make it shine and the characters are very lovable. Some of them I wish got more screen time as their designs were flashy and had some nice moments. I even loved the references that were shown in the game that were cameos to other games. You can find Jill from Va-Hall at the bar where Ann’s sister works, which I thought was a very nice touch.
That being said, I do feel that there were parts of the story that were forgettable. This is due to the fact that some moments felt like filler and just were not worth remembering. It’s kind of sad that this is the case as I do think the story is very interesting in it’s own way. There is not much for me to really explain on the story, so you have to take my word for it on this one.
Gameplay
Anno: Mutationem is a hack and slash platformer, along the way you will face off against enemies where you can use your weapons to take them out. You have your light attacks, heavy attacks, and a gun to use at your disposal. Along the way, you can find other weapons to use, but you can also find material to make weapons. You can also upgrade the weapons themselves so they can do more damage or give them a passive ability by using microchips.
Ann can also transform into this super form, it’s like Dante’s Devil Trigger from Devil May Cry. She will do increased damage, is faster, and will heal any damage she has taken, this form is very useful for taking out bosses and when you are overwhelmed with enemies.
My favorite weapon to use in the game are the twin blades, they aren’t the most damaging weapon to use but they are fast and do long combos that will deal a ton of damage. The gameplay is very fun, and I really enjoyed slashing enemies. There are a ton of weapons and guns for you to collect throughout the game, it really depends on what you want to use and how you use it. This is something I really like about the game, the freedom to customize your character.
The game even has a skill tree that you can use to help upgrade certain stats or give you new abilities to help you in combat. You will need skill points to get these upgrades of course, you can get them from defeating bosses or taking out enemies. There is also a parry system, although I never used this until like the later parts of the game as I forget it was even a thing for a time.
There are also a ton of side quests for you to go out and do, and they all have their own unique ways of doing them. You will be rewarded for doing these quests, so I recommend doing them if you are someone who enjoys side adventures in games.
While Anno: Mutationem is a fun game, I can’t deny that there are a few issues with the gameplay. The first issue I had is that some of the enemies or bosses can get really tanky sometimes, to the point where you can’t really do much damage to them. Some of them and mostly bosses, will have sheilds that you have to get through before you do any real damage to them.
There are also times where I wish there was a quick switch for your guns that you used, you can get your hands on a few different guns but there is no way to do a quick switch with a button press. However, I should note that there is an option where you can hold down the right stick on the controller to get a weapon wheel up and you can then switch weapons that way. Although I prefer to have a button that would switch the weapons faster.
The level design near the end of the game also suffers as well, the platforming in the game is not fun and getting through that part of the game can be a slog. One of those moments that I honestly did not like about the game. Also, there is a glitch where switching costumes are also bugged, I believe this was patched but I have never tested it as mine was stuck on this one outfit, and I never changed it.
Graphics and Performance
The pixel art style that the game has is very beautiful and the areas that the game has are very detailed and feel alive. I tested the game on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Quad-Core Processor 3.50, and 16 GB of RAM, the game ran very well with no issues and should be able to run on low-end computers.
Final Verdict
Anno: Mutationem is a very fun game that I really did enjoy for it’s gameplay and story. The game is at least 10 hours long with lots of side content for you to enjoy in the game so there is lots to enjoy with it. The game is 28.99 CDN at full price and I feel that the game is worth it at that point for the amount of content that you can get. Although if you are a bit skeptical, then waiting for a sale is always fine.
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One of my favs. If you like side scrolling fighting with story, upgrades, crafting, and cyberpunk theme to boot.