Geneforge 1 – Mutagen
Geneforge 1 – Mutagen is a unique, truly open-ended fantasy adventure in a strange, new world. You are one of the Shapers, wizards with the awesome power to create life. Want a tool, a trap, an army? You summon it into existence. You create mighty beasts, and they totally obey you. Usually.
At least, that’s how it’s supposed to be. You have been stranded on a forbidden island, full of the powerful, lost secrets of your people. Invaders are also here, trying to steal and master your knowledge. Race them for the awesome treasures hidden here. And destroy the thieves. Or join them.
Geneforge 1 – Mutagen offers unmatched freedom in how you play. Use magic or your deadly pets to crush your enemies. Or, use trickery, diplomacy, and stealth to win the game without ever attacking a foe. Choose between a host of rival factions or just destroy everything. Defeat the final boss, or switch sides and join him. Fight alone with blades, missiles, or magic, or create your own army of custom-made mutant monsters.
Geneforge is an epic fantasy adventure with over eighty zones to explore, 50+ hours of gameplay, and unmatched replayability. Choose from dozens of skills, abilities, and pets to reach a vast array of different endings. The coming rebellion will scorch your continent. Who will win? It will be up to you.
Geneforge 1 – Mutagen is a total remaster of our 2001 cult-classic Geneforge. It contains new areas, quests, characters, and dialogue, a redone interface and systems, and a complete reworking of every single thing to bring it into the modern era of gaming.
Steam User 7
Inspired me to get my phD in the field im in
Steam User 6
The nostalgia bias with this one is unreal. I grew up with the original game as a kid, and have probably a couple thousand hours with the series as a whole when factoring in both Steam hours & time spent offline with the CD versions. There was basically a 0% chance of me fully accepting this remaster, because of the vivid contrast between the early series' "knife fight"-like gameplay vs Geneforge 5's bullet-spongy grinds... and frankly because it just wasn't the original/what I remember from my childhood. With that said, I still bought into Kickstarter for this remake and spent quite a bit of time screwing around in the beta, which was even more brutal than the current version. I don't regret it, but I am a bit conflicted with my recommendation of this game. Many elements have been improved, but others worsened by unnecessary RNG and lapses in established lore. My perspective comes from a longtime veteran who plays exclusively on Torment difficulty... your experience may vary. Be prepared for a lot of bellyaching.
The differences between the original and this remake are numerous, so I'll try to list off & compare them as comprehensively as I can:
-The original was old & antiquated even during the time of it's release. The remake has more visual polish and is MOSTLY easier for newcomers to pick up. The loss of the text log is a bizarre reduction however, and only adds confusion to certain quest rewards, especially stat/ability-based ones
-All classes are now perfectly usable. Health & defensive options are noticeably improved from the original, Guardians can now properly frontline, and Shapers don't fall over to a stiff breeze anymore
-Creations have been massively redesigned, for better and worse. They no longer eat up your XP when in your party, and no longer gain levels on their own, but gaining Shaping skills and creation mastery automatically levels them up without needing to reshape them. They now have secondary activated abilities you can spec into, and each creation line has a more distinct feel to it: Fire Creations for ranged/spread damage, Battle Creations for frontline fighting, Magic Creations for buffs & disruption. Creations are now easier to acquire without much investment, but every class is basically forced to use them to some degree.
WITH THAT SAID, the "we made creations more customizable" sell-point is frankly a bit manipulative... despite gaining new abilities, creations ironically feel less customizable than before: in the original game you had much more control over what stats you could dump into your creations, in this remake you have a set number of stats & abilities you can invest into. It is ALWAYS optimal to have a max-invested creation, and once you do, that's it. If a creation caps at Level 12 after maxing everything, that's the maximum potential they'll stay at forever, at least without gaining more shaping skills or creation mastery. In contrast, the original game had a greater degree of potential creation investment, so it was more than possible to spec a creation to tank or hit well above it's usual means. The "creation control" mechanic can more or less be ignored, as it's still more optimal to have few high-level creations than many low-level ones
-The new Cockatrice creation is disappointingly unfocused, and is more or less a worse Glaahk with less reliable abilities and inferior control
-New weapons and abilities are nice, Guardians gain some AOE options with the Spray Baton, while the spellcasters gain more mental magic disruption abilities and the ever helpful Airshock. Elemental damage has been re-introduced, and stat requirements have been added to certain items to make skill investments more meaningful. On the flipside, there's now an overabundance of AOE in general. Of the 10 base creation types you can create, 8 of them now have some form of AOE ability, as do most Sholai, spellcasters, and elite Serviles. Considering you're almost always outnumbered in combat, this change disproportionately hurts the player
-Enemies now block movement when adjacent to opponents. On paper this is nice, in reality it disproportionately hurts the PC and makes escape basically impossible, especially for pacifists. Feared enemies also ignore this entirely, as do certain lategame enemies
-Speed still plagues this series. It no longer grants bonus movespeed, and only gives a CHANCE of being able to act/attack twice. But most endgame fights basically require consistent double attacks, leading to a lot of annoying and unnecessary resets. Additionally, lategame enemies start being able to act twice per round in between turns, leading to even more potential resets
-Evasion is rampant and further augmented by level differences between attackers. This is why having max-level creations is always optimal, as they can usually dodge the vast majority of hits from weaker enemies. On the flipside, some lategame enemies are vastly over-levelled compared to what you can reasonably achieve, leading to some reaching roughly 50%+/- evasion and causing even more RNG BS
-The PC has no mental immunity in this game. This is something the original lacked but was added in subsequent titles, because having your ONLY available healer get feared/stunlocked for 6 turns was an automatic death sentence and reset. There's no excuse for it being excluded in this remake
-Level ups are harder to come by, and difficulty ebbs and flows because of this. The beginning areas are weirdly difficult & grindy, with enemies in general being only a few notches below the bullet sponge hell enemies from GF5. All variants of Roamers are particularly overtuned. Bizarrely, it's actually optimal to initially skip past the Vakkiri combat zones, grind a level from mech at the Hill of Jars, then head way north past Pentil to The Hill to grab the vastly overpowered Charged Vestment, before heading back to tackle the beginning areas. Other notable difficulty spikes are the Battle Alphas & Guardian Roamers in the SE Refugee Cave/Eastern Docks areas, and the multi-turn-abusing lategame enemies in the NW and NE corners of the island respectively
-The Patreon additions vary wildly in consistency. Most of the creation additions are fine, some are better integrated than others, and the overtuned boss guarding ones can usually be killed individually without angering the owners. Some of the quests are alright, the ghost slaying one is very simple, the upgradable items quest I actually enjoyed because the challenges are proportionate to the rewards you get (though the Helix Bracer obliterates every other glove item in the game, and the Feisty Slap unarmed melee gloves are... not my style). The two new primary quest additions are, respectfully, not great in my opinion. One power creeps Servile potential way too much, the other introduces another group of stranded Shapers which massively dilutes the impact of your being trapped on the island. They also break some of the established lore with a mention of improving Wingbolts, a creation that was only introduced in GF4 as a reactionary addition to the Shaper-Drakon rebellion. The red goo being introduced is almost certainly teaser bait for establishing Ghaldring and happens whether you interact with the quest or not. In general, I don't understand the need to break established canon
Overall, more accessible than the original, but with some unnecessary elements tacked on or taken out. I feel like this could have used another month or two of polish, and/or another update to iron out inconsistencies. Full acknowledgement, most of the aforementioned difficulty gripes are PROBABLY exacerbated from Torment difficulty, I get the feeling the base difficulty is much more forgiving. Regardless, if you can stomach the RNG in general, the shining soul of the original story is still here, albeit perhaps a bit muddied.
Steam User 2
Awesome remaster of the classic Spiderweb Software game. Jeff Vogel continues to deliver. Don't worry about the rinky-dink graphics. The story is first-rate and replayable.
Steam User 2
Geneforge 1 Mutagen is one of the most divisive games I have ever played. My favorite games all include a nonlinear structure, in both level design and play styles, and surmounting the odds to survive hostile worlds. Holistically Geneforge excels in these areas but most of the individual parts barely hold up to scrutiny. Combat is barely passable, you cannot move after attacking but late game enemies can. I also miss the tactical options provided by games like Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Combat is still enjoyable just better in other games which is a shame as Geneforge is quite heavy in that department. Most RPGs I enjoy feature simulation mechanics, such as hunger and sleep, as this provides a light level of immersion. Unfortunately Geneforge is missing these types of mechanics. Food and bedrolls exist but provide no purpose outside of slight health bonuses. Just makes me look back at the Ultima, or most old school RPGs, which mandates the player keep track of food for survival and to sleep every so often to restore magic. In the grand scheme these complaints are present but overall are minor. I would love this game to do more because the potential for something truly outstanding is here. Geneforge in the end is good just not great.