"At least it looks good" - reviews decry furry action RPG Biomutant's frustrations

Posted by GreenReaper (Laurence Parry) on Mon 24 May 2021 - 21:00 — Edited as of Tue 25 May 2021 - 06:22

Biomutant reviews are out! It's… mediocre. Not great, not terrible:
Eurogamer - GamesRadar - PC Gamer - Game Informer - Rock Paper Shotgun

Perhaps this isn't all that surprising for a relatively new and small development team. But it's a bit of a disappointment after hype sparked by a trailer that dropped in 2017.

Plot-wise, it seems exposition, not true agency, rules the day. World Tree RPG this is not. Still, it may be your bag if you thought Ratchet & Clank lacked in species — or 'Wung-fu'.

There's copious customization aspects: the five 'breeds' of what a developer called your 'muppet' - Primal, Dumdon, Rex, Hyla, Fip and Murgel - each have biases in terms of natural abilities, though you can tweak them significantly, and all can equip booster items.

Likewise, classes exist such as Dead-Eye (one instant ranged reload w/ +20% damage), Commando (+10% ranged), Psi-Freak (damaging spark ball, +20% Ki regen), Saboteur (dual-wield melee, -20% dodge energy cost) and Sentinel (+10 base armour).

You can also heavily customize your melee and ranged weapons - some reviewers felt it became too easy to become overpowered this way. Your character has tunable resistance to heat, cold, radioactivity and biohazards, all of which you'll encounter from time to time, scampering around on two and four paws as you explore a decaying open world left by the departed human race. Unforunately, they don't appear to have left an intelligeble dictionary, so the denizens of the various regions have been left to make up their own words for things.

Various videos and images released over the past four years hint at a theme: finding mobs and monsters and beating/shooting them up. Whether this is justified by the quest to save - or scour - the Tree of Life and its surrounding Tribes is less clear. But it looks good… and furry. A pity, then, if you have to wade through repetitive missions and dialog speckled with a surfeit of ersatz synonyms to get to the good bits.

Biomutant is out May 25 on PlayStation (currently 1080p/60fps on PS5), Xbox One (1080p/30fps; Series X: 4K/60, Series S: 1440p/30fps) and PC.

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Comments

GreenReaper — Mon 24 May 2021 - 21:13

#1

To be clear: this isn't a review; it's a brief summary of the linked ones, as a game of furry interest. If it piques your interest, check them out - and if anyone wants to do a proper review for Flayrah, it'd be welcome. For my part, I doubt an Xbox One S would do it justice. Perhaps by the time I have something more capable it'll be on sale.

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Sonious — Mon 24 May 2021 - 21:48

#2

My computer is 6 years old, if that one got voted on to do, I'd have to get a new machine.

Though if luck holds out and Crypto keeps tanking, I may just get one anyway when the demand for component causes a computer component bubble to burst (fingers crossed)