Angst Mutated

Sometimes you just get in a mood, you know what I mean?

I’ve made a decision in life that for the next 6 months (till Christmas) I will stop taking over the world, i.e. turn every thought I have into a business, and do two things instead;

1 – Make sure I do the best I can in my current contract.
2 – Play RPGs.

As a result, I have spent an extended period of time pretending to be some kind of medieval arch mage ranger, getting plus one on a staff. It doesn’t matter which game I play, that’s pretty much the character I am going to roll, preferably with the ability to raise a whole bunch of demon minions.

About halfway into the 6 months the anxiety kicked in more than ever and for some reason that I can’t explain the machinations of a fantasy 10th century land wouldn’t suit, I was in the mood to play a sci-fi game. Something with a Blade Runner down-beat, almost miserably styled, neon rain splattered ’80s electro synth vibe. After a bit of searching, I found what looked, and turned out to be, exactly that: Anno: Mutationem.

It’s an indie game, very reasonable priced and it has a demo. The fact it was indie meant that I wasn’t expecting a massive AAA marathon, which is exactly what I wanted. And the fact it had a demo meant I could check it played ok. The crafty demo was just enough to hook me in, I don’t think they could have timed it more perfectly – if extracting my cash was the goal.

A:M, if you don’t know, is half RPG and half platform slash ’em up. It is what I would call ‘light’ in both genres. I didn’t need to worry about grinding for an hour to get a +1 on a weapon because there are only a few upgrades in the entire game. There’s no getting bogged down with side quests because there aren’t that many. The platforming is easy enough even for beginner platform players and anyone with even a modicum of platforming skill will breeze through it. There are puzzles, but they are pretty easy – hard enough to tantalise a brain cell or two. Nothing in the game is ‘hardcore’, whatever that means, unless I suppose you set it to the hardest difficulty level.

Where the game excels is in absorbing you into said Blade-Runner down-beat, almost miserably styled, neon rain splattered ’80s electro synth vibe. Right from the get-go I was emersed in this beautiful world – low res, but beautiful.

I sat in my angst-ridden state playing with the blinds in the bedroom, just opening and closing them over and over while pondering the gorgeous lighting effect. Nothing too fancy, just gorgeous. I spent more than a minute or two just staring down a street that looked uncannily (to me) like Godzilla Street in Tokyo

The strange way the screen seems to scroll in the RPG sections draws you into the neon bloom, Tokyo-esque, environments with their crowds of weird characters and niche shops and keeps you there. The NPCs have their own little stories to listen to, some of which lead to a side quest or whatever but listening to them was a case of just standing nearby so there was no break in emersion by having to press a button. I would just roam around and listen (read) the random conversations while trying to work out what was going on in this fluorescent nightscape world.

Nipping into any of the various shops was accompanied by a change in tune to fit the expected mood of the shop and all of them felt just like I remembered from when I went to Japan. Unique, interesting characters in each shop guided me or tried to flog me the latest weapon or corn juice (you’ll understand if you play it).

Travelling between the lovingly crafted locations, of which there are only a handful, had a significant loading time on Nintendo Switch (I doubt it would be there on any of the other major platforms) but also switched to a view of Ann Inside a flying car, with neon light beams flashing past, exactly like Blade Runner and my brain switched into it.

I imagined I was in that car, mesmerised by the lighting, not caring how long the loading took, in fact I didn’t want the loading to finish, not just yet. I love walking in the rain in real life and the closest I have ever been to what was depicted on the screen was in Tokyo, the game took me straight back there.

I could go on a bit about problems with the game, particularly with the pacing, but I’m not going to, because it’s an indie game and it is what it is. For me ‘it’ was enough to draw me in and leave me regretting having to stop playing for whatever stupid reason real life had for me, like sleep, or food.

I could wax lyrical about the ending for a good couple of hours but suffice it to say the ending cut through the anxiety fuelled nightmare of a battle in my own head and left me with a smile on my face. An actual smile. A devious, revenge ridden death smile, but a smile none-the-less. There are 2 endings, I assume, based on a specific choice I had to make. I will not go back to play the other ending because the one I picked was perfect and is the best last 30 seconds of a game I have played in years.

I might have forgotten to mention the bat-shit crazy story, that’s because a bat-shit crazy story goes without saying.