Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Offline)
Arrowiz, the Shanghai-based development team behind 2021’s Hermitage: Strange Case Files, returns to Nintendo Switch with a determined attempt to replicate the overall pace and feel of Atlus’ Conquest. Character series in the form of Mato anomalies. This is an RPG that throws a ton of game ideas and mechanics at the player, but unfortunately it all falls apart due to clunky writing, uninspiring combat mechanics, and environmental design. which quickly becomes repetitive.
Launched into a neo-futuristic Shanghai cityscape straight out of Award-winning accommodation, players take on the role of two protagonists: Doe, a hardened private detective who tries to outwit his opponents, and Gram, his mysterious exorcist sidekick who handles all the fighting. Working as a team, the duo set out to investigate a series of strange anomalies plaguing the city, coming face to face with demonic entities known as the Bane Tide.
During the duo’s investigations, they’ll join forces with a handful of other rebels, eventually forming a party of four fighters in the game’s turn-based battles, all of which take place in themed lairs. Palaces game from Persona 5. Dungeons are themed around the trials and tribulations of the character you’re trying to save or stop: the first lair takes the form of a twisted purse, while later endeavors see the fights of the lower class as a backdrop. or fight. in a huge floating theater linked to a celebrity.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Offline)
I Kill Anomalies is really throwing it all in and the kitchen sinks into the mix here in an attempt to engage the player. The story is told through a series of comic book-style cutscenes, and the game engages you in both turn-based battles and mind-hacking segments that take the form of a deck of cards. There are some great ideas here, but the incredibly clunky writing, mostly dealing with silly techno and philosophy talk, made it nearly impossible for us to connect with the adventure or make sense of it. There are times when the game threatens to become a good thing, but the narrative really takes too many ideas. There are too many disparate themes, characters, ideas, and factions to keep up with, which means you might struggle to stay focused or stay interested. It doesn’t help that much of the exposition is groan-worthy material that prefers constant hyperbole over taking the time to coherently explain itself.
So the story isn’t for us, but we still have the turn-based combat and that card game element to lean on, right? Well not really. Unfortunately, the combat is quite boring and incredibly basic compared to the games it seeks to emulate. It has all the usual turn-based RPG parts in place; weapons and skill trees, upgrades, special powers, etc., but it’s all very repetitive and clunky. Your enemies are disappointing in both their appearance and their ability to fight you, your special attacks are too slow to replenish and uninspiring when activated, and the lairs you fight your way through are made up of environmental puzzles simplistic ones that disappear very quickly. absolute routine. to work.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Connected)
And boy, are you going to have to overcome them, because Mato Anomalies asks you to repeatedly return to the same haunts over and over again, especially in the first ten hours or so. This constant repetition fuels the problems of exploring his outside world. Futuristic Shanghai might look good in places with nice backgrounds here and there, but many areas are small and you’ll have to backtrack countless times while working on mundane missions just to enjoy uninspired conversations. We quickly opted to skip all side quests and quickly move through areas to get past the narrative segments and move on to the next battle as quickly as possible.
Moving on to the card game sequences, every once in a while you’ll need to use your mind hacking powers to take down a stubborn enemy or informant to advance the story, reveal a secret, or pinpoint the location of your next face. with the Tide Bane. These map sequences are where Mato’s anomalies are most promising. There are several unlockable card games, each adhering to a different style of shattering your enemy’s subconscious.
As you try to reduce your opponent’s mental score to zero using persuasion attacks, you’ll also have the chance to increase your defense or add special effects to your current deck of cards. While doing so, you will need to be aware of various random anomalies, annoying respawn bugs that appear during mind hacks and give your enemy various buffs. They will add extra attacks to defend themselves, redirect their attacks to random targets, or steal their attack power and add it to their opponent’s for their next turn. These anomalies need to be removed if you want to have any chance of victory, so divide your attention between them and your primary target, keeping in mind that once you defeat an anomaly it will return after a set. number of turns.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Connected)
On paper, it’s a pretty solid setup for a card game, and we find ourselves quite involved in these sequences at times. However, like everything else in the game, it quickly becomes tedious. The mental battles can often seem insurmountable with the various anomalies you need to defeat to attack your enemy, creating scenarios that quickly become frustrating and tedious. As with almost everything else in this game, the idea is great but the execution just isn’t there.
Performance wise, we haven’t had too many issues in our 20+ hours of gameplay. There are a few frame rate issues here and there in the hideouts, something that should be fixed with a day one patch, and we encountered weird crashes and crashes when transitioning to new areas or loading into sequences. But overall, in both docked and handheld modes, Mato Anomalies shows a solid turnaround.
For a development team that has previously developed VR games and a cheap Lovecraftian visual novel, Mato Anomalies feels like a big step forward. It’s an ambitious indie attempt to merge a bunch of compelling game mechanics with a sci-fi narrative that should be thoroughly entertaining, and we can’t deny the trade-off here. There are occasional flashes of good stuff, and the campaign is big business, with two endings for those who find themselves engaged. However, there’s no escaping the shortcomings: the combat just isn’t engaging, the card game elements are more frustrating than entertaining, and the storytelling struggles, lacking spark and wavering under the weight of too many ideas, clumsy writing and weak characterization. .
conclusion
Mato Anomalies is an ambitious indie attempt to create an RPG Persona through neo-futuristic Shanghai. There’s no shortage of good ideas here, with flashes of inspiration in the fusion of turn-based dungeon combat, mind-bending card games and elegant visual novel elements. Yet for all the ambition displayed, it’s let down by uninspired combat, repetitive level design, clunky exploration, frustrating map mechanics, and writing that never manages to hang on. This one isn’t entirely without merit, but overall it’s an experience that will test your patience far more than it manages to entertain.