![]() It doesn’t seem to know how to get the best from its subject matter. The plot is unhoned and raw, like a first draft. Without spoiling too much, the story and action takes you over the city’s rooftops, through its clubs and seedy alleys, deep underground where the underclass of Mekanika sufferers live, and beyond, on a quest to find your brother and control your illness. ![]() This veering between tasks is in some ways the way we play modern video games, but when this is the main questline, it feels jarring. Then that plotline is abandoned in the space of ten minutes in favour of searching for your brother and the cure for your unexplained disease. Well yeah, that is the plot, but just as quickly as it starts, it’s thrown out and you’re a PI again dealing with a murder in your own high-rise. Suddenly there are thugs looking for your missing brother, and we have a story cooking! Got to be some family secrets, right? How did the father become a robot? Where’s the brother Ryan run off to? How is it all connected with Ann’s illness? Ann just decides to go home to the bar run by the family Florez, where you meet her sister and her now robotic father. You just sort of stumble into the story after a while. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want all the answers, but just the symptoms would have been enough, or what the disease is doing to Ann – there’s no tension because I don’t know what it’s doing to her. You have errands to run, people to speak to, but no explanation, at this point, that you’re even a private investigator. You have a disease called Entangelitis (which sounds interesting) but there’s no explanation, you go to the doctor about it, but he doesn’t explain anything either, just gives you a tutorial on combat instead. In the first half hour everything just kind of starts, but without explanation. It’s more concerned with what sexy outfit you’re going to wear, than explaining what’s happening. The story struggles with exposition throughout giving you necessary context, explaining the point of going to certain places, or the reason behind your actions. Not to get too detailed too quickly, but this illustrates one of the major problems with Anno: Mutationem – narrative. I’ve now finished and I still don’t know – I must have missed some exposition somewhere. By around halfway through I was convinced she was a direct lift from Blade Runner 2049 the equivalent of Joi, an AI companion liberated via a remote drone to join Ann on her investigations. At first I wondered if Ayane was a reclusive friend who maintained her outdoor relationships via a drone projection. ![]() She seems to be the sole operator of a Private Investigation service, that solves crimes and issues outsourced to her by the local police along with her live-in virtual AI and girlfriend(?) Ayane. You play as Ann Florez, a semi-amnesiac young woman who can handle herself in a fight. ![]() Developed by Beijing based Thinking Stars and part of Sony’s China Hero Project, Anno: Mutationem has been top of our hype list for a while, so it’s great to see that despite delays it is releasing on PlayStation and PC this week. In Anno: Mutationem its all seen through an anime lens, evoking more Ghost in the Shell than 2077. There’s rich mega corporations and poverty-stricken streets, and its all packaged as a dystopia that for some reason plenty of us actually want to live in. I hope these future cities have good sewer systems. Everything you’ve come to expect from the genre is here flying cars, androids, neon advertisements and too much rain. Looking like the love child of Xenogears and Cloudpunk, Anno: Mutationem is a 2D on 3D cyberpunk adventure through the gritty streets of Skopp City. But is it all corporate smoke and mirrors or credible street style? The Finger Guns Review: Stylish 2D/3D cyberpunk action adventure Anno: Mutationem releases on PlayStation and PC.
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