Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden is a strategy game, a bit like XCom or Fire Emblem, where you control a cast of mutated animal humanoids as they try to survive and discover the secrets of a post-apocalyptic world. With a larger focus on exploration, setting up ambushes before fights and customization of your characters via skills and equipment, I was getting ready for a grand ol’ time with it. Ultimately my adventures through MYZ:RTE were cut short by a bunch of really difficult fight that I couldn’t figure my way around, which is a darned shame.
After choosing a difficulty (normal), I got thrown into the world and controlling two characters, a duck and a boar. I found quite refreshing the idea to move around a large map outside of battles, when in strategy games usually you’ll navigate menus and then get into combat. The game thought me the importance of setting up ambushes and starting fights before being spotted, which is also pretty neat. Combat is turn-based using an action point economy where you have plenty of options that aren’t too exotic for that kind of game - like being in overwatch, throwing items, dashing, etc. With a cover system that adds a bit of randomness to the mix.
Outside of battles you stalk around, looting resources and chests, avoiding enemies with red skulls and moving between different zones trying to find your next objective - I got a bit lost, I kinda wish the objective marker was more explicit - discover story beats, watch animated cutscenes, and finally get to a town with a few shops where you can improve your weapons, buy resources and unlock special skills based on the items you’ve found while exploring.
Getting to the next map was where things stopped for me, there were two fights I could take, both of them were too difficult for me. They didn’t have red skulls, but no matter how I tried to start them (ambushes, etc.) it ended poorly every time. The fact that I had two options and neither seemed to be doable at my level (or skill set) was a bit much, so I dropped the game and didn’t pick it back up. I don’t think Mutant Year Zero is bad, I’m sure there’s a really neat complex game in there that’ll entertain you for a good while, but I just couldn’t get through it.
