Metal Mutation

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The motto of the games industry: if anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing ten more times. That’s where genres come from, after all. Case in point: Metal Mutation, which is basically cyberpunk Hades. With plenty of inspiration from Supergiant Games’ award-winning gameplay style and a few enhancements to spice things up it’s got all the trappings we’ve come to expect. Let’s see if that works out.

Guess what? The future sucks! This time it’s been taken over by greedy corporations and also there’s evil nanomachines. We’ve seen both of those before, but it’s definitely a little less common that the evil nanomachines turn animals into cyber-monsters. You’ll control an indentured cyborg sent to battle nano-crazed nasties, hopefully while avoiding your own demise.

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As mentioned…Metal Mutation is basically Hades! That’s it, that’s the review. Fans of that game will probably be fans of Metal Mutation as well. Well, I suppose we can go into a little more detail. Your cyborg and his AI fairy pal explore procedurally-generated dungeons, collecting power-ups and currency with which to purchase more power-ups along the way. You’ve got a selection of different weapons to choose from, each of which offers a different style of combat and various collectible customization options.

The goal is typically to choose a particular facet of battle and develop a build around it, emphasizing your strengths as much as possible in order to minimize attrition and conquer punishing boss battles.

By and large, it works! We kinda knew that already given the popularity of Hades, but it’s a nice enough concept that another game doing it well isn’t anything to sneeze at. You’ve got a wider variety of combat options than Prince Zagreus, including several ranged attacks, defensive maneuvers and more, which adds a little bit of complexity that might appeal to players familiar with the genre.

This also means your selection of upgrades and options is larger, encouraging a wider variety of builds. You can even steal boss enemies’ powers Megaman-style, offering an additional avenue of attack and a further possibility for upgrades. If there’s any real complaint it’s that there’s a lack of impact and feedback when you attack, which can be a problem when you need to properly time counterattacks and so on.

While it’s definitely aiming to learn lessons from the best of the best in its genre and only stumbling a tad along the way in terms of gameplay, Metal Mutation isn’t without its flaws. In particular, the translation could use a little work. It’s possible – mostly – to tell what various buffs, enhancements, penalties and such do, but a few revisions would have produced more legible text. Run-based games like this thrive on a pick-up-and-play style and having to second-guess yourself regarding what exactly your options might do isn’t great.

Translation aside, Metal Mutation’s presentation is pretty nice. We’ve got a sort of cel-shaded-ish anime art style here with all the cyberpunk trappings you know and love. Enemy design in particular is neat thanks to the prevalence of cyborgified animals. A crazed, gun-toting robot is one thing, but how about a mecha-tiger with laser claws? Yeah, that’s a thing.

I’m actually not sure it’s possible to laud this title more than “there are mecha-tigers with laser claws and you can defeat them to gain their powers for yourself,” really. That’s a pretty appealing elevator pitch right on its own. Fans of Hades and its ilk would do well to check out Metal Mutation and consider the game on its own merits, which are many. A few more passes by a decent copy-editor (hint, hint) and this one might even be worth recommending to genre newcomers as well.