Before I continue with this review, I want to mention that I really like XCOM and games that are like XCOM (turn-based combat with a cover system) and when I heard about this game I was really excited to play. This game turned out to be quite different than I thought. Here is why:


Pros:
+Surprisingly, the graphics and the art styles in this game are quite nice, even better than some triple-A games out there.
+Good optimizations. I did not encounter any problems such as stuttering, low fps, texture loading or memory loss which are quite common for day 1 release these days.
+Love the whole setting and the universe/lore of it. (I am a sucker for apocalypse/fallout settings)
+While the story is a bit cliched, the characters are unique, nicely voice acted and they carry the plot quite well.
+Only two bug/glitch encountered in my whole playthrough
>Having more than 3 heroes active don't know how I did this nor can replicate this glitch.
>Using knockback to a guy who's on a ledge, second floor, didn't make him fall. He was floating in the air.


Neutral:
+-The game is unforgiving and punishes you for every mistake you make, more so on harder difficulties. While It is not impossible, it can be quite a challenge and this can be a plus for some people, but at the same time, it can be a minus for more casual players (even scare them away).
+-The game forces exploration, it is the only way to acquire resources to upgrade weapons, buy stuff as well as acquiring some much-needed items. For people who love to explore every corner of the map, it is quite rewarding but for those who don't, this can be a minus.
+-Trading and upgrading in this game are pretty basic. But for some strange reason, you can not sell your loots for scraps but can dismantle weapons for weapon parts.
+-While the game plays exactly as XCOM, 2 action points, covering system, etc, and with the stealth system being more unique than the latter. It is rough around the edges and feels a bit wonky at times, for example:
>The only way to get the first turn is by ambushing your enemies.
>If the enemy spots you, they immediately gain the first turn and shoots in the face, killing you instantly and forcing you to load a previous save.
>An enemy is behind a cover, you run right next to the cover that he is standing (flank him) and prepare to shoot, the enemy who is now fully exposed still have the cover bonuses. What?
>Pathing issues in combat (XCOM still have this issue).
>Not being able to see an enemy even when they are in direct line of sight.
>The list goes on but they are all minor stuff and I believe that it can be fixed or modified with few patches.


Cons:
*The cons in this game are mainly balancing issues
-The only way to gain experience points is by defeating/killing your enemies. So, even if you want a stealth run you will be forced to fight and farm or else you will be totally outclassed and outmatched.
-The ambush. Many times when you ambush an enemy, you can not kill that enemy at the first turn. Because your stealth weapons are too weak or because your stunning abilities are on cooldown (so you can get an extra turn). This becomes more apparent in mid to late game where the enemies are literal walking tanks. Forcing you to go loud from the very beginning, which throws the whole stealth out of the window.
-Your heroes aren't unique enough in terms of combat abilities. While your heroes have some unique abilities and skills to their own, they are way too few compared to the many basic abilities like run-and-gun, shooting twice at the cost of accuracy, jumping, flying, taunting, higher mobility, etc. Hell, the character Farrow have only 1 unique ability and it makes her kinda redundant compared to the other heroes. To top it, you can have only 3 mutations (abilities) at a time. 2 of them are actives ( 1 major and 1 minor mutation) and 1 is passive. It is a damn shame and a missed opportunity for the devs to go crazier on this part.
-Weapons feel very week even when they are fully upgraded, because of the tanky enemies. This weakness will feel even greater in the later stages of the game. (See below)
-Cooldown system. In this game to cooldown your abilities take kills as a counter instead of a turn. While this may not seem to be a big of a deal at the beginning of the game, it becomes a problem, again, in the later parts of the game. Because of the tankiness of the enemies, it will take quite a few turns to kill a single enemy, meaning that if you don't play aggressive and go for the kills your skills won't reset and the abilities are not even that strong or useful enough to risk yourself of getting killed. For many people out there who likes to take their time and play passive, this can be a huge con.
-The AI has some cooldown issues too. They take turns to cooldown their abilities and they don't cool down like you do because it would make no sense for them to cool down their abilities by killing you. Now, this doesn't seem to be a thing to be nitpicked at but the problem is many of them have short cooldowns or they don't have any cooldowns at all. For example:
>Med-Bot, who does nothing but revive fallen allies and it only takes 1 turn to revive them with half hp and it has no cooldown.
>Tank, who uses knockback (knocks you out for 2 turns) and it only takes 1 action point and 2 turns to cooldown.
>Shaman, who summons mobs over and over again (three to one mob), takes 4 or 3 turns to cool down (don't know the exact number).
>They don't seem to be that broken at first glance. But they are when they are all together, plus at the later game when they have more than 25 hp plus armor. Making it impossible to kill all these high priority targets in a single turn, forcing you to choose one of the three and let the other two to use their abilities which can really mess up the whole engagement. Even worse if you end up getting bad RNG and miss a shot, welp... This could be fixed by making them have a longer cooldown or by making their abilities a bit weaker.
-Yes, almost every single cons have something in common and it is the super tanky enemies, almost bullet sponges, and when it combines with other aspects of the game it ends ups breaking the over-all balance. Like I mentioned above, the enemies become stronger as you progress. While this doesn't seem to be bad at all, the problem is that the enemies become way too tanky making it a chore to even kill the single weakest enemy. For example, a single mob enemy has 4 hp with no armor, then 6 hp. Suddenly that same mob have a whopping 10hp plus an armor even later, 20 hp with 2 armor and so on. The other unique enemies become tanky as well, having tons of hp and armor. This makes even the simplest fights that could've been won in a few couples of turns into a long-pitched drown out shooting. This wouldn't be a much of a problem if your weapons were much stronger, or if you could have more than 3 heroes at a time, or by simply lowering their hp.


TL;DR
Mutant year zero: the road to Eden is a game that left me with mixed feelings, while many aspects of this game are really good such as the turn-based combat, the fallout setting, the unique characters, and the lore. But in the end, it falls a bit short, the overall balance and the new stealth mechanic of the game is what really pushes me off. Even more so because the gameplay is literally based on XCOM series, and I just can not help my self but compare it with the latter and it really makes me wonder if this game could have been much, much more than this.
An above average game but if they manage to fix these issues that I mentioned above, this game could easily become one of the greatest game out there. As well as it could be much more friendly and less punishing which would attract more casual players and gain more fans to help this title grow.

If you are into a challenging game and are able to overlook all those issues above buy it now. For more casual players buy it on sale.

🔵 Pros
+ Well depicted post-apocalyptic world with great atmosphere.
+ Very good graphics for this genre, featuring spectacular effects, destruction and physics.
+ Solid old-school style turn-based combat system.
+ Rewarding exploration, with many secret items and resources to find.
+ Decent storyline with interesting characters keeping it involving.
+ Good variety of enemies, equipment, upgrades, skills and items.
+ Challenging, tactical fights requiring planning ahead and clever strategies to beat.

🔴 Cons
- Stealth kill mechanics are a bit too much reliant on lucky events such as guessing the enemy sound detection distance right before firing weapons, or critical hits.
- Party balance isn't great, as some companions are definitely all-around more powerful and useful than others.
- Some issues with companion and enemy path-finding in certain areas.

Mutant Year Zero (MYZ) is a rather unique turn-based tactical RPG set in a bleak, devastated world, hundreds of years after terrible disasters, including plague and nuclear apocalypse happened. In this world, a last beacon of hope remains, the Ark, and the characters, as two of the best Stalkers, will be tasked with a dangerous mission to safeguard Ark's future.

Think of MYZ as an XCOM without all the base-management, planetary defense part, and a lot more focused on storyline and exploration. The characters that will join your party along the way have distinct, well-characterized personalities, and will often comment on your findings across the world in their own style. While the story itself is decent but a bit stereotyped, the characters are the star of it and keep it interesting.

Exploration is satisfying and rewarding, as there is a lot of scrap (currency) lying around waiting to be found and then spent at the merchant, while also equipment crates awarding new weapons and armors, and rare Artifacts, unlocking points to purchase powerful passive abilities back at the Ark. Combat is old-school style turn-based, featuring 1AP for movement and another one for attacking, plus a variety of character-unique abilities ranging from support to offensive, and defensive ones. Stealth mechanics are also thrown in the mix, and soon become essential to trim down enemy numbers before the main fight happens.

Overall, MYZ surprised me positively, as it boasts excellent polishing, gameplay quality and content for being the first work of a new Indie studio. There's a lot of fun to be had in exploring and fighting in the wastelands and great feeling of accomplishment after each fight.

Liked this review, and want to see more of the same quality? Check out Tamaster's Review Archive to see all my Reviews in a single, convenient location.

🎮 Gameplay
The gameplay of MYZ is divided into Exploration, Combat, and Management.

Exploration happens in real time, and is pretty straightforward: heaps of metal and junk lie all over the place, with a faint glow to them most noticeable at night or in dark places, while also crates surrounded by a golden glow are present: these will give out new pieces of armor or weapons, but more often than not, will also be guarded by several enemies. Notes from the past, artifacts and sites to investigate are also around, and the careful explorer will be rewarded with more than enough firepower, armor and items. There isn't a lot of environmental interaction, so nothing like puzzles.

Team management is a vital part of the gameplay. While ammo is unlimited, other resources like Medkits are not: these are the only way to refill your health, and will replenish it fully out of combat, while only a part of it when used in a fight. Rare and expensive, medkits are your most valuable asset. Other consumables such as grenades, molotovs, and other throwables are present, but these are much more abundant. Each one of our Stalkers can be equipped with accessories, armor and weapons, which can also be modded themselves with better sights and implants to grant special effect chances, like burning or EMP shock. Weapon parts are also a valuable resource to look for, and can be obtained by recycling unused weapons or looting.


📖 Story
MYZ narrates the adventure of a group of Ark Stalkers on a dangerous mission, that soon will become a personal quest to find their very destiny. If on one side the storyline itself is a bit bland, the other elements like atmosphere and characters keep it steadily-paced and alive, making it overall interesting to follow until the end.

👊 Combat System
Combat in MYZ is turn-based, with 2AP to every enemy and ally alike. One AP can be used for movement, while the other to shoot, move again, or use an item. Each weapon has a set range which can be increased through skills, mods and some accessories, while accuracy is calculated based on range: the greater a weapon's range is, the more accurate it will become as it comes closer to the enemy. There are no drawbacks in using a sniper rifle point blank, or a shotgun at fifty meters distance, if it has enough range.

Often enemies will be armored and reduce a portion of the damage they suffer. Armor cannot be stripped or bypassed, and heavily armored enemies will require a lot of hits to bring down. Status effects derivative from abilities such as Knockdown, Stun or even Mental Possession are present, each also has a counter to them in the form of items or equip, adding to strategy.

Stealth is a core mechanic of combat, and consists in picking off isolated enemies with silenced guns to take them out without alerting the whole area. This is very useful if done correctly, as it will trim down enemy numbers for the big fight ahead. Only problem with this is that gun sound range, when using non-silenced guns, is not explained and several retries to figure out exactly how much sound each gun does are required.


💰 Content & Pricing
Priced at 35€, MYZ offers about 20-25 hours of good quality content depending on difficulty and strategies, but not much replay value. I’d say this title is still worth it at the proposed price as the gameplay is solid and indeed a quality turn-based experience.

🔗 Balance & Challenge
I played the game on Very Hard, and it poses a serious challenge even for veterans of the genre, especially early on. Expect to retry many times more than a few fights, until you figure out the best strategy and succeed. The complete freedom of approach is a key component in making it never frustrating, but rather always makes the player want to try again in a different way.




🎥 Graphics
Excellent for this type of game. High quality models, brilliant effects, spectacular destruction, and satisfying body physics on killed enemies.

🔊 Sound
Good quality voice acting, pretty average sound effects.

🔩 Performance & Stability
Unlike many other Unreal 4 games, this one is rather well optimized, and will run smoothly without melting down your GPU. [GTX1080, i7 4820K, 16GB RAM]. Only a few random crashes rarely happened.

💻 Artificial Intelligence
Very good enemy AI that will always know exactly where to place itself to hurt the most and also be protected. More than once i've been surprised, and angry in equal measure, at some enemy AI behaviors.

🏠 Quality of Life
The only problem here is the absence of a mouse sensitivity option.

🐛 Bugs & Issues
Some minor bugs here and there, an isolated case of falling down the map in a specific area, also few path-finding issues.


Mutant Year Zero is definitely a solid and fun turn-based story driven game, and possibly one of the most interesting titles of this genre coming out this year.

This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers.

22 hours. That is what I got for my $34.99 and tax. I'm satisfied. It was priced less than a AAA game. It gave me a decent story with adequate gameplay. What made the game worth the purchase was the atmosphere, ambience and humor. I completed this once on normal with getting all sidequestish stuff done. There are really no side quests, just artifacts, notes and zones to explore that contain some lore.

The gameplay is simple. If you have played any X-COM game, this will be a breeze. The upgrade system allows you to get virtually all of the abilities. Where things get tight is upgrading the weapons and finding/purchasing the attachments to make them better. You have to offset this with your medpak purchases. That was the biggest challenge I faced.

Overall I recommend this game because I had fun. It was a fun 22 hours. I would love to dive into it again when/if any story content is released but as it stands, I'm satisfied with my 22 hours and I'll say good day sir.

I started playing this game just a few days ago, not fully knowing what to expect.
I just finished my first play through and all I can say is that I loved the whole experience, that is apart from a few little things that I am going to mention later.
I've played turn based video games since 90's and this one goes straight to being one of my new favorites. I

Some reviewers compare Mutant Year Zero to X-COM. I can agree with them but only when it comes to the tactical part. There are a lot of differences to X-COM, like there is no base building or research in MYZ.
It's mostly the combat that feels very similar to those new X-COM games, but rest of this game is quite different actually. I can't think of any other game that I have played which was just like Mutant Year Zero. I would describe it being a combination of adventure and tactics with heavy emphasis on stealth-based gameplay.

To me the concept of this game was like a fresh breeze within this genre. I am not usually one to enjoy stealth in video games, but somehow the developers succeeded making it interesting this time around. What's next, games with enjoyable protection missions?

Games these days are often too complicated for my tired brains. In MYZ there is certain kind of simplicity that I enjoyed. It's not simple in means of being repetitive or anything like that, but it was very easy to learn and get into. I really enjoyed the whole post apocalyptic setting and dark atmosphere and the story felt like it rolled forward just the right pace without making me feel myself bored or being in a hurry. At first I thought that the main characters were a little bit silly, but then I realized that it was the whole point. This is not a game to be taken too seriously.
I actually found a lot of the humor and dialogue in this game to be pretty funny and well written. Most of the characters had a lot of personality to them and voice acting was good.
I pretty much enjoyed MYZ's storytelling from the beginning to the end, even though the ending was somewhat predictable. You guys gave too much hints during the game :D

Level design, game balance (items/enemies/difficulty/progression etc), sounds, arts & graphics and the UI were all very well made and polished. To me the soundtrack was just mediocre, but that how it is with many games and videos these days. I can't remeber when was the last time I actually enjoyed listening to videogame music.
I wish gamedevelopers would dare to have some more melodic music in their games. I find this whole "let's have everything slow/fx/ambient/ and keep it in the background" thing to be kind of boring. It's a matter of taste of course.

I really appreciate some of the design choices the developers made with this game.
For example, there was no point where I felt like I had to do endless hours of grinding in order to get new gear that was just a little bit better. A lot of games are like that these days and I don't like it one bit. If games make you feel like you are going to work, something is clearly wrong with them. Games should be fun and relaxing and this is exactly what MYZ is: fun and enjoyable old school video gaming.

Every single chest and item in MYZ had clearly been designed and placed in there by a real human being, instead of some kind of random generator. During my travels in road to Eden, every single chest that I opened, or an item that I picked had actually a lot of value for me. Some games give you so much loot that it soon becomes a problem because the player might end up spending a lot of his precious time micromanaging the inventory. Some people might like that kind of thing and it's ok, but I am not one of them. Fewer items is not a bad thing.

Mutant Year Zero is definitely not a long game by any means. This is because a lot of the annoying stuff that is plaguing modern games is missing. The content in this game is not some copy paste filler stuff.

I am sure the developers could design the game in a way to make the player look for materials for 100+ hours, in their quest to get their ultimate armor and weapon set, but how much fun would that be? In MYZ I actually managed to get some of my best gear by sneaking past enemies, who would sure had kicked my butt if I was to encounter them.

There is certain feeling of achieving something when you have to use your brains to get the gear instead of just blindly killing everyone. Turn based combat sure feels very good in every wayin MYZ, but you often have to do some scouting and careful planning beforehand. It's also important to save often because things can go terribly wrong very fast, which kind of keeps the player in his toes and adds a lot of excitement even to some of the smaller battles.

What I most appreciate about Mutant Year Zero is that it's basically a new kind of gaming experience for me, which is not something that happens often these days. It sure felt a bit difficult at first, but once I got a third team member, better gear, more health and skills, things suddenly started getting a lot easier. This said, no matter how good items you have or how many levels you have, MYZ pretty much forces the you to think about how to reach your goal the most effecient way. Often using stealth and multiple skills must be used in combination of silenced weapons with correct mods is a requirement if you want to beat the enemy without resorting to using too many items. You do not have infinite grenades or medikits in this game.

I found MYZ to be very well balanced difficulty wise. It's AI sure surprised me multiple times and more than once I really struggled to survive. I learned quickly not to underestimate my enemies. I don't usually like stealth based games so it was definitely a positive surprise for me find myself enjoying stalking my prey, patiently waiting and finding the weak spots of the enemy. Getting rid of the enemies one by one sure felt rewarding because I always knew that the main battles would be much easier then. If you manage to get rid of any units that call more enemies or heal/resurrect their buddies, it's going to be so much easier to clear each area.

The negative things I have to mention about Mutant Year Zero are the following:
- Game crashed a few times during my 22h playtime. It's nothing I couldn't get over though.
- I also had some problems using my gamepad and because of this I was basically forced to go with the KBD + Mouse combo.
- Like many others here, I was also missing a simple quick save/load feature. I've gotten so used to having it on similar games.
- Movement of the mouse cursor felt too slow and clumsy to me. More options for this is needed.
- The store in the HQ does not let you sell anything as you can only buy from there. It would have been nice if the player was able to scrap or sell any of his surplus gear. You can scrap your weapons but that's it.

I don't post reviews very often. When I do it's for the games that are mostly unknown and really deserve to have people's attention (IMO of course). I will definitely travel that road to Eden again, and it's for this that Mutant Year Zero deserves my warm recommendation.

Length: 18-22 hours (normal to experienced players)
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
For: Turnbased-tactics fans
Buy it: At sale, not at full price. Way to Short for a turnbased tactics game XCOM = 200 hr fun, MYZ = 20hr fun).
Replay value: only for hardcore players

The game feels unfinished. My playthrough took me about 20 hours (all places, all enemies).
Still the ending is far too open for my taste. Ther was no great BOSS-fight, no grand strategie. Just no more content. It ends with an expected "twist" (and i use the term twist very loosely) and nothing to follow it up.

Basically you get a turn-based combat generator with a few RPG elements (not many) and not many fun tactics. This is defenitely not "X-Com" or "Kings bounty" or "Phantom Doctrine".

The central base ("the ark") is unbelievable 2-dimensional. 3 shops and one lame Elder to listen to. There is NO Interaction on your part. No questline, Discussions or anything beyond 2 Dimensional texts to read or listen to.
It is still fun, but i wonder if the creators had bigger plans and 6 months more could have made this pebble a shiny gemstone.

Go buy it on humble bundle for 12 dollars

Pros:

+ Turn-based tactical strategy mechanics
+ Challenging and rewarding battles
+ Different locations that are very exciting to explore
+ Good amount of weapons to play around with
+ Nicely designed mutants with a unique appearance and charismatic behavior
+ Rich lore
+ Stealth mechanics that let you either avoid the battles you don't feel like participating at the moment or take the enemy by surprise
+ Fully destructible buildings
+ Interesting mutations to unlock as the player progresses through the game

Cons:

- Optimization issues
- At certain points, the game forces you to explore the map to the fullest against your desires
- Some of the mutants are completely weak and useless
- The game can be frustratingly difficult even on the lowest difficulty
- A bit weak and outdated graphics
- No quicksave option

I remember my childhood days when I was spending hundreds of hours playing first X-COM games and it was amazing. Since then, I love turn-based tactical strategy games with all my heart and my love is getting bigger every time I try out every next great game of this genre that appears on the market.

Mutant Year Zero was a game that I was waiting for like mad. Turn-based mechanics mixed with a great story to follow, different locations to explore, tactical strategy gameplay and ability to use stealth when it's needed - what could be better? However, as it turned out the game has some weak points as well. Let's try to sort out what Mutant Year Zero has to offer to the players.


In Mutant Year Zero the world has come to a logical conclusion: all these neverending wars, climate changes, financial feuds, and many other factors led to horrific consequences and everything fell apart. The nuclear weapon has been used and now the whole planet Earth plunged into darkness. Now all the humanity is gone and there are only mutants left there, exploring the Zone, trying to survive in this madness. The player takes control of the small group of mutants that has the ultimate goal of finding a mysterious place called Eden, where, according to rumors, they can find all the answers on their questions.


The first thing that will probably surprise most of the players is that Mutant Year Zero has a traditional WASD controls. Player uses these controls to move up to three mutants around the location during the exploration and switches to a tactical mode in isometric view when the battle starts. This kind of controls let the player to either confront the enemy or sneak around and bypass them. The game often puts the player in the situation, where it’s better to avoid the fight because the enemy can be much stronger. So using that stealth thing is one of the most significant features in the game. By sneaking around, the player has a chance to take the enemy by surprise and do more damage.

When the battle is inevitable and the player finds themselves in a tactical mode, he has to give orders to the mutants one by one. Since it’s a classic turn-based tactical game, the player has to keep an eye on action points which are used for moving, shooting and using special skills. Turn by turn, the player has to eliminate every single enemy on the battlefield, keeping an eye on the most powerful enemies, who can become a really big problem and turns the outcome of the battle upside down. Some of them can call for the reinforcement, others can revive fallen strongest enemies, etc. At the end of every battle, the player has to gather all the remaining scrap, broken old weapons, find powerful artifacts, new armor, and weapon.

Player’s squad can contain up to three mutants and it lets you play around with different combinations of skills and weapons. The whole squad has one common level that identifies their power and shows whether they are ready to proceed to the next locations with more dangerous enemies. However, every squad member levels up separately as well. Every time it happens, the player can either choose a new powerful skill, passive talent or increase the basic characteristics of the mutants. Keep in mind, that some of the mutants have really weak skills and it makes them fairly useless for the group.

It’s always a good idea to visit The Ark after finishing all these battles and leveling up your mutants. It’s a place where you can upgrade your weapons, exchange found artifacts for some great bonuses like increasing grenade’s damage or improving medkit’s efficiency or to buy something useful from the local merchant.

The player uses the world map to travel between locations. This map usually shows you the required or recommended level the player has to reach to go there. Based on my own experience, I can say that it won’t be possible to rush through the main story quickly to finish the game as soon as possible, simply because your squad will be weak and underpowered. This game exactly forces you to explore the whole world, finish every battle, find all the notes to learn the game’s lore and just enjoy it to the fullest. In general, the whole world map is not that big to avoid exploring.

My biggest complaint is that this game can be frustratingly difficult even on the lowest difficulty and it’s really embarrassing. At certain locations, it’s very challenging and you will have to reload your saves over and over again to find the best solution for the situation you are facing. Speaking of saves, I found it really annoying that there was no quick save option - really handy option in a game like this one.


Don’t expect a graphics revolution in Mutant Year Zero, it’s not that case when the game tries to impress you in this field. The whole post-apocalyptic atmosphere is transmitted very well: empty streets, filled with greedy stalkers, dirty tunnels full of abandoned cars, dark dull forests with an oppressive sense of hopelessness. And the cutscenes are represented as comic stripes with the slightest bit of animation.

However, when it comes to optimization, things are not so good. I encountered a lot of problems, especially at the beginning of the game with freezes, low fps issues and these awkward moments when the game continues to render the textures when you enter the location. Not to mention, that I have a top notch rig, so the problems are definitely not on my side.


Mutant Year Zero boasts a high level of audio accompaniment, featuring professional voice acting, tense and atmospheric music alongside with astonishing sound effects of gunshots and skill usage. No complaints regarding the sound in Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden.


In general, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is a good game with its ups and downs, that will perfectly fit the needs of a turn-based combat genre lover. It definitely hooks you with its interesting story, rich lore to explore and challenging combat, but it can also push you away with its optimization issues and that difficulty scale thing.

Follow our curator page, Alexander's Club Curations if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.

For others who are interested in this game because the reviews and promos make connections to X-COM: its not. To be honest the videos and people's comparisons to X-COM are misleading.

So here are a few things that I wish I had known before I paid for this product. Maybe it will help others.

• First and foremost, stealth isn't really an element of this game as a necessity. If you're expecting to play the game like X-COM where you can include different play styles while you game, that's not how the game works.
  
  Most help that other players offer requires you to sneak around in zones to get gear you probably shouldn't have at your level just to survive a fight of up to 7 v 3 (if you don't spend 10-15 minutes picking off side enemies one by one). A few of those enemies are armored medics, ironically with more health and armor than most of the goons it's healing, that can completely revive someone you spent 10 minutes stealthing around just to kill.
  
  
• Customization consists of a two skill trees for every character. One contains such "flashy" skills as 1 extra health point or the ability to throw bombs farther. The other consists of a small set of abilities that require you to buy skills you won't use (since you can only equip certain ones at a time) to get to skills you want. I think I would have actually preferred that it didn't give you the illusion of choice, but rather characters get fun new skills as they level automatically.
  
  
• You level up based on kills. Your skills reset based on kills. You get loot from people you kill. BUT the game seems set up so that this seems like the LAST thing you actually want to do. You'll spend more time circling around a map to figure out where everyone is so you can slowly pick off enemies you desperately hope you can kill in one turn. Otherwise...BOOM here comes nearly every enemy in the zone.
  
  
• Some people WILL find this game to be tedious. When I hit the 4th map where I spent an unjustified amount of time circling around trying to pick off enemies, I realized that if this was the intentional play style for every map, I wasn't all that interested in playing.
  
  
• This game feels like it has the illusion of choice. You basically NEED to play stealth. Which means all of the weapons you're going to spend your limited resources on are...silent weapons. Want that cool skill? Spend your mutation points on skills that you won't use (or for some players feel forced to buy just to survive) to get to it.

That being said, the setting and premise seems great. I wanted to know more, but I just got REALLY tired of slowly sneaking around on the maps at reduced speed. From a psychological point, I also got bored that I hit level 12 and was doing the same general amount of damage I was doing when I was level 1 since damage is based solely on gear which you scrounge around trying desperately to upgrade.

If you're looking for another game to meet your X-COM addiction this isn't really it.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is a hardcore hybrid game that tries to mix the genres of both survival and strategy. While it manages to do this to some extent, in the end, it fails and opts to rely on its survival aspects rather than keeping the balance that makes it special. This game has its ups and downs: it brings an interesting concept and new mechanics to the table but also suffers from huge difficulty spikes, poor keybinding selection and a wide arrange of problems.



The survival part of the game deals with stealth, managing resources, and ambushing enemies while the strategy part plays out as three-man squad combat in turn-based gameplay. The survival is interesting since enemies don't respawn and neither do resources making every decision matter during the whole playthrough. However, it forces the player to explore every inch of the map in order to acquire these resources and sometimes you can miss some pretty important gear like the Axe Warrior Armor, which is crucial for handling certain types of enemies. This is the rule with most items, they are not optional but mandatory and sometimes they are hidden pretty well.



When it comes to the strategy part, is just your average game but watered down. Percentages can only appear in the following amounts: 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. There are no variables, this makes the game stale and boring in general when it comes to this aspect. Optimization is superb and low-end machines can probably run this without issues (it even has an integrated graphics mode). That being said, the game do sometimes glitches with characters not being able to move or enemies becoming stuck through this is rare.



It's cast, how it presents itself and the story. Characters are bonafide comedians each with their own quirks, speech patterns, and views on their world. While the game fails in its overall design, it is pretty bold of them to try to mix two different genres that don't play well with each other. Customization is not deep but also not lacking and some of the options in mutations (abilities) are very interesting and useful as well as fun to use.



+ Narrative is good.
+ Optimization is superb.
+ Good variety of enemies with different mechanics.
+Presents decent amounts of customization, both visual and gameplay-wise.
+Cast is diverse and unique, I mean where else can you find a talking duck who is also a fun prick?
+Mutations are fun to use, even though the system barely scratches the surface of what could have been an amazing system.

-Exploration is mandatory, not optional.
-Can be misleading, is more survival than strategy.
-Tutorials are lacking, which leads to lots of trials and error testing.
-Difficulty spikes, early game is crushing but the mid-late game is easy.
-Some enemies are cheap, making it an excruciating experience to deal with them.
-Is a hardcore game, the enemy will always have the advantage by a good margin. This not a bad thing per se, but the game should raise awareness so that the players know what they are getting.



After beating the game, I can say that I certainly don't regret my time with it. It is a hardcore experience that will make your blood boil if you are a stranger to strategy games, but it is a great game. The idea is amazing and something that I have rarely seen in any videogame but the execution is poor regrettably. Mutant Year Zero might be plagued with an arrange of inconsistencies in its gameplay and other aspects but it is a game that most players can certainly enjoy. I recommend this to people who enjoyed strategy, fun-fleshed characters and to those who want to try something out of the ordinary.

Mutant is a tactics RPG I thoroughly enjoyed, but has some caveats that you should be aware of before buying.
Before that however, what you can expect from the 15-or-so hour romp through the game:

• Incredibly beautiful, lush visuals with a good variety of environments.
  
• Entertaining and likeable writing. There's a tinge of humour in there, but it's kept light and steers clear of the sardonic nihilistic pitfall that's easy for post-apocalyptic games to fall into.
  
• Great sound direction. Weapons have a meaty thunk to them which makes every hit and kill feel satisfying.
  
• Engaging and well thought-out turn based tactical combat with a unique real-time stealth component to it.

Now, onto the caveats:
1. This game leans more towards the "tactics" side of tactical RPG.
Just about every aspect of combat is finite across the entirety of the playthrough except for ammo. Limited money, limited shop refreshes, etc. You need to plan and ration stuff because you cannot just grind your way through difficult encounters.

2. The stealth part of the game is not "optional".
A key part of the game is the stealth system. With this, you can wander around the battlefield and pick off unsuspecting enemies with silent weapons, before "going loud" on the rest of their companions. Almost EVERY encounter will be significantly harder, if not outright unwinnable, unless you fully utilise this system; turning the game into some kind of psuedo-puzzle RPG rather than a tactics RPG. As long as you follow the formula (stealth kill absolutely everything you can) you will (probably) not lose.

Some criticisms:

• Party balance isn't the greatest. There's very little reason to ever use anything but the first three party members for 80% of the game. The remaining 20% you can substitute the third for the fifth, while the fourth just isn't really useful at all.
  
• A lack of minimap is mildly irritating when you're trying to systematically comb maps for resources and encounters.
  
• Inter-party interaction just kinda disappears after you get the fourth member. Couple that with the fact that everyone has unique exposition for set-piece locations (and only the person you're controlling at the time of encountering them will say anything), you kinda feel like you're always "missing" a bit in terms of dialogue.

But all-in-all. A great game and worth a look if you're into the dudes-on-a-chessboard genre.