The boss fights themselves are also remarkably similar to one another. Again, bits of dialogue repeat between each character, but at least the missions vary a little bit.īiomutant apes wuxia and wire-fu cinema with its melee combat, letting you hang in the air wailing on enemy rodents for ages These furry monstrosities act as the final bosses for their respective regions, and to get to fight them, you need to reconnect with a friend from your childhood, help them build a vehicle, and then use that to access and beat the boss.
![biomutant rating biomutant rating](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/u4sav8VwRQxDCxKiWoUtXB.jpg)
This recurs in Biomutant’s other main quest, defeating the four worldeaters. And when I start clearing outposts in the next region I come across another pyjama-clad behemoth at the exact same stage. But no, the beast is just wearing pyjamas, there’s no discernable reason for it, and it doesn’t fight any differently than its naked counterparts. I get the sense that I’m fighting something unique and that there’ll be an illuminating or humorous outcome. Even running back through a fort you’ve cleared, you notice that the layout and architecture is near-enough indistinguishable from stronghold to stronghold.ĭuring one of the first outpost missions, I encounter a massive Rancor-like beast that’s wearing fluorescent pyjamas in the tribe’s colours, the sheer cuteness of which brings a smile to my face even as I’m stabbing it with a makeshift machete. Even the dialogue, choices, and enemies barely differ from tribe to tribe. It’s not just that each region has the same number of outposts and that you clear them in exactly the same way. Fortunately – depending on whether you see it as a mercy or an indictment of Biomutant’s quest design – you only have to beat two of the five rival tribes before the game gives you the option to instantly recruit the remainder. This feels relatively varied the first time you go defeat a tribe, but when the format is repeated almost exactly it quickly wears thin. The first outpost is a short, staged battle between a few enemies and some mortars the second tasks you with setting up a trap or ranged attack outside of the fortress and the third involves finding a single-use hard hat and being fired over the fortress walls in a catapult. Align with the Jagni and you'll set about onboarding the valley's other tribes by violently invading three fortresses per region, and despite favouring peace and unity, you'll do the same thing if you side with the Myriad.Ĭlearing these outposts only takes a few minutes, and both the pattern and method of taking them down is mirrored in different regions.
![biomutant rating biomutant rating](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/06/02/biomutant1_wide-7585f2ccc400c28711daba4ba3c7aed24bf3c5ea.jpg)
It sounds like a pretty stark contrast to kick things off, but the game plays out the same way whichever option you choose. You pick one of two tribes to ally with at the start: the Samurai armour-clad Jagni, who are basically just Nazis, and the peace-loving Myriad. The tribal war can be solved in a couple of hours.
![biomutant rating biomutant rating](https://assets2.rockpapershotgun.com/biomutant-review-6.jpg)
Your goal, as ever, is to save the world by ending a tribal war and defeating four worldeater bosses. Some heavy-handed tutorialisation guides you through the basics of combat, character progression, and crafting, before dumping you into the post-apocalyptic open world itself. There's an impressive character creator that lets you pick your mutated rodent's starting stats, class, and elemental resistances, as well as cosmetic features like fur style and colour. You begin this idiosyncratic martial arts fable by creating your own biomutant. From conquering tribal outposts to battling each region's 'worldeater' boss, each new area in Biomutant typically starts strong, and then repeats the exact same process until it loses any appeal. There's been a lot of talk over the past few years about repetitive open-world game design, and Biomutant is the worst example of it that I've seen to date.