Over the past few years, in addition to playing a ton of JRPGs, I’ve also been getting back into Tactical Role Playing Games, TRPGs for short. For those who are not familiar with the genre, TRPGs are turn based role playing games that require players to use various on the fly tactics with a combat force to defeat enemies rather rely on a grand overall strategy. Think of them as virtual versions of tabletop games. In fact a majority of these TRPGs are based on tabletop games. These games include the Warhammer (both Fantasy and 40K) franchise, Achtung! Cthulhu (you can read a review of its PC game here) and today’s game up for review, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. Can a group of mutants lead players to Eden? Let’s find out.
Praise the Elder
Intriguing source material and game plot/story- Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is based on the tabletop RPG Mutant Year Zero published by Modiphius Entertainment, the same publisher of the tabletop version of Achtung! Cthulhu. The tabletop game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world cause by a deadly plague called the Red Plague and a global nuclear war. Humans are largely extinct and those who did survive have been mutated due to heavy exposure to radiation. The settlement that you live in, The Ark, is starting to run low on supplies and The Elder, leader of the settlement is dying. Stalkers are sent out to try to scavenge for supplies in the wasteland known as the Zone. As for the video game, it takes this same setting but has players take control of mutants Bormin the boar and Dux the duck, as they go on a journey to find supplies for the Ark. On their search they find that all isn’t what The Elder has told them and set out to learn more about the secrets of the Zone, the Ark, The Elder and of their origin. Now as I’ve mentioned before, most TRPGs use the worlds and plots of their tabletop counter-parts to craft their own worlds and plots. Some are intriguing and catch my attention, others not so much. In Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden case, its the former of the two. Maybe it’s my bias towards media that have post-apocalyptic settings as I tend to gravitate towards thing of that nature. I don’t want to spoil too much of, as plot points are reveailed as players explore the Zone and learn more about the world. What I can say is that as Bormin, Dux and other fellow Stalkers join their party investigate deeper, things are really not as they seem. Speaking of the Stalkers…..
Interesting party members- As I mentioned before, in the world of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, humans are extinct for the most part and those have survived, have been mutated in some form. Players start of taking control of two Stalkers, Bormin and Dux. Each of them have their own distinct personalities. Bormin, for example, is cool and calm, yet serious and vigilante when it comes to exploring the Zone. As for Dux, he’s loud and sarcastic and can come off as a bit rude, yet he’s very loyal to Bormin and is very dependable when things start to get ugly. Not much is really know about the two, other than that the Elder had brought them to the Ark when they were younger and raised them. Players learn more about the duo as game progress further. Later in the game, players are introduced more characters that join Borim and Dux. Such as Selma a human with a rock skin mutation, Magnus another human with telekinetic powers, and Farrow a mutant fox.
Stealth and survival action- One of the minor things I don’t like about TRPGs is that you can’t really explore the battlefield before and after encountering the enemy. Usually its go from one end of the map, trigger encounters along the way, and either get to the designated end point or trigger a boss encounter. Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden does things different by allowing players to explore the battlefield before hand. Better yet, there’s a stealth mechanic in the game that allows the party to sneak. This gives players the ability to set up their party to pull off ambushes before hand. The survival aspect comes in the form of having to scrounge for scrap metals and parts and depending on the current gear equipped or newly founded gear. Having both of these mechanics makes sense, the party is in the post-apocalypse after all.
Duck You
Difficulty spikes-Difficulty spikes are plentiful in Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden and can be very frustrating. There are areas in the game where the only option is to run due to be underlevel and under powered, as well as areas where you are overpowered and breeze through enemies. I understand that the object of game is to try to out maneuver enemies into an ideal ambush, but when there’s at least five enemies all a few levels above the party, it feels as if its up to the roll of the dice. This lead, at least in my time playing, me to save scum a lot and I try not to do this so often.
Leveling/skills system feels weird- I’ve played a wide range of RPGs over the years. And while all of them are widely different, the basic mechanics, such as leveling and skill points, are somewhat the same. Some games have you level the characters or level your weapons. Other games have you level up skills or earn and spend skill point on a skill tree. Whatever the case is, the game gives you ample choices to level up or earn skill points. Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden does that but it feels a bit weird. There are a certain amount of enemies in the various areas of the Zone. Once they are all dealt with, they don’t respawn. That kind of makes it difficult to earn XP to level up/earn skill points. In fact there’s no grinding, as least from what I’ve seen so far. And when you do earn skill points, you earn enough to travel down a branch of the skill tree, Once you lock in there’s no re-rolling skills, and as I mentioned before no grinding for more XP. So players will have to be thoughtful into where they invest their skill points. I’m guessing the developers of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden wanted to be as close to the tabletop version of the game as much as possible so they applied the tabletop rules to the video game. It took me a while to learn how the game wants me to play it, and while I did have fun, others looking for an experience like Final Fantasy Tactics might be a bit disappointed.
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is an enjoyable TRPG based on its tabletop counter part. The source material that it pulls from is intriguing, the characters interesting and the addition of stealth and survival mechanics gave the combat more spice. However the leveling skill system felt weird and difficulty spikes kind get annoying to the point that save scumming becomes second nature. Despite its flaws, recommend Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden to those who are hardcore fans of tabletop games and for those who like TRPGs and are looking for a challenge.
