Turn-Based Tactics Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden - now with Seed of Evil expansion

[Nortar]

Well, you say the game does not feel tactical, but then complain that the enemies outplay your positioning and don't let you just go in guns blazing?
It's like saying that Thief "does not really feel stealthy enough" because you can't go full Chuck Norris on guards.

What difficulty do you play, btw?
On hard, which is marked as intended, skills dont reset and health does not recover between combat encounters;
so the best (not to say the only) way to go is by stealth killing strangles and disabling enemies which you can't alpha-strike.

You keep doing this dance to negate enemies advantage in numbers and firepower and to conserve your own limited resources.
And thus every encounter turns into a small tactical puzzle you have to solve without taking damage and without alerting nearby packs.

The game has it's flaws, but I can't agree that it is not tacticool.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

lukaszek is a great believer of determinism, so changes are, that he was fated to take damage when he did.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Myzzrym]

It's... definitively not bad but... I agree with quite a few people here, it's kind of bland. At some point it kind of becomes a puzzle game of "how to dispatch enemies silently under a turn (or disable them so they don't call allies)".

I remember a section with only bots and I had like 3 different skills to disable them, each with 3 rounds cooldown. So I just ended up taking down all bots one by one, without ever having to trade blows.

 

[bylam]

We got it on GOG now and the DRM has been removed for those who care about such things.

 

[Infinitron]

https://af.gog.com/game/mutant_year_zero_road_to_eden?as=1649904300

 

[bledcarrot]

It doesnt really feel tactical, especially with beefy enemies that can run through walls or jump over them and leaving you wondering: why do I bother with positioning?

Agreed. It basically just encourages repetitive gameplay - i.e. imobilise the tanks for a turn first off, focus all your firepower on them and eliminate them, then deal with the rest. I finished it on very hard in about 20 hours. Once you 'get it' the game really becomes too easy and there's not a lot of strategy involved. Sneak around, pick off the weak enemies, deal with the biggest threats first, then pick off the remainder. Rinse and repeat for each map. All the bosses have the exact same attacks! Scrap (the currency) becomes useless in mid-game, as there's nothing really worth buying other than medpacks, and if you figure out the 'routine' for combat you don't even need to purchase those. And the game keeps throwing loot at you that is completely pointless. All the mid to late game boss fights will net you armour or a gun that is worse than, or equal to, the gear you're already using by that point. While you can break down the guns to spend on upgrading weapons, you can't break down the armour, so you just end up collecting variations of essentially the same armour that you're already using. Early on you enlist a few other characters and you can swap them in and out of your active squad of three - except you probably won't bother. Because you don't need to. I never used the other characters. They all have some combination of the same talents that the starting three have, which means there's no real advantage to using them, and no need anyway because none of the enemies provide much of a strategic challenge. I guess they're there because your characters can die, but that never happened.

I tried playing on Ironman initially, but it's nigh on unplayable for the simple reason that once you start combat you can never retreat. Ever. No matter how far you run, you can't leave the map, or combat, until you kill every enemy. This makes a blind play through pretty rough on ironman, because it's hard to tell if you'll be outmatched without starting combat, and once you do you're locked in. until everyone dies.

It looks nice, the mechanics are smooth and polished, the setting is cool, and some of the dialogue is amusing. It's worth $10 or so if you want something simple and straightforward to piss about with between games.

 

[CyberWhale]

Gameplay aside, they nailed the graphics. Why can't other indie RPGs have such visual fidelity?

 

[LESS T_T]

A post-game expansion is coming:

Seed of Evil is an expansion to the award-winning tactical adventure game Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden picking up where the original game ended and offering hours of more gameplay, new locations to visit, and a new leading character!

Continue the main story and explore many hours of all new content. Expand your team with the veteran stalker Big Khan the moose and get ready to defeat a new threat to Dux, Bormin, Selma and all the others.

In Seed of Evil you must solve the mystery of the powerful and ominous roots which have taken over the Ark. Discover huge new maps, battle new enemies, improve your mutations, get your hands on all new gear, defeat foes trying to take back lost ground and face off against a vicious new adversary.

To play Seed of Evil it is highly recommended to have finished the main story in Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, because of story spoilers and the level range of the new content.

Continue the main story
See what happens after the ending of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. Continue into a new future for Bormin, Dux, Pripp and all the others at the Ark. How will they deal with what they have learned?

New mutant: Big Khan
You can now add Big Kahn the moose to your squad of mutants. He is a veteran stalker who has been exploring the Zone alone. He is not only skilled at doing critical hits but also has the unique mutations Ground Pound and Flame Puke, which make him excellent at dealing with groups of enemies.

Face a new threat
The Ark has suddenly become enveloped in mysterious roots and many of its inhabitants do not seem to be their normal selves. Even the Zone Ghouls appear to have been taken over by this new menace and it is up to your team of stalkers to set things right!

Hours of new content
Take on new enemies in places like the Hall of Electric Coffins and Mausoleum of Suburbia. The new story in Seed of Evil offers a host of new challenges and brutal fights. Get ready to rethink your tactics as you face off against brand new enemies.

Improve your mutations
Upgrade Bormin’s Hog Rush to Bear Smash for increased power and Corpse Eater to Corpse Feaster so that regaining lost HP no longer costs an action. Upgrade Dux’s Moth Wings to Wings of the Sniper which removes all range penalties.

Retake lost territory
Revisit places like the Spear of Heavens or Sea Titans as Zone Ghouls and police bots once again encroach upon places you have already cleared. This time they are stronger than ever!

 

[LESS T_T]

 

[Infinitron]

https://af.gog.com/game/mutant_year_zero_seed_of_evil?as=1649904300

 

[Glop_dweller]

Everything that I have seen of this game reminds me of Palladium Books:After The Bomb RPG.

 

[Spectacle]

Everything that I have seen of this game reminds me of Palladium Books:After The Bomb RPG.

The original Mutant RPG actually predates After the Bomb by a couple of years. Both games are obvious rip-offs of TSR's Gamma World

 

[Child of Malkav]

Finished it. Cool DLC. Pretty tough even on normal. Really discourages combat until you eliminate as many enemies as you can. When you initiate combat with the boss and whoever else remains, you have to use abilities, items and just anything you have in order to control the encounter and get a favorable outcome. Oh and explore everywhere. If you don't do the optional areas and as a consequence don't obtain the better weapons, it'll kinda suck. No different than the main game. I really like that by preventing you to be OP you have to use everything you have at your disposal. And you can't really spam the shop as everything is expensive.

 

[Zombra]

Everything that I have seen of this game reminds me of Palladium Books:After The Bomb RPG.

The original Mutant RPG actually predates After the Bomb by a couple of years. Both games are obvious rip-offs of TSR's Gamma World

The difference is that After the Bomb was a supplement for the official TMNT RPG, explicitly focused on anthropomorphic animals (decades before "furries" were a thing!) and then thrown into post-apocalypse because why not? Gamma World was certainly a huge influence on PA gaming, but it's a little much to call it ATB a ripoff unless you're going to call stuff like Planet of the Apes an obvious GW ripoff too ... and that came out 10 years earlier so ...

 

[astrosmurf]

If you don't do the optional areas and as a consequence don't obtain the better weapons, it'll kinda suck.

So the optional areas aren't?

 

[Child of Malkav]

If you don't do the optional areas and as a consequence don't obtain the better weapons, it'll kinda suck.

So the optional areas aren't?

No, they are optional but ignoring the gear in them will make things harder.

 

[bylam]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...-are-hyper-light-drifter-and-mutant-year-zero

 

[ArchAngel]

Finished it. Cool DLC. Pretty tough even on normal. Really discourages combat until you eliminate as many enemies as you can. When you initiate combat with the boss and whoever else remains, you have to use abilities, items and just anything you have in order to control the encounter and get a favorable outcome. Oh and explore everywhere. If you don't do the optional areas and as a consequence don't obtain the better weapons, it'll kinda suck. No different than the main game. I really like that by preventing you to be OP you have to use everything you have at your disposal. And you can't really spam the shop as everything is expensive.

This is main reason why I don't care to play this game. This is not "correct" tactical gameplay, this is some gay shit instead.

 

[bertram_tung]

i bought it last night and have played about 8 hours, this game is fun as shit. i will probably get the expansion story dlc if the base game holds up to the end. love the emphasis on stealth and sneak attacks, and it is very atmospheric

 

[baud]

For those who aren't allergic to the Epic store, it's free there, until the 22, with hyper light drifter.

 

[vortex]

Will game get a sequel?

 

[bertram_tung]

Finished the game, it was excellent. 8.9/10, had a few crashes and it could use more characters/skills/abilities. the DLC makes the experience much fuller (it added 6 or 7 side missions, and i regretfully didn't finish two of them) and gives a more satisfying ending. I will buy and more campaign DLC or the sequel on day one

 

[Hellraiser]

I thought it got a bit too repetitive and easy once you got to the DLC content, weapon variety is a bit low in addition to the skills, items and characters. Sneaking is also too simplistic.

Still a good game and the way certain locations look makes you just want to imagine how a proper Fallout 3 could look with current day tech. I think the base game, while not very long, was long enough for it not to get repetitive and easy.

 

[ValeVelKal]

It doesnt really feel tactical, especially with beefy enemies that can run through walls or jump over them and leaving you wondering: why do I bother with positioning?

Agreed. It basically just encourages repetitive gameplay - i.e. imobilise the tanks for a turn first off, focus all your firepower on them and eliminate them, then deal with the rest. I finished it on very hard in about 20 hours. Once you 'get it' the game really becomes too easy and there's not a lot of strategy involved. Sneak around, pick off the weak enemies, deal with the biggest threats first, then pick off the remainder. Rinse and repeat for each map. All the bosses have the exact same attacks! Scrap (the currency) becomes useless in mid-game, as there's nothing really worth buying other than medpacks, and if you figure out the 'routine' for combat you don't even need to purchase those. And the game keeps throwing loot at you that is completely pointless. All the mid to late game boss fights will net you armour or a gun that is worse than, or equal to, the gear you're already using by that point. While you can break down the guns to spend on upgrading weapons, you can't break down the armour, so you just end up collecting variations of essentially the same armour that you're already using. Early on you enlist a few other characters and you can swap them in and out of your active squad of three - except you probably won't bother. Because you don't need to. I never used the other characters. They all have some combination of the same talents that the starting three have, which means there's no real advantage to using them, and no need anyway because none of the enemies provide much of a strategic challenge. I guess they're there because your characters can die, but that never happened.

I tried playing on Ironman initially, but it's nigh on unplayable for the simple reason that once you start combat you can never retreat. Ever. No matter how far you run, you can't leave the map, or combat, until you kill every enemy. This makes a blind play through pretty rough on ironman, because it's hard to tell if you'll be outmatched without starting combat, and once you do you're locked in. until everyone dies.

It looks nice, the mechanics are smooth and polished, the setting is cool, and some of the dialogue is amusing. It's worth $10 or so if you want something simple and straightforward to piss about with between games.

This captures my feeling almost exactly. The game is harder at the beginning than in the middle or end where with the skills and weapons you can consistently sneak kill not only stragglers but even enemies quite close (though not too close of course) but if their buddies. After I got my third silent weapon (the fox pistol) I had to do maybe 5 combats where the opposition had a chance to move, though THESE combats were fun.

I did one of these combats where I brought the dogs to the ghouls, enemy infighting ensued and it was fun.

On the other hand, going through the two before-the-last levels, with only robot enemies, stunlocking enemies after enemies (with EMP grenades for groups or those robots who send drones) was double boring.

I would have two caveats though :

The « enemy can always flank you » is only true at the beginning due to weapon range being barely longer than movement speed. It stops being true later in game when weapon range increases.

The 2 extra mutants have redundancies to the 3 first ones but the psychic attack guy is still very different. On the other hand, the fox is only useful against bots, as an extra to Dux EMP attack when you are disabling groups of bots (especially end game). I suspect there is a way to play her using hers « sneak in combat » capacity with attacks-while-hidden but not my style.

Finally I wonder whether it is not actually more fun to play the game in easy or medium but refusing to use any sneak weapons. The tactical layer is IMO solid, the level design is varied, it is just made redundant by the sneak assassination.

Anyway, came for the tactic, stayed for the exploration and the world.