Game review: Mutant Year Zero: Seed Of Evil is coming to Nintendo Switch

A new Switch game Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden Deluxe Edition combines the original XCOM-esque strategy game with a Seed Of Evil expansion.

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Although most people still buy it for the Nintendo games, the Switch has become an unexpected champion of some genres and third-party games that you wouldn't necessarily expect. Some indie developers are now just bothering to release their games on Switch and PC, while the format didn't surprise a long list of classic 2D shooters and proved a boon for turn-based strategies. Of which this is one of the most interesting.

Mutant Year Zero is set in a post-apocalyptic world, which sounds pretty generic until you have a little understanding of all the talking animals. We're not sure that the main art of anthropomorphic ducks and pigs won't get more people out than they attract, but we're certainly glad the game didn't simply involve using aliens or ordinary soldiers for their characters. Instead, the world of Mutant Year Zero is full of mutated animals, psychopathic humans, robots, and more.

Although the story and setting are different, the game owes a very obvious debt to XCOM, with a battle that runs along very similar lines. However, there is no meta-level strategy game, and instead you explore the world in real time as a stress-free adventure. But if that sounds almost relaxing, let us tell you about the difficulty level of the game.

When you start Mutant Year Zero, you get three tricky settings, with the default form "Hard" and the suggestion that if you already know family games, you should start here. All three settings also get the option to allow, so that if any of your characters die, they'll be gone forever and can't be resurrected. As big XCOM fans, we naturally acted in hard mode and felt particularly confident in our choice when we realized how similar the tactical interface to the Firaxis classic is.

Not only are the controls easy, but the basics of gameplay are actually very simple: you have a few action points per turn that you can spend on moving, shooting, or a few other storage skills. After you open fire, your turn is over, so basically all you do is point and click where you want to move and who you want to shoot at.

Playing the game is extremely easy, even for a complete novice to the genre, but playing it well is quite another matter. Cover is crucial, and leaving any of your characters in the open at the end of a row will ensure disaster. So instead you have to plan your moves so that everyone stays covered, not grouped, but able to cover each other and ideally side with the enemy.

You basically get to do everything you shout about heroic acts, not to act in movies and although the action is rotating, it is very fast paced and often very stressful. Especially since, as mentioned, it's really, really hard. Or at least it unless you learn some new tactics.

Aside from the whole talking animals, the main contribution of the genus to the genus is the idea that you can walk around as usual before a battle and through a fortress, whether to avoid fights (especially if opponents are higher than you) or set up an ambush. and / or take out one or more before the battle.

This involves simply swapping a grip button and swirling around the cones of visibility (well, circles) indicating wherever an enemy is looking. Get the drop on one and start a fight with a major advantage and a clear idea of ​​the landscape around you. That and at least the illusion that you are a strategy.

The mechanics of Mutant Year Zero work very well, but there is the point that, given the lack of any top-level strategy element, the game begins to roll out new tricks well before its completion. There are some typically difficult choices to configure characters, but there is never the sense of constant technological improvement as there is in XCOM.

What is also a problem is that, unlike XCOM, there is no random element that eats up the length of what is already a fairly short, linear game. In that sense it helps that the Switch version is released concurrently with the Seed Of Evil expansion, so you get both from the beginning. Although the expansion is a bit disappointing and while extending the game's duration by about five hours, it offers few new ideas.

Seed Of Evil adds some new snow areas, and many parts of the map are changed at least slightly (there are creeping vines everywhere, as the plant life goes crazy) but most additions are tiny, like new abilities. and weapons, new plant-themed enemy varieties, and new playable characters that are half-dead.

If you've been waiting since the original release of Seed Of Evil, then it's a bit of a disappointment, but if it's as new to you as the rest of the game, then it's a difficult and fun little post-game. Although there is also a new mode called Stalker Trials, which was added for free after launch, and what we haven't seen before. It is a challenging regime that makes things difficult and has its own internet board, which is welcome.