Mato Anomalies
Developer: Arrowiz
Publisher: Prime Matter
Platforms: Xbox One, Playstation 4, PC, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X (Reviewed), Switch
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $39.99 USD – Available Here $59.95 AUD – Available Here
Overview
Trying to break into a popular genre of video game can be a difficult task, especially when most people begin to compare a developer’s efforts with a far more popular entry in said genre. As such, when indie developer Arrowiz’s foray into the RPG genre Mato Anomalies began seeing comparisons to a certain popular Atlus franchise it set the game up for some serious hurdles to overcome. So now that Mato Anomalies has been released, is this RPG strong enough to stand on its own identity?
Story
The cyberpunk dystopian oriental city of Mato has thrived on the surface allowing people of all kinds to make a living there but beneath this shining surface lies an ever-growing underbelly of darkness. A private investigator named Doe has made his living uncovering various aspects of the criminal underworld and looking into strange events that happen throughout Mato and, after being kidnapped by mysterious men, his latest case will bring him face to face with the source behind Mato’s problems. Tasked by the information broker Nightshade to uncover the source of “Handout” that has been tearing through the black market and causing numerous problems.
Shortly after beginning his investigation Doe finds himself sucked into a mysterious alternate dimension where strange creatures roam the area and are completely immune to conventional weaponry. Before he is struck down the mysterious shaman known as Gram appears and slays the creature he calls a Bane Tide and informs him that he has found his way into the Lairs where such creatures reside. With a little more investigating, Doe learns that Handout originates from these Bane Tide creatures and uses it to steer the path of humanity towards evil for an unknown purpose. With Doe seeking to learn the truth and put a stop to the numerous crimes happening throughout Mato and Gram seeking to slay any demonic Bane Tide he comes across, the two form a temporary alliance soon to be joined by a number of other allies as they work towards getting to the bottom of everything.
Where Mato Anomalies shines its brightest is with its storytelling. When it isn’t trying to get in its own way by being a bit too heavy on technobabble and random terms players will eventually get the hang of, the writing here is quite excellent. As players progress through the story they will encounter a number of large-scale realistic problems given fantastical elements; ranging from the exploitation of the working class, rampant growth at the cost of others, violent gangs and religious groups, idol culture taken to the extreme, and far more. These darker elements of Mato all make for an interesting tale where players never quite know what the story might tackle next and while we won’t go into detail about spoiling where the story progresses, it must be said that Mato Anomalies manages to go to some rather surprising places and can be a real treat at times, especially in the latter half of the game.
That being said, iit is a bit disappointing that almost all of these issues are simply resolved as being a result of the Bane Tide and their defeat at the hands of the player’s party. Thankfully where some of these generic resolutions tend to drag the story down a bit the writing of the characters that join the players party make up for things a bit. Not only is the cast of characters expanded upon nicely and given a solid amount of backstory through standard story progression but there are also a number of side-quests and character specific dialogue sequences that reveal more information about each of the characters, giving something of an extra touch of humanity to the player’s battles in this near-apocalyptic battle.
Gameplay
Where Mato Anomalies pushes its “dual protagonists” aspect the most is when it comes to gameplay. Despite his investigative skills, Doe is a relatively normal person incapable of fighting against the Bane Tide and as such he takes the lead in the normal world, tracking down leads, shopping, accepting and turning in side-quests, and even “interrogating” those who are less than willing to talk using a mind-hacking ability. On the other hand, Gram is far from a people person but is well-versed at taking on the Bane Tide so where he takes the lead in combat alongside a number of other allies that join him to fight in the Lairs.
With Gram the dungeon crawling segments are incredibly straightforward with enemies appearing at pre-set locations on the map with players not having the ability to avoid fights or even gain an advantage from striking early. Once enemies are encountered players will enter turn-based combat with a few unique caveats to set it apart from the usual fair. First of all, the entire party shares one health pool, meaning that damage done to any character will decrease the total health pool for everyone, though healing anyone will also restore health in the same manner. The other major change comes in the way skills are handled. Rather than making use of mana or SP, all skills outside of standard attacks are performed on a cooldown with stronger skills having longer cooldowns before they can be used again. These cooldowns carry between fights, meaning using a powerful blow to finish one fight may leave it unusable for the entire next encounter. It is also worth noting that strong ultimate moves can also be utilized at the expense of a very slow filling gauge that will often turn the tide of battle should players ever choose to use it.
Unfortunately despite these unique aspects combat in Mato Anomalies is a fairly dull affair, even when players gain access to more characters that utilize powerful buffs and debuffs to take on enemies. Part of this is due to the pre-set encounters and boring enemies players fight against that offer minimal challenge that barely increases during boss battles. Combine this with the fact that most skills used by players and enemies aren’t interesting and it seems the game itself even knows this fact as it offers the tip to not only speed up combat animations but to turn on auto-battling to skip through fights with ease as the auto AI can handle everything just fine on normal and even hard difficulty, including bosses and the occasional warped monster that explodes upon defeat.
Exploring these dungeons themselves are also relatively boring as well with even small puzzles being incredibly generic. Story dungeons and side-dungeons can offer extra bits of lore here and there should players deviate from the main path but these rarely feel worth it. Alongside standard dungeons players can enter “Random Lairs” that are randomly generated and can offer powerful weaponry and literal Gears that can be equipped to power up the entire party. These random lairs are useful occasionally but also happen to lack any unique concept found in story related lairs making them an unfortunately necessary evil if players want to keep themselves properly equipped.
Earlier it was mentioned that while Gram does the fighting Doe does the investigating and one part of this happens to involve mind hacking. These mind-hacks allow Doe to push through a stubborn enemy’s facade and force them to talk through a rather odd card game. Players wil unlock additional card decks as they progress through the game and they are tasked with using these cards to deal mental damage to their opponent’s mental health and bring it to zero, though their opponent can also attack Doe’s mind to put a stop to their attempts. Every enemy that players encounter in mind hacking will also have a variety of “Demons” that will interfere with the process by buffing, healing, and even negating damage and while players can attempt to defeat their opponent before eliminating their Demons, this task is almost always useless.
The issue here is, Demons cannot be defeated forever and will return after enough turns have passed, making it a race against the clock in a fairly slow card game that often feels more frustrating than innovative. Oddly enough, perhaps because the developers also knew that the card game based mind hacking wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea and they wanted to offer some level of accessibility or they knew that certain encounters were incredibly imbalanced the game actually offers the option to skip these card battles once players have lost three times. This does give players a chance to at least progress the story but also serves as a massive drag anytime players come across a poorly balanced encounter.
Visuals & Audio
Thanks to Arrowiz’s unique approach to art style Mato Anomalies is often a very impressive looking game despite its obviously limited budget. The city of Mato and its futuristic yet dirty location that mixes the glowing billboards and holograms right alongside shanty slums that mesh perfectly with the themes of the story. The title also features a rather interesting approach to presenting its story as it mixes visual novel style dialogue that makes up the bulk of interactions with occasional comic-book style presentations as well as a few cutscenes here and there. Unfortunately this same level of care doesn’t transition the best to the Lairs players travel through as, despite each chapter having a different theme to it, most Lairs are generic in design and with the exception of a few bosses the Bane Tide are also incredibly simplistic looking.
The voice work for Mato Anomalies is handled quite well with the title offering a large number of language options, though players will likely prefer playing with the English dub as the cast handles their roles well enough outside of there being too few combat lines meaning players will often hear their party barking the same lines over and over again in a fight. The soundtrack features a solid collection of music as well that works both during exploration of the town as Doe as well as the Lairs as Gram.
Overall
Mato Anomalies does its best to try and tell an interesting storyline and it does a fairly good job at it, especially when stakes escalate in the latter half of the game but unfortunately solid storytelling and some interesting world designs is let down by a number of poorly fleshed out gameplay mechanics. Between turn-based combat that quickly becomes easy to the point of automation and an annoying card game that often is more frustrating than enjoyable Mato Anomalies stumbles heavily and, despite the fresh elements it tries to introduce, ends up being too simple of an RPG to truly take advantage of its storytelling.
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