One minute I am being kidnapped to take a job, get grabbed by shadow dimensional hands that were hiding inside of a shipping crate on the docks taking me to another world. The next minute, I am saved by a one-armed shaman, meet an android with a unique sense of fashion that gives me a power glove and then use said power glove to hack people’s minds just by grabbing them. All I got to say is, “I love the power glove…it’s so bad.” The Wizard 1989
Solve cases and hacking cerebral cortex
Mato Annomalies is a turn-based RPG made by Arrowiz that gives me the vibes of the Persona series and AI: The Somnium Files. The turn-based combat, the number of side quests and the story feels as if I am going through a slightly darker Persona 4 and still being rated T for teens. The genuine fact that I can “hack” the mind just by grabbing any part of a person’s body reminds me of AI: The Somnium Files, but without the giant machine. Another feature that caught me off guard was the fact that I can pet both cats and dogs that I find on the streets. They even inserted a natural response from both. Pet a stray cat, they will show you their belly and attack your hand. While dogs just get on your leg, get their pets and pee on your leg. I felt like Arrowiz put their actual experience when petting a cat with the well-known belly trap.
Slash and Hack
During my playthrough, you play as both Doe and Gram. When you are doing any kind of investigating and brain hacking, you’ll be playing as Doe. As Doe, you will be walking about the city of Mato talking to civilians, taking quests and helping discover rifts into Lairs to find and capture the people behind the drug called Handout. When entering Lairs, you control Gram and your party which grows over time throughout your investigation. As Gram, you will be defeating Bane Tides, collecting clues of who is producing and disturbing Handout, and closing the rifts to keep Mato safe. I’m usually used to playing as just one character doing everything and just changing the model of the leader whenever the mood comes, but being two separate characters venturing two different worlds makes the mental transition both smooth like a criminal and rough like a shark. A nice balance of yin and yang if that makes sense.
A Private Eye and a Shaman walk into a Lair
You play as Doe, a private eye detective who gets “kidnapped” by an unknown organization at your office. You meet the kidnappers’ client, who ends up being an acquaintance of yours named Nightshade. She tasks you with looking for the source and proof of a new drug that is sweeping around the city. The start of the investigation leads you to the harbour where you overhear two lackeys talk about a shipping crate that is larger on the inside. Once they left, Doe gets close enough that an otherworldly being extends its reach and pulls Doe in. You are confronted by an enemy known as Bane Tides, creatures that feed off of extreme human emotions. The first type of Bane Tide you meet in the game is called and I kid you not, a Bingo. The Bingo starts to charge at you to attack. Before it makes contact with Doe, a mysterious one-arm person with a sword appears and attacks the Bingo. After the battle, the shaman escorts Doe out of the Lair. The shaman introduces himself as Gram and wishes to team up with Doe to get answers about who is opening these rifts through Mato and stop the drug dealings. After being introduced to SkyEye, an android who assists Gram in locating these rifts. She gives Doe a power glove called a SkyEye Glove. This glove’s power grows over time to better assist Doe through your investigation and to further get to the truth behind everything happening in the city of Mato.
Do you like Jazz?
The ost for this game can be its own lo-fi youtube channel. It is that good. When I’m walking about the city of Mato, I get to enjoy a nice relaxing slow beat that gives the town an air of mystery and familiarity. When you hit a cutscene during your investigation, the music goes almost silent and you hear a saxophone giving you feelings of the tone of an old noir-style detective show or movie. When visiting the Rifts, the background has a monotone beat that feels slightly similar to the music in Mato with just some instrumental differences. The music during a battle with almost any Bane Tides has a foreboding sound to it with the percussions being 3 notes and sharp strings. Or it’s the same percussion with a xylophone replacing the strings. Though there is a reason why I said lo-fi earlier is that the music is very low-toned. It’s very rare for the music to be loud at all. For the voice work, I do have to give them props for being fantastic. Both the Chinese and English voiceovers were pretty top-tier. There are moments where I feel they could have used a bit of their voice more in certain sections, but I know that time and money is a factors for an indie game such as this.
To Comic or Not to Comic
The use of going 3d in the overworld and 2d in the dialogue sections shows the beauty and details of both the PCs and NPCs. Arrowiz really put their heart and soul into making a vibrant city, in both the moments of the game during your session. The use of the character loading bar is pretty creative and having tips appear is great.. The use of watercolour for some scenes throughout the playthrough was creative and shows a bit of depth to the characters and the situation. The map design when charting the overworld reminds me slightly of metro maps. It’s good to use and doesn’t confuse me when looking for where I got to go. Now the voice cutscenes are in a realm of their own. Choosing to do a panel-by-panel comic book style is something that caught me off, guard. The panels switched from right to left and left to right quite often to not show any kind of favouritism towards which way is the best way to read comics. Though it is tricky going through the cutscene without accidentally advancing and skipping a line and no autoplay for you to choose to let it flow naturally. The UI is very impressive and unique for its use of a record player when fast travelling, to minimize the UI during battle so that you can assess the battle and give room for us to see the attack and animations for both the characters and enemies.
Powerglove your problems to solutions
The movement throughout my playthrough was smooth in both Mato and Rift sections when playing as Doe and Gram. Doing sharp turns or going in circles with the camera acted fast and precise without missing a beat.. The attack and spells when in combat are so fluid and alive for both sides of the fight that it’s actually a breath of fresh air to see. Knowing that a creature on all fours needs to get some momentum to get a charge/headbutt to have some damage is very impressive to see. The hacking portion felt buttery smooth with picking the cards and choosing who I was going to use the card on. I never felt lost or confused when picking up main and side quests through the playthrough. The instructions are laid out for you, there is the compass on the top of the screen to guide you where the quests are located and the map leaves an indication mark showing where to either continue the quest or turn it in.
Don’t do Handouts, m’kay
This game has a lot of achievements on the Steam page and some can be done on your way to beating the game, while others require a bit more time or a second playthrough to get done. And if you’re not doing everything in each chapter and miss something important before finishing chapter 6, you’ll be locked out of the true ending of the game. I’ll still replay to get all of the achievements unlocked. I feel it’s best to play this game going gung-ho on the story and using the second playthrough on side-quests, companion relationships and getting everything to reach the true ending for all those completionists out there. If you’re like me and are wanting to know the truth behind what is causing everything in Mato to hit the fan, a second playthrough is a must. Especially with the extra rift and secret boss fight as the reward at the end.
Final Thoughts
The team of Arrowiz really knocked it out of the park with this game. It shows that they learned and grew from their last title, Hermitage Strange Case Files and added some surprising elements to this game’s story. There were a few things I felt were missing from the game, but most RPGs don’t use or even need things like chapter selections. I’d say this game is worth picking up if you love crime-solving RPGs and appreciate the point of view of labor history or how the capitalism of this world seems slightly familiar to a certain time period, then it’s a must to pick up and play. And as I said before, when you pick up the game, make your first playthrough of the main story and the second do and search every nook and cranny.
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X and Series S
Grab your copy here https://store.steampowered.com/app/2024390/Mato_Anomalies/
Written by Ruddy Celestial
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