Quirky, but run-of-the-mill TBS
Road to Eden is played over a couple dozen unique locations. You enter in a free roam mode, where you control the movement of one character, with the remaining two squad members following. This part happens in real time and focuses on stealth. Once the combat starts, you enter regular turn based mode on a square grid. This is squad based, cover oriented romp like you played dozens of. Competent, but it will not surprise you with anything. There is a total of five characters to choose from (a sixth added in the DLC), and you can swap them out any time outside of combat. Progression happens through looted items (main source of stats increases) and semi-unique mutations, i.e. skills unlocked on level up. Some skills are shared by two characters, some are unique, but the entire skill 'tree' is unique to every character, and you will unlock all of them over your playthrough. Aside from passives, you can only have two skills available to you at any chance, but can swap them freely outside of combat, which allows to try out different 'builds' in a single playthrough; you may even choose the skills for each encounter, based on the tactical situation. Overall there is some variation and every character plays a bit differently. Nothing you haven't seen before, but the whole package works, and that's what matters. The system should also appeal to RNG haters, as aiming is straightforward: as a base line, every character has 100% hit chance - cover, range and denivelation difference decreases it by multiples of 25%. My main criticism here is that flanking is all-or-nothing: if you have a straight line to a tree, a character standing next to it and fully visible has still 75% hit penalty, which is ridiculous.
Every weapon can be upgraded twice for slightly higher damage, and occasionally you'll find attachments which can increase range or crit chance, and/or introduce a chance of an additional effect (knock back, disabling mechanical opponents for a turn, set the target on fire, etc.). These can synergize with mutant skills, and weapon stats so you can create a very long range sniper (the weapons have range of only 6-10 squares by default), or a crit-focused heavy hitter.
The unique part is the advertised stealth, where you try to find isolated individuals or small groups and eliminate them quietly before engaging the main force. As a stealth game enthusiast, I was sorely disappointed here, as it is the most half-assed attempt I've seen. Every enemy detects you automatically and instantly within a full circle around them, even if you are directly behind them or don't have a line of sight. That is, unless you 'hide', i.e. make the character take cover. You then effectively become invisible; the cover can even be behind you, and the enemy won't see you despite standing face-to-face in the adjacent square. Furthermore, there are very few silent weapons to be had, and they do very little damage; if you don't eliminate the whole group in your first turn, they raise the alarm and the whole area goes aggro on you. Enemies have so much HP (on hard), that it is difficult to accomplish even for a single enemy. The situation is slightly improved by one or two skills which take an opponent out of action for one or two rounds, giving you more time to finish them off, but those skills are on cool down, so you can't spam them. The best I can say about the whole system is that it doesn't get in the way, and you can largely forget it and just treat it as a pure turn based game.
The game is made in Unreal 5, and heavily utilizes bloom and volumetric effect. Seemed excessive to me, but maybe it is supposed to reflect the wet Nordic climate. As a post-apo setting, the areas look like a miniature gaming table: they are flat with copy pasted assets and rubble sprinkled everywhere, giving it a very generic look. A pity, as realistic Scandinavian architecture would make the game stand out. At least it is quite well optimized: I played it on integrated Intel Arc graphics, and while it wasn't buttery smooth, it was acceptable for a turn based game.
The most unique aspect is the setting of Mutant: Year Zero TT RPG. Here, it just means that your characters are, fr all intents and purposes, furries. As the understanding of the world before the apocalypse is lost, there is a lot of humour in descriptions of 'ancient' items completely missing the point. I would describe it as grotesque or absurd: it wasn't particularly witty and did not make me laugh once, but at least wasn't cringe either. The story however is forgettable and only gives you a reason to explore subsequent areas.
Over all, the experience is fun and engaging, but entirely forgettable amid hundreds of similar games. If you played all the classics and are looking for yet another turn based fix, it is worth checking out, as it scratches the itch well enough - just don't expect the game to stay with you after beating it. The only truly excellent thing about it is voice acting: not only the banter between the mutants and their comments about events and their surroundings give them some depth, but the performance really brings them to life in a manner only the best RPGs achieve.
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