I'm currently struggling to progress through the game "Anno: Mutationem". It's a melee-brawler type game with a Cyberpunk setting and aesthetics that caught my eye from the moment it entered early previews. I'm a sucker for that Cyberpunk content, and I love to see more of it from smaller developers rather than the big studios.

From what I've played so far the combat and engagement mechanics are fairly compelling. Nothing overly impressive, but nothing dismal. And it does keep the interest, at least for the time being. The non-combat world is intriguing to explore, at least from a perspective of sightseeing. Though the shoehorned inclusion of "collect every piece of junk you can for crafting that's never explained" feels tiresome and boring. It's nothing terrible, though.

But the writing

Oh my sweet dear good gracious me the /writing/.

I've scarcely seen tripe this bad in a game before. It's not merely bland, it's badly done atop of being bland.

Every goddamned anime trope ever conceived of is crammed into the mix, each more predictable and out of place than the last. Yes, you are the chosen one, with a tragic backstory, and a deep secret that you don't fully understand. Yes, you did hurt your friends and family as a result. And gosh, you DO have a manic pixie dreamgirl sidekick, who is constantly filling the scene with unnecessary energy.

All of that by itself wouldn't necessarily be so terrible - But the game is so poorly edited and constructed that it /hardly makes any sense/ at points.

People will say things during player controlled scenes, then slowly fade to (in-engine) cutscenes where they say largely the same thing. Just as often, characters will go on and on about things in cutscene that haven't been introduced yet, and not for dramatic tension reasons - Just like, outright 'failed to explain it' reasons.

While in player controlled sections, characters will make absolutely nonsensical comments about enemies or situations that leave you wondering what the hell they're talking about - only for those situations to reveal themselves later, as if the dialogue trigger were misplaced.

But more than that, the whole thing feels like it carries all the misunderstandings and translation errors of a badly dubbed 80s anime.

To be clear: When I say that, I don't mean "This sounds like a badly dubbed 80s anime" - That could be endearing and wonderful if done correctly, and with intent. No, what I mean is "It feels as if the creators of this game studied badly dubbed 80s anime, and upheld all its worst qualities as the gold standards of what any content *should* be". As if the awkward pauses and awful dialogue forced to match previously animated lip-flap were somehow a virtue, to be preserved even in a medium where it has no logical reason to be there. The sudden and out of place emotional turns of the characters, their expressions and exclamations - It all feels like something is deeply wrong with the writing, but I can't exactly put my finger on it.

The result is a game where you hardly know why you're doing what you're doing, barely know why characters are doing what they're doing, and scenes rarely make any sort of cohesive sense. They desperately needed an editor to tighten timing and underscore continuity problems.

But even beyond that, no amount of editing is really going to save the story and dialogue that might as well been transcribed from a late 90s geocities-hosted fanfic.

I swear to god if I have to fight one more moody long haired laser-sword wielding pretty-boy with a smug attitude...