Recent reviews by Wrinklynewt

The game is a solid 5/10. It's got some nice visuals and an interesting setting, but the story, the writing, and the gameplay were all just fine, and didn't really lead to an amazing overall experience. Maybe worth picking up on a sale but don't expect anything groundbreaking

I don't often write reviews, but it's also very rare that I request a refund for a game.
Biomutant invokes the feeling of No Man's Sky, a small indie game made by a small studio that was in development for years and had hype slowly built up for it by their larger publisher. But now that it's out, it didn't really come out of the gate strong.
The negatives:
The tutorial feels very slow and drawn out, possibly going past the 2 hour mark (and preventing refunds) if you listen to every dialogue option.
You don't feel connected to the characters you meet, because they are all described to you by the narrator, who translates their animal language. You are given meaningless dialogue options to choose from that don't affect the overall story, and you don't really get character banter back and forth due to the narrator (and your shoulder angel/devil) being the only one you can understand. The narrator also sounds like the guy from the Stanley Parable (it isn't) so you're constantly feeling like you're being read an instruction manual or cooking recipe, not playing an action adventure game.
The camera is constantly taken away from the player to let you know what to look at and what you need to do next, like the developers didn't trust idiots to play their game and miss the obvious quest marker above a character's head.
In the end, it feels like a game made by 20 people, and probably would have been better as a $30-40 game. It's possible that it get better at the 4+ hour mark, but nothing that I saw in the first 2 hours gave me any indication of that being the case.

The positives:
Looks pretty good and has a unique visual style.
Menus are easy to navigate
Music helps set the mood and immerse you (until the narrator speaks up)
The narrator has his own option for how often he talks.

Before you wonder why I don't recommend this game, hear me out.

I truly enjoyed this game. The unique asthetics and the design of the world is incredible. The mokos were insanely cute, I loved them to death. The soundtrack was great to listen to. Being able to sense the world form around you in shapes and colors really made me enjoy the game for it's entirety.
But therein lies the problem. The game itself is just too short. There is even an achievement for beating the game in half an hour. To me, charging $15 for a game that you can beat in half an hour is just silly. The game is very well made and absolutely stunning to look at, but there just isn't enough replay value or content for me to see that price being justifiable.

The demo came out over 2 years ago, so I was expecting at least 3 hours worth of game to explore. Yes there are small orbs to collect, and I do plan on going back and getting 100% of the achievements, but that $15 price is just too much for me. I would see paying half that much at the most.

This is the first steam game I have refunded.