Game Info

Mato Anomalies

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Developer

　　Time and time again, over the past few years, plenty of games have proven that a fantasy setting is not needed for any Japanese role-playing game to become successful. Games like Final Fantasy VI and VII back in the day opened up the floodgates for games with steampunk settings and slightly more mature stories, and series like the Persona, and the Shin Megami Tensei franchise it belongs to, went the extra mile, changing the Japanese role-playing games landscape forever once they started getting their due worldwide recognition.

　　The Persona series, in particular, has had a huge impact on the genre since the release of the third entry in the series, an impact that has been further cemented by the fourth and fifth games which masterfully balance a modern day setting with fantasy elements and amazing character development. The fifth entry in the series created by Atlus is undoubtedly the main inspiration for Mato Anomalies, a role-playing game developed by Chinese studio Arrowiz that is more than worthy of being experienced by fans of the genre, despite some issues holding it back.

　　Mato Anomalies is set in the city of Mato, a futuristic cyberpunk oriental city where all sorts of people have settled. Among those living in the city is Doe, a private investigator who makes a living by looking into all sorts of strange happenings for the right price. Over the years, this private investigator has built up various work relationships, and the one with the matron of the Telosma Hotel, the spymaster Nightshade, will lead him to a job that will forever change his perception of the city of Mato and his inhabitants.

　　Tasked by Nightshade to look into the mysterious HANDOUT, which is becoming more and more popular in the city's underworld, through a series of circumstances, Doe will get to learn about Lairs, otherworldly locations where the monstrous Bane Tide live, and meet Gram, a powerful warrior who is dead set on banishing the Bane Tide for good for unknown reasons. As the HANDOUT is related to the Bane Tide, who have the power to influence the people living in Mato, the detective and the shaman enter an uneasy alliance to get to the bottom of the matter, not knowing that the situation is way more complicated than simple demon-hunting and problem-solving.

　　Mato Anomalies' story is definitely among the game's best features. The city of Mato is not that different from similar cities, but it's the people that inhabit it that make the difference, ranging from exploited workers, heartless businessmen, desperate individuals who are ready for anything to get back at a government who constantly turns a blind eye at the city's countless issues. Addressing issues like economic growth at the cost of everything else, suspicious religious groups, violence, and virtual idols, it's the story where Mato Anomalies clearly shows the Persona 5 influence, as these are the same things the Phantom Thieves fight against during their tenure. Despite the similarities, however, the way these issues are addressed is completely different, giving Mato Anomalies a very distinct identity that feels a little less anime-influenced and slightly more mature.

　　The characters in Mato Anomalies are just as good as the story. While Doe and Gram are the ones that receive the most development being in the story for the longest time, no character is truly put aside after their introduction. They are also interestingly varied, ranging from the Mato's Robin Hood Butterfly to the tragic veteran Smoker, the mysterious pupil of spymaster Nightshade Mist and others. What makes the main characters interesting is how they deal with their mostly tragic issues, and how they rise to the challenge after learning the truth they previously failed to see. Character-focused optional quests provide welcome additional development that makes all of them quite engaging. Side characters also receive a decent amount of development, which helps the city feel alive and colorful. The excellent implementation of sidequests, which further build the world and develop main characters, is another highlight that deserves mentioning, given how meaningless sidequests are in so many RPGs.

　　While the Mato Anomalies' story and characters are very good, one issue impacts the experience: the writing, or rather, the English language localization. Right from the start, it's clear how it's not exactly a good one, as dialogue doesn't feel natural in the best of cases and is downright confusing in the worst. Many times during my 35 hours with the game, I had to access the dialogue log to understand what was happening. Overall, it feels like reading something close to a first draft with little editing, which is undoubtedly detrimental for a story-focused game such as Mato Anomalies. Interestingly enough, other languages may not suffer from the same issues, as the Italian localization is, for example, slightly better than the English one.

　　The influence of the Persona series on Mato Anomalies is evident in the gameplay, although it's not as strong. Moving around Mato to move the story forward, purchase items and start sidequests, for example, feels very reminiscent of the latest entries in the Atlus developed series, with the big futuristic city segmented into different areas which can be accessed straight away with an in-game menu.

　　The Mato Anomalies turn-based combat system is also influenced greatly by the Persona series but fails to be as engaging. Truth be told, it's probably the game's worst feature. Fighting enemies feels a little dull and unexciting and gets boring pretty fast. It feels like the system's mechanics aren't used to their full potential, like the weakness and resistances system, which only leads to increased or decreased damage, and the displaying of turns, which could have led to some interesting strategizing. The only mechanic that sets this system apart from the vast majority of turn-based RPGs is the HP pool, which is shared between all characters, forcing players to be careful about defense and healing more often than usual. Thankfully, combat encounters can end very quickly, thanks not only to the speed-up option available in the settings menu but also to the ability to skip almost all attack animations and competent Auto-Battle AI.

　　The ability to speed up combat is only one of the many quality-of-life features of Mato Anomalies that make the game an incredibly smooth experience. The most important menu options, such as changing equipment or assigning Talent Points to each character's individual Skill Trees, which allow some degree of customization, are assigned on a controller to the directional pad, making accessing them extremely convenient. Other features like waypoints for all points of interest make sure players can be focused on what truly matters.

　　While not up and about in Mato, players will get to explore many different Lairs to complete main and side quests. As you probably expect by now, the Persona series influenced the game's dungeon-crawling mechanics as well. The main story Lairs are all built around the chapter's main boss' story and nature, so they are all both visually and mechanically different, featuring different gimmicks that set them apart. The Lairs feature no random encounters, but avoiding combat entirely is nearly impossible, as enemies don't move around and are placed in such a way that it's not possible to progress without taking them down. Optional Lairs fare a little worse, being more straightforward than main story Lairs and lacking their gimmicks, but they are also considerably shorter, so this isn't a huge problem.

　　Taking a page from the Persona 5 book, Mato Anomalies also features an optional randomly generated Lair with multiple floors filled with powerful Bane Tide and rare treasure. This special type of Lair is as straightforward as the side ones are, but they are far more challenging and rewarding, as they include the rarest weapons and Gears, special items that can be placed on a grid to activate a variety of bonuses that allow for further customization.

　　Not every feature in Mato Anomalies has been influenced to a degree by the Persona series, however. At the start of the game, Doe will be given a special glove that allows him to delve deep into the mind of other people, a very handy power for a detective. This power forces close-mouthed individuals to talk via a unique card game featuring multiple decks with different properties and some very interesting mechanics. These card matches are made more interesting by the presence of demons inside the opponent's mind that grant some unique buffs and that often have to be destroyed to damage the main target. As these demons, however, respawn after a set number of turns, players must carefully plan their strategies, saving cards when needed for the following turns or going all out as needed to succeed. The Mind/Hack card game is definitely one of the highlights of the game, and it's almost a shame that there isn't more of it in the adventure.

　　Mato Anomalies' presentation is also one of the highlights of the experience, despite the game clearly not having the same massive budget behind it as its main inspiration. While locations are simple in visual design, the cel-shaded characters look great at any time and are decently animated. The same cel-shaded models are used as character portraits during dialogues, which makes the visual novel-like experience more immersive, despite the aforementioned stiff English script. Despite being limited to certain key sequences, including some great comic book-like sequences, English language Voice acting is also quite competent, although far from being the best, due to the localization.

　　Thankfully, the game developed by Arrowiz doesn't suffer from the usual issues we have seen in recent PC games. In my time with the game, I experience no major bugs, no crashing issues, and, more importantly, any stuttering whatsoever. The game ran pretty much locked at 120 FPS on the system used for the test (i7-10700 CPU, RTX 3070 GPU, 16 GB RAM), which wasn't a given even for an undemanding game like Mato Anomalies, as we have seen over and over in the past few months. Unfortunately, the game is a little lacking when it comes to graphics options, as they are limited to frame rate cap, anti-aliasing, and general graphics quality presets.

　　Despite taking more than a few pages from the Persona book, Arrowiz proved with Mato Anomalies that innovation is not a requirement to create a compelling experience. And if combat starts to feel boring and dull quickly enough, the charming cast of characters and the thought-provoking story more than make up for it. With a few tweaks and better polish, Mato Anomalies could have been a must-have for a wide range of players, but even like this, the game is a more than worthy purchase for any role-playing game fan.

　　PC version tested. Review code provided by the publisher.

　　8.0

　　Wccftech Rating

　　Mato Anomalies

　　Mato Anomalies

　　With its engaging story, charming cast of characters, and solid RPG mechanics, Mato Anomalies is a game that all role-playing game fans will enjoy, especially fans of the Persona series, by which the game is greatly influenced. Lack of innovation, dull turn-based combat and a wonky English localization impact the experience, but not enough to make it unworthy of a look from fans of the genre.

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