Mutazione [Xbox]
Developed by Die Gute Fabrik, and published by Akupara Games, Mutazione is a narrative-driven game that was originally released on PC, PS4 and iOS back in 2019, but finally saw its release on Switch and Xbox earlier this year. It sees you play as a young girl named Kai, who travels to a strange land called Mutazione to meet - and care for - her grandpa, Nonno, for the first time. Nonno is sick, and had worried that he would never get the chance to meet you, after his daughter Gaia, your mum, left the island along with her own mother at a young age.
Mutazione is filled with various mutants, who you can meet and talk to in order to find out more about your family. There’s a lot of family history here, so your interactions with many of the island’s inhabitants are quite bittersweet. As you progress, you’ll develop friendships with these characters, and can keep track of how things have been going with everyone via the scribblings in your journal.
Presented in a gorgeous visual style, with a colourful cast of characters that range from cat-girls to piles of jelly and big green humanoid-lumps. It’s an interesting world to explore, and seeing the inhabitants of the island, both the ‘people’ and the animals that you’ll spot, is intriguing, making you want to continually move forward to discover more and more. Chatting to each of the characters will lead to more information being learned about others, and this encourages you further. The soundtrack is very enchanting and relaxing, which makes it very soothing to listen to as you wander through the world.
You will gain an encyclopaedia of all of the flora found on Mutazione, and this details information such as where to find each type, what its uses are, and more. After learning an ability from her grandfather, Kai will spend time tending to the garden for the other members of the community, helping plants flourish - and harmonising with the plants when she sings, creating her own little orchestral garden.
Mutazione is a slow-paced, relaxing game that rewards you by piecing together larger pieces of the puzzle over time, through communicating with the characters around you. As well as the Story mode, there’s a standalone Gardens option that allows you to experiment with gardening outwith the main game, and has exclusive seeds available. This is a really nice inclusion as it adds another layer, with a very delightful experience of tending to your plants and listening to the soundtrack. You can view over the garden as it cycles through weather and day-night cycles, giving it a slight screensaver vibe that is enjoyable to have on in the background.
Inspired by soap-opera style story-telling, it definitely fits that criteria, and is best for anyone looking for something chilled to spend their time with. There’s also a free Penpal update DLC that expands as an epilogue to Mutazione’s story, allowing you to keep in touch with the loveable characters you met on the island. This takes place over 7 days, encouraging further playtime - and as a bonus you’ll earn new seeds for your Gardens with each new Penpal letter. Overall, we really enjoyed our time with Mutazione, and found it to be one of the better narrative-focused titles we’ve played in a while. If you like the sound of all of that, you can pick it up on the Xbox Store for £16.74.
In the end, we decided to give Mutazione the Collecting Asylum rating of 8.5/10.
Have you played Mutazione yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Akupara Games for the Mutazione Xbox review code!
