Biomutant

Wow, What A Surprise!!!  After pushing / getting through the really messy menus (and buggy icons for new items that of course every game seems to have for some reason) and tutorials coming later than you want them to, I am Really enjoying Biomutant!

A lot of surprises, at least in some first portion/percentage of the game.  Though even with those surprises I have started to tell (I think) what's probably going to repeat across the world, in what you're doing.

But man that world is Pretty a large majority of the time.  Even if not actual full next-gen quality even with the PS5 version.

I did NOT realize this (the story anyways) was very much made for kids, however, because it does not look like it.  Though it is real preachy and heavyhanded, not to mention clearly biased - it also very much seems like English wasn't its first language. (not a big deal).

But man, it would be so much fun to go through this co-op.  It's very clearly a Single-Player MMO (at Hyperspeed) with Prince of Persia / God of War / Monster Hunter combat, including guns (and the latter of which it even unsubtley references / .... mentions).  But sadly you're alone in this one (afaik?)

Now, Of course I put this on Extreme difficulty.  The small groups of enemies are doable depending on your level, but the Bosses or the groups WITH Bosses?..... wtf  (and do the Big guys level with you?)  The interesting thing / design choice is that right from the beginning of the game it hints / half tells you that you can and are allowed to run past Boss fights?.... And so far I have been able to like Every single time, Even though I don't really want to?.....   Because Every Boss has pretty much been too much.  It's like the only thing(s) that are Extremely Tough or extremely Too Unfair - at Extreme Difficulty.  I do wonder what Extreme Difficulty changes because it doesn't tell you.  So in that regard that's what have made Boss encounters a disappointment, even though they're really well animated. (though I guess a lot of the big guy attacks are copy-paste though not all).  Some of the bossed are even really tough to near-instadeaths even levels below you.  So maybe Extreme Difficulty isn't balanced so well, imo?

But hoo boy, the amount of attacks and special and SPECIAL SPECIAL Attacks you have available (piled ontop of you really) at any time, if you were to attempt to memorize them is ridiculous.  It's just piles of button chains in tiers if you get certain combos going.  What I think doesn't really work is that the Parry-to-airborne combo does not chain into the other long chain of combos you can do if you attack first without / instead of starting from a parry.  And of course I prefer starting from a Parry.  Because Parries are off course the safest - except (as isn't unusually) the parry indicators over enemies heads aren't always easy to notice in the chaos, NOR do they show from enemies offscreen so you get blindsided.

Ugh, Well, This game really was a surprise so far.  Now I just really wish somebody else was there going across this game / world with me.

Oh also I'm also kind of wondering / fearing if my gun will always be a kind-of-lousy shotgun if I don't specifically craft it as a specific type of weapon instead of mixing and matching.

Oh damn, the ratings on Steam are Not Good (or "Mixed"), and I actually didn't see any complaint about how dense and messy the menu and systems are, which is was my main barrier.

Oh yeah, I also wish there weren't so many forced/locked movements when dodging around the badguys because you become stiffly locked dodging or jumping into where you don't want to be (into fire) instead of out/away from it. Too many locked combat-dodge animations can become clumsy frustration when you're constantly activating an animation in a direction you didn't want to.  That's unfortunately a usual way a combo Gun-AOE-Melee combat can become a frustration in games.  Batman didn't have to deal with that much AOE, if any at all and of course he isn't doing much gunning down people himself either.  Just a whole lotta punchin.