Just skip along. Has every thing you need to see

[GOOD]

The story, characters and setting were great. Game takes place Telosma City which is a Cyper Punkish Shanghai. The story starts off as simple investigation into something called HANDOUT and evolves into something so meta that it would move Metal Gear Solid 2 to tears. I wish I could elaborate on that but it would be major spoilers and the plot twist of the game are quite cool. The strong point about the story is how it uses main story, sidequest and character stories to really paint a picture of what it is like living in the low tier of Telosma City. Topics such as poverty, mental Health issues, police brutality, government control, self existence, civil unrest and more are all addressed in some way but the story also show how the residents cope with all this while trying to find ways to make the best of what they have. I am 100% positive that this game is taking shots at the Chinese government. Also, the developers of the game are fans of Final Fantasy 7. Quite a bit of references.  

[MEH]

The biggest set back of Mato Anomalies is its budget. Everything feels held back. Arrowiz is small Shanghai indie studio with nothing but VR titles under its belt till now. I thought the story was really good but unfortunately its delivery is underwhelming. 90% of the story is told through static images. This is not new for a small studio, but where this game slips is that it tries to convey a lot of action through these that did not always register with me. I found myself having to reload just to rewatch some scenes again due to losing track of what was going on or not getting the takeaway message from a sidequest or something. The game does have animated cutscenes and voice acted segments but these are used very sparingly which is unfortunate because it would have greatly helped to tell its story.

Lairs (The dungeons) and enemies are designed around the theme of the chapter. Each chapter has one main dungeon that will be visited multiple times throughout the chapter to move the story along. There are also random lairs (grinding and Loot focused) which are generic versions of the main chapter dungeons (Which are also generic). You are going to spend a lot of time looking at these boring locations; They are not interesting, but not really offensive either. The only saving grace is that all dungeons are short and don't go on longer than 2 floors (Random lairs are always one floor). Enemy types really suffer from this choice; game has a good amount of enemies but because of the thematic design you're really getting about 5 or so per chapter. Can you feel tedium creeping up?  Outside of the bosses, the enemies themselves are uninteresting in their design. I also hate that enemies are placed around the dungeon in a way that encounters are mostly unavoidable and there is no run feature. Can you feel tedium now? 

Battle system is fundamentally fine. If you have played any Shin Megami Tensei/Persona game you got about 80% of Mato's battle system down. Slash, Pierce, Crush and Special are the 4 damage types. Every skill falls into one of these types and each of your party members and enemies are weak, neutral or strong to these types. It is up to you to arrange a party that limits your damage while being able to target enemy weakest as efficiently as possible. Each character has 2 weapons, each having a damage type. They also have an assortment of skills; half of them are personal skills (Regardless of what weapon equipped) while the other half are weapon based(depends on weapon type). 3 skill trees each that allow you to learn or power up existing skills. Lots of flexibility in how to build each character. Cool. The unique element about the battles system is the party shares one health bar. Buffs are mostly party wide but on the flip side debuffs are as well. Buffing, Debuffing, and status ailments are a important part of this battle system. All 4 characters being poisoned is an easy path to a game over. I do like this element.  Battle system is hampered by the already mentioned low enemy variety and by extension few enemy formations. Very easy to fall into a pattern, but the developers try to fight that by having every skill not your primary attack have a cool down that does not reset in between battles. I get what they're going for, The same enemy formation that you easily took down before can be dangerous when those same skills are not readily available (Its true), but it also adds to the already mention tedium. I don't every battle to be 5+ turns when I just fought this formation 2 minutes ago and I'm trying to get move on. There is actually a pretty competent auto battle feature to help reduce battle fatigue that I used extensively(Lol). The issue with it is that it focuses on killing enemies equally; Many times enemies are left alive when they shoulda finished off. Your taking more damage than necessary and using more potions which are expensive. 

There is a second battle system in the form of card game called "Mind/Hack". This allows Doe to make people spill the T. When playing as part of the main story they're kept simple, but the sidequest ones can get challenging, but fortunately, if you lose 3 times in row you can just proceed with no consequence. Great move! My gripe is that there is no way practice this game. You get six 6 decks based off your party members that can be upgraded and each offer a different play style ... that your just suppose to figure out. Having place to practice or even a small tutorial on how to best use each deck would have been nice. I found myself sticking to the OG deck because I understood it the most. I liked the game and only ended up skipping one at the end of the game because I was just ready to wrap it up. 

[BAD]

One of the toughest final bosses in a long time. Feels like something out the NES/SNES era. That's not the reason its in the bad section; boss has a party wipe technique. The way it works is the boss will summon 2 enemies and they must be defeated by his next turn. Ok cool, but the boss gets 2 turns in a row naturally and has the ability to randomly use a skill to bring his next turn up in the que... ahead of your parties next turn. Bullshit. That's broken; now it becomes a game a game of luck.

A entire DLC chapter that just doesn't work. Infinite load then crashes the game. Unacceptable. 

When all is said and done I liked the game. I got the game at a $14.99 and I find it money well spent. I want to see a Mato Anomalies 2 or something that carries the spirit of it. Really, it's the lack of budget and most likely experience, that takes from what could been a true alternative/competitor to Persona. Keep trying guys! Decent start

7/10.