PlayStation 5 Critic Reviews

Mato Anamolies is an appropriate name, as the game is something of an anomaly itself. I want to rate it higher than I have here regarding its overall presentation and solid first and middle narrative portions. Yet the final segments and how they contrast everything that happened beforehand hold me back. It’s frustrating, as I genuinely enjoyed my time with the game in its first two-thirds and could easily see it being a good fit for those looking for a compelling cyberpunk plot or an RPG with a similar tone to Persona. I wouldn’t mind revisiting Mato one day. I hope the next visit’s outcome isn’t so bizarre an unraveled experience.

Mato Anomalies is a good game that fails for trying to include, unnecessarily, too many elements in its formula. Despite this, its good characters and interesting plot manage to sustain it for its entire duration and the combat brings enough new elements to remain challenging.

Mato Anomalies was a kind of game that pushed me away and pulled me in frequently. I found Doe’s investigative side to be boring outside of good story bits and the Mind-Hack card battle segments. Meanwhile, between the Gear system and skill cooldown system, exploring the Rifts and fighting the Bane Tide would be really fun, if not for the lack of enemy variety and non-stop one-liners. The story was good enough to help me look past some of the issues, but ultimately Mato Anomalies has a lot of repetitive annoyances that keep it from being better than many of the RPGs it borrows from.

Mato Anomalies tries to combine many different genres and mechanics, but with little more than enough result.

Mato Anomalies tries too hard to please everyone through various genres. It tells a good story when it wants to, but presenting it in three different styles doesn't always work for the best. The long-winded conversations will make your mind wonder quite a bit until it gets to the point. Thankfully its character design is good, and the soundtrack keeps you occupied. Though it features a decent combat system, getting going can take some time. The biggest downfall of Mato Anomalies is the card battle mechanic that constantly leaves you in an unfair position dragging your progression to a standstill.

Mato Anomalies is a solid visual novel with an engrossing story that will keep you hooked as you meet new characters and experience how they interact. While other mechanics in the game fall somewhat short, players are afforded certain options to clear through them faster and get back to the story without much hassle.

Mato Anomalies can be tiring with its proposal, but it also glues you to the controller with its story and its characters, its atmosphere and its melodies.

Mato Anomalies relies more on classic JRPG features than trying to leave its own mark. The experience is still correct, especially at its low recommended price.

Mato Anomalies is a JRPG with a good battle system and interesting ideas. Unfortunately, their implementation remains mediocre due to the monotonous gameplay.

Pretty where it counts, you can’t get past some of the rough edges that sometimes unceremoniously dump you from one scene to the next, making things hard to follow. But it’s an interesting case, we’ll give it that. [Issue#28, p.84]