Despite its simple presentation, Anodyne manages to provide a surprisingly high quality experience which I would recommend to most people – although its asking price is definitely a bit too high. Anodyne plays almost exactly like a classic Zelda game would, to me it seems like it’s mostly inspired by the Game Boy era of Zelda games. But the twist which sets it apart from other games likeDespite its simple presentation, Anodyne manages to provide a surprisingly high quality experience which I would recommend to most people – although its asking price is definitely a bit too high. Anodyne plays almost exactly like a classic Zelda game would, to me it seems like it’s mostly inspired by the Game Boy era of Zelda games. But the twist which sets it apart from other games like it is its surreal, mysterious and at times scary world which you get to explore as well as it’s very sombre and melancholic soundtrack. The game has a hub area much like the one in Yume Nikki from which you travel through portals to different areas which you’ve travelled to, connecting the whole game together. The game’s ‘plot’ is vague to say the least. Your objective is to protect the world from the great darkness or something? I really don’t know honestly. The story is extremely vague, and it never really gripped me, nor did I think any real themes were being explored. I quickly came to the conclusion that the story was probably just there so that the game could function. Despite this, your goal/motivation is usually pretty clear; you’re looking for cards to open up doors and keep exploring the world, and eventually you will gather enough strength to fight off the darkness or something. Yeah it wasn’t great, but it was enough. I also didn’t find the a lot of the humorous dialogue to be very funny, just seems like another indie game doing the Earthbound thing, but with a real tinge of angst at times. Now where the game really shines however is some of its quirky little mechanics which it implements very well. Instead of having a sword you have a broom, and this broom lets you collect a patch of dust which can be used for any number of things. It can be used for blocking dangerous projectiles, as a raft to prevent you from drowning in water, used to fight bosses or a way to activate specific devices and so on. Apart from the broom, the only other upgrade that really changes the way you play is the jump ability, which I’m sure I don’t have to explain. Both of these mechanics were fun, and there were plenty of unique puzzles that utilized them super well throughout the entire game, but I also felt that especially towards the end of the game that there weren’t enough fresh mechanics in the game to keep me totally gripped. Having every puzzle revolve around your jump and broom ability doesn’t get tiring as quickly as you might think it does, but it definitely does happen after a while. Thankfully the game is short, and just barely manages to get away with this. A few more mechanics or two to spice up the puzzle and dungeon variety would have been really nice though. But again, the game is very simple, and that’s fine, the game does its own thing and it does it well. Despite its very minimalistic pixel art style, all of the areas had distinct looks and feels and all of the enemies were unique from one another and easily identifiable. A lot of dungeons did have their own unique gimmicks for the most part did mostly make up for the lack of more permanent upgrades/abilities. And a lot of enemies and boss fights despite being very simple, were memorable and different enough that I never really cared about how easy the game was, I was usually too caught up in the atmosphere and exploration of an area to really care. Focusing on its own strengths rather than weaknesses was a good idea, and it pays off, The exploration, puzzle solving and atmosphere are absolutely the best parts of this game, whereas combat, platforming and story while adequate, aren’t anywhere near as good. A few little nitpicks I have are that having too much health means you can ‘brute-force’ your way through a lot of puzzles – like a room filled with spikes doesn’t need to be traversed properly because I can walk through it in half the time and only lose a bit of health which ultimately doesn’t even matter because not only do I have so much health that it doesn’t affect me, but there’s also save points that are literally all over the game which completely heal you. Also, some platforming segments felt a bit off as you would respawn at the entrance of a room rather than near where you fell, this means that I sometimes had to restart puzzles for specific reasons or would accidentally run out of rooms, restarting the puzzle I was doing at the time. As well as this, falling doesn’t damage you at all, making it more of an annoying setback rather than an actual threat. Enemies also have pretty long I-frames after being hit, which makes some combat encounters a bit more tedious than they need to be. And my final criticism is that progress is saved even after you die – so if I complete two rooms and collect the items in there, but then die, I’ll respawn having lost nothing – which needless to say makes dying totally redundant. All in all, it's a nice little game, worth the small price.… Expand
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