Anodyne

Genre: Top-Down Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Anodyne is a Top-Down Action-RPG much in the style of old-school Zelda games, but set in a post-apocalyptic world.

Much of this game’s writing is tongue-in cheek and clearly riffing on games like the Zelda series, with your character, Young, apparently being the prophesied chosen one, albeit the guys who tell you this don’t exactly come across as very trustworthy, seeing Young grabbing a broom as his weapon of choice and deciding, “yeah, sure, we’ll go with that”. It is this sense of humor that makes for one of the highlights of the game.

However, this spark of fun is missing from the rest of this game’s presentation, sprite-based 8/16-bit-styled top-down visuals that is overcome with ugly shades of brown, with a depressing and frankly boring soundtrack, and an annoying array of sound effects. As much as the game’s funny writing will pull players into it, the rest of the presentation is likely to push them away. Oh, also, this game massively suffers from slowdown when there’s too much happening onscreen. I know some may find this a quaint throwback to games of old, but for me it was just annoying.

It’s not just that the graphics look ugly and dull, either – this game’s world is horribly repetitive and monotonous, which is made even more maddening by its mazelike design. And while there is a map to assist players, it’s a map much like the one in the original Legend of Zelda, which is to say, not a very helpful map.

Because of this, players will find themselves frequently wandering lost, trying to seek out the places they haven’t been yet. When they finally get there, at the very least the game’s dungeons present some clever puzzles to overcome, although it’s hard to be enthusiastic about them when the overworld is such a terrible mess. Later on, the game finds new ways to be annoying, such as tying progression to collectable cards found strewn throughout the area and won from bosses.

The frustrating thing is, there is some really good stuff in Anodyne. As I mentioned, the writing is clever, and the core Zelda-like mechanics are good. It’s a pity that they’re stuck in a boring, brown, tedious and repetitive world that’s not at all fun to explore. Fans of the genre may find this game’s good points worth overlooking its flaws, but most are better off avoiding it entirely.

tl;dr – Anodyne is a Top-Down Action-RPG in the vein of old-school Zelda games, and it has some delightful writing and some decent gameplay, but that gameplay is trapped under a mountain of ugly graphics, terrible music and sound, and extremely tedious and frustrating world design. Only the biggest fans of the genre should even bother with this one.

Grade: C-

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