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After starting and abandoning this game a few times on various platforms, I downloaded it onto my Nintendo Switch and committed myself to playing it for half an hour every day. Half an hour was exactly how long it took me to get completely sucked in, and this game became my weekend. I’m not sure Anodyne is for everyone, but it is very specifically for me.
The game has Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire style GBA graphics, and the pixel art is by turns deliberately allusive, gorgeous and unique, and genuinely horrifying.
The screen-by-screen dungeon and overworld layouts remind me a lot of the two Legend of Zelda Oracle games, and the gameplay is like what those games could have been if they had focused on their core strengths instead of distracting the player with extraneous marginalia.
Anodyne also gives off strong Yume Nikki vibes. You start off on a fairly generic quest, but it quickly becomes clear that this is a lowkey horror game. There are clear references to addiction, depression, and suicidal ideation, and each of the dungeons references a specific fear. The first dungeon is about the fear of not being able to see, the second dungeon is about the fear of being born from the bloody entrails of your mother’s body, the third dungeon is about the fear of being generic and unnecessary, and so on.
I guess Anodyne also reminds me of the original Legend of Zelda in that there’s zero guidance – the game has no interest in telling you where to go or what to do. This is probably why I abandoned it the first few times I arrived at its open field area. Once I finally figured out what the game’s basic rules are, it was a lot of fun to be able to go anywhere and do anything while unearthing all sorts of secrets along the way.
Anodyne’s structure is perfectly balanced between the overworld and the dungeons, and each of the dungeons is a perfect little puzzle box. Despite the gameplay mechanics being deliberately limited and basic, some of the puzzles are very clever. The controls are a little loose, but it’s not really a combat-heavy game. There’s no real penalty for dying, and I died a good three dozen times out of sheer laziness but didn’t feel frustrated even once.
It took me about six hours to finish Anodyne, and I enjoyed every minute. It seems there’s a lot of postgame content that involves revisiting various locations, talking to important characters again, and using a new ability to access a bonus dungeon. This game is subtly but undeniably disturbing, and I’m looking forward to seeing just how weird it can get. Or maybe the player-character finally works through his trauma and gets better? That would be good too. I guess.
To summarize: Anodyne is like a 16-bit Majora’s Mask where characters are allowed to say fuck. Putting the edginess aside, it’s super fun to play, and the dungeons are ghoulishly creative.
The game has Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire style GBA graphics, and the pixel art is by turns deliberately allusive, gorgeous and unique, and genuinely horrifying.
The screen-by-screen dungeon and overworld layouts remind me a lot of the two Legend of Zelda Oracle games, and the gameplay is like what those games could have been if they had focused on their core strengths instead of distracting the player with extraneous marginalia.
Anodyne also gives off strong Yume Nikki vibes. You start off on a fairly generic quest, but it quickly becomes clear that this is a lowkey horror game. There are clear references to addiction, depression, and suicidal ideation, and each of the dungeons references a specific fear. The first dungeon is about the fear of not being able to see, the second dungeon is about the fear of being born from the bloody entrails of your mother’s body, the third dungeon is about the fear of being generic and unnecessary, and so on.
I guess Anodyne also reminds me of the original Legend of Zelda in that there’s zero guidance – the game has no interest in telling you where to go or what to do. This is probably why I abandoned it the first few times I arrived at its open field area. Once I finally figured out what the game’s basic rules are, it was a lot of fun to be able to go anywhere and do anything while unearthing all sorts of secrets along the way.
Anodyne’s structure is perfectly balanced between the overworld and the dungeons, and each of the dungeons is a perfect little puzzle box. Despite the gameplay mechanics being deliberately limited and basic, some of the puzzles are very clever. The controls are a little loose, but it’s not really a combat-heavy game. There’s no real penalty for dying, and I died a good three dozen times out of sheer laziness but didn’t feel frustrated even once.
It took me about six hours to finish Anodyne, and I enjoyed every minute. It seems there’s a lot of postgame content that involves revisiting various locations, talking to important characters again, and using a new ability to access a bonus dungeon. This game is subtly but undeniably disturbing, and I’m looking forward to seeing just how weird it can get. Or maybe the player-character finally works through his trauma and gets better? That would be good too. I guess.
To summarize: Anodyne is like a 16-bit Majora’s Mask where characters are allowed to say fuck. Putting the edginess aside, it’s super fun to play, and the dungeons are ghoulishly creative.
