Anodyne

Anodyne is a game that seems to have mostly flown under the radar, but it deserves to be studied in depth. The best way to describe the gameplay is that it's a Zelda-clone, but honestly, this does no justice to the game whatsoever. Make no mistake, this is heavily influenced by the Zelda series, but it's much more abstract, and all the more endearing for it. Going through the world of Anodyne is a surreal trip. At first, it seems relatively straightforward, more like a parody of some kind, but as you progress you experience a variety of seemingly nonsensical conversations, and the gameplay just feels slightly off as well, but not to the game's detriment. It took me a while to feel like I understood what the game was getting at, but by the end I was completely sold. With great visuals and music to boot, Anodyne feels like a true work of art, and its storytelling is the antithesis of what we've come to expect from video games, which I truly mean as a compliment. If this were a novel or a film, it quite likely would still be compelling and strange, and the fact that it was created as a video game makes the future of games look quite exciting indeed.

Man, how I wish this was a better port, because this game is really fucking cool. There's tons of amazing ideas brimming from every corner of this game, including an absolutely insane post-game. But, sadly, I am reviewing this as someone who played the Switch version, and the quality of this port is unacceptable. For a small scale 2D Zelda-esque game to run THIS poorly on the Switch is baffling. Everytime you move to a different screen, the game slows to a halt as it chopplily transitions to the next area. How on earth did they get this game to run this poorly? Please check this game out, but please do it on any other platform that's not the Switch.

My first video game review...ever! Maybe this Glitchwave thing will turn out to be big, who knows :)

Given Sonemic's long-term plans to consolidate this site with RYM, I doubt I'll ever get the chance to write a gaming-specific bio on this site, so I'll just open this review by confessing that I am deeply unfamiliar with the world of gaming. I was one of those rare post-millenial kids who grew up with very limited access to the internet in general, so I never really had the chance to rot my brain. Now, as an adult, I can't think of anything else worth doing with it, sooooo.......

On to the show. Anodyne. I'm told this is what's described as a "Zelda-style dungeon crawler." It's a game I selected for my first full play-through and review almost entirely on a whim, ensnared by its appealing trailer shortly after downloading Steam for the first time. The first thing that immediately grabs you about this game is its pixel art style, which is by turns beautiful, surreal, and unnerving. There are multiple levels in this game where it's a joy just to take in all the imagery, the cute and cuddly sprites, and of course, the soundtrack (which matches the art style perfectly).

The gameplay here is probably the biggest weak point, and ranges from mindless fun to genuinely tedium. I may just be a whiny bitch who doesn't know how to play video games, but passing multiple levels hinges on guessing how to use a new mechanic you've never encountered before (without any hints or instructions). The payoff is huge when you actually get it without any help, but it also yields a lot of frustration. That being said, I think there's actually intent behind the game's repetitive tendencies, and it revolves around the narrative themes of depression, purposelessness, and self-doubt.

The writing in this game is interesting, and likely plays off the gameplay's tendency to bore. It's definitely surrealist, which occasionally seems like an excuse for vague, noncommittal writing. More often than not, though, Anodyne has an knack for disturbing or even existential atmospheres. These moments of dread, sadness, or reflection often come out of nowhere, but the game's slower or more repetitive levels are what makes this kind of reflection possible, making space in your mind for thoughts that would be blocked out by adrenaline in a faster-paced game. Much of the writing in Anodyne is almost aphoristic, and some of the one-liners stick are genuinely provocative and now live rent-free in my subconscious. Examples include, "Peripheral vision is the hive of demons" and "We are born into the decay of our mothers body."

Ultimately, I think Anodyne's storytelling succeeds because it allows you to impose your own life experiences onto the symbolism of Young's subconscious. Not every "scene" or level lands perfectly, but the beauty lies in little, unanticipated moments. The nightmarish nihilism of the Red Dungeon, or the themes of self-harm hidden in Youngtown. The self-aware loneliness of "Space," and the reflective despair of "BLUE." It's a strange and beautiful world, one that's simultaneously comforting an unsettling.

Anodyne is a pretty odd game, taking aesthetic, mechanical and structural cues from the GBC-era Zelda titles, but wrapping it in a very strange atmosphere of surrealist landscapes, moments of unease and horror, and a dark mysticism that can be likened to Yume Nikki and the more otherworldly stages in the Mother series. It's a respectable set of influences to draw from, and a lot of its value as an experience comes from these roots - but the severe lack of polish and over-reliance on cheeky parody and meta-commentary drag it down into the "rough gem" category for me.

The theme of the game is exploration, where the protagonist Young and his trusty broom have to explore The Land in search of keys and cards that will open the path to the mysterious Briar's domain, whom you must save. Along the way you'll explore mazes, fight some enemies a la top-down Zelda, and explore gridset mazes and dungeons. I particularly like the variety in scenery - The Land itself works as a hubworld that feels convincingly material, with forests and a beach and a lake and some small houses throughout. As the player delves further in anyone direction, and away from this hub, the locales get progressively more ethereal and incomprehensible. There's a cheery black-and-white town a la Tranquility Lane where the music stops almost entirely and you're chased by shadow people, a smoggy red alien world with giant bipedal walkers roaming the landscape, a shady circus with anecdotes of all of the freak accidents that happened during training with the trapezes and animals, a haunted apartment complex with Ghostbusters and cockroaches... it all adds up to a consistently engaging, off-kilter experience traversing the world and making progress. The music is also consistently excellent, with some fun chiptunes sprinkled in a stew of dark ambient soundscapes and unsettling pad synths. The soundtrack consistently elevated the experience for me in just about every area there was to explore.

The lack of continuity or really any connection to the overarching plot is what kills the mood with this aesthetic variety, though. Non-euclidean or unexplainable worlds are fine, I actually quite like them, but having basically no relevance beyond being cool setpieces is slightly annoying. In that way, you could reasonably frame Anodyne's strange tone and pacing as an excuse to string together ideas that normally wouldn't work if the game took itself seriously at all. There is also a smattering of dialogue that is simply there to crack jokes at the expense of the game itself, for leaning into cliched dialogue or as references to other games. I strongly feel that these moments hurt the overall experience, as they felt like an admission of sorts that the game did not have a strong enough identity to stand on its own merits. The rest of the NPCs speak more philosophically, with many monologues working more as prose, and unforunately no major theme stringing them together beyond some motifs of isolation and loneliness. However, in both of these scenarios, the narrative at hand takes a backseat. Having freshly completed the game hours ago I remember these scripted moments of dialogue much more than the actual storyline, for better and for worse. In a more focused project, there's a some potential here for something interesting, and I hope Analgesic can get to the heart of it.

I also need to talk about the technical limitations - it may have been the Switch port I played Anodyne on - but the game ran incredibly poorly, with dropped frames in areas with high sprite counts, slowdown on pause, and glitchy AI getting stuck on tiles and even clipping out of bounds. Young also controls on the slipperier side, and the platforming sections tend not to care about how erratically the protagonist moves. The combat also feels awful because of the lack of enemy pushback, meaning that for enemies with set movement patterns, hitting them never deters their path unless it's a killing blow. The GBC Zelda games Anodyne takes influence from unanimously had this feature, because without it, battles are less like a physical swordfight and more like swiping at balls of gas. This was hardly an issue for most of the game thanks to generous and frequent max healthy upgrades, but the final bit of the base game is brutally difficult because of some enemy spam gauntlets where this pushback is not present. After completing the main game, you unlock the ability to swap tiles everywhere in main world, encouraging you to boundary break and find additional secrets. This sort of incentivized OOB stuff is really interesting (you can even navigate to your own sprite sheet, basically breaking the game), but the interface for navigation is so clunky and tedious that after a couple of objects found I wasn't very interested in continuing. Still, a unique extra diversion that apparently returns in the sequel.

Despite my complaints with Anodyne, I'd be hardpressed to say I outright disliked it. There is a distinct lack of polish or focus throughout but what is there is certainly worthy of discussion in both what is succeeded and failed to communicate. The pieces are in place to build on this foundation, but it needs to shed its self-pitying tone and reach for something greater, past the cues of its influences. Its sequel, Anodyne 2: Return to Dust, has been garnering something of a cult following, so I hope to see how Analgesic builds on this going forward.

Anodyne is a top-down adventure game which draws inspiration from the 2D Zelda titles. The dull colour palette, the sombre, creepy music and some of the character dialog/actions all combine to give the game a weird edge. The overall tone of the game is quite dark; the schizophrenic you find in the wood, the guy you push into the sea, a guy that has hung himself; you just wouldn't find these in a Zelda game. The scenery drastically changes as you move from one area to another which is just as cohesive as the story. The story hints that the game is played in the dreams of a boy called Young. It's more about being vague and unsettling rather than any real story-telling.

Since it is based on Zelda, there's plenty of exploring through a grid-like map. Progression involves solving puzzles (albeit simplified compared to Zelda) or defeating all the enemies in the room. The simple puzzles mean it feels like you are speed-running through the game without much thought. The majority of the rooms are just about clearing out the enemies to open the doors, or standing on a switch and moving on.

Your simple map shows connected squares which helps you identify which squares you have visited. It's very much like Zelda though where you may enter an area to find it is blocked off and can only really be reached from a different direction. You can feel a bit lost because of this, especially since treasure chests are not marked on the squares.

There are plenty of 'C' check-point icons across the map. This is where you respawn when you die. You do not lose all your progress though, since doors you have opened remain that way, so it just means you just have to retrace your steps a bit to get back to where you were.

Instead of a sword, you are armed with a broom. There's a couple of occasions where you pick up upgrades for the broom which extends the length or width of your attack. The broom can also pick up dust which can be placed to block enemies or moving obstacles, and even placed on water to act as a raft. There's a restriction that you can only place dust within the same screen; moving to another location resets the dust. These mechanics aren't logical but only takes you a few moments to adapt.

If you enter the water and do not have a make-shift raft, Young begins to slowly sink, giving you the ability to wade short distances. Reaching solid ground makes you pop back up, but fully sinking inflicts damage and resets you to the room's entrance.

In each of the dungeons, there is a boss battle. Since you don't find unique items in the dungeons, the bosses can be taken down with similar hit and run tactics. I found myself just bumbling through them rather than using any real skill. Defeating them gives you a card and an extra piece of health.

The main aim of the game is to collect a total of 36 cards which you find in treasure chests. There are a few gates in certain areas which demand you have a certain amount before allowing you to progress. Apart from these gates, you aren't guided around the game's world which I think means you can enter some dungeons in a different order to other players. Having a certain degree of freedom is good in some ways, but can often make you feel lost, and so you end up doing some tedious back-tracking. On the plus side, there's plenty of warp points that take you back to 'Nexus' which acts as a hub and indicates which areas you have collected all the cards for.

One common complaint in the game is the jumping elements. Just like Zelda: Link's Awakening, it can be hard to judge the distance due to the isometric view which mean you will often plummet down the abyss instead of landing as you expected. There's a large amount of jumping elements which is why this is such a big deal.

For the end game, you are given a broom upgrade which can swap tiles on the map. This just ends up being a glitchy mess because you can reach areas with no defined map, which also glitches the menu so you can't quit the game.

As you are playing Anodyne, you are constantly thinking of comparisons to Zelda, but since it is a stripped-down version, then you just wonder why you aren't playing Zelda instead. The overall mood and the music are definitely cool elements to the game but it doesn't really do anything else to stand out, or add to the formula.