Summary
If you want to have fun, look no further
The Good
Ion Storm is surely a remarkable company. During the recent years, we have been treated with two great games -
Deus Ex and "Anachronox".
"Anachronox" is a fantastic game. It has so much to offer, yet it stays always so modest - how is it possible not to love such a game? I have rarely seen a game that lets you do so many things without losing the story line, that guides you securely towards the next goal without being too linear, that offers you a diversion at every corner without distracting you, that makes you laugh out loud without becoming too superficial, that challenges you without frustrating, and that is, to put it simply, one big package of pure, healthy FUN!
It simply never gets boring. Even the best games I know often have weak parts, become repetitive, or suddenly shocks you with an overly tough, illogical puzzle, or an overly hard battle. "Anachronox" does neither. Finally, they grasped it: we don't want to be frustrated - we want to be entertained! For those who want extra challenge, "Anachronox" offers a "hard" mode. By the way, this is the way every game should be - offering you a possibility to choose between at least three different skill levels. Because players are different and require different amount of challenge. In any case, the challenges in "Anachronox" manage not to be blatantly obvious (especially in its adventure part), yet the game never becomes frustrating. It flows. Like a good novel or a movie, it has a great tempo, it moves swiftly, changing locations just when you feel you want such a change, changing styles just when you feel you had enough of doing the same kind of things, changing atmosphere and overall tone, yet always maintaining the general lightness, the humor, and keeping track of the story line. Good taste in everything, great tact and sensibility - this is "Anachronox".
"Anachronox" is as versatile as a symphony by Gustav Mahler. Its main genre is pure adventure, but it has so much more. Of course, it is not a serious, deep RPG in the sense of
Arcanum, and even not as serious as a
Final Fantasy game. The combat has a secondary importance in "Anachronox", and serves more as a diversion that as the core part of the gameplay. The combat system is very much like in Final Fantasy games, which means a mixture of turn based and real time styles. It works well, and there are also some nice additions, for example, you can move around while fighting, or use objects that you see on the battle field. Another RPG element is the fact each character of your party has a special skill, that can be used to solve puzzles or just for fun. For example, Sly can pick locks: there are some locks that are needed to be picked to advance the story, but there are also many more, that you can pick just out of curiousity. Using a skill is not just pressing a button: they are all actually mini arcade games, where you should act quickly to perform the required actions in time. Again, this is neither too complicated nor difficult - this is fun. Speaking of arcade games, "Anachronox" has plenty of it. Not only can you play real arcade games in different parts of the game, but there are several action mini games you need to complete during your quest. Those mini games are absolutely cool and offer you so much diversion, especially after a long portion of clue-seeking and puzzle-solving.
The puzzle-solving in "Anachronox" is another feature I wish all adventure games would have. The puzzles are extremely intuitive. You never have to think of some impossible combination between two hard to find items. Most of the time, the puzzles here are nothing more but logical actions you need to perform in order to attain your goal. For example, you need to gain the trust of the High Counsil on one of the planets, so what you have to do is to find out how they will vote on the elections. So you wander around the city, talk to various people, trying to find clues, occasionally use your party members' special skills, engage yourself on simple mini quests, and generally do what a real person would do in such a situation. Sometimes, there are also "real", traditional puzzles (like finding six colored crystals to put on pedestals), but they are also quite simple and logical. "Anachronox" is a masterpiece of intuitive gameplay and flexibility.
So far, the gameplay. What about production values, what about its graphics and music? Well, I know some people disliked the game's music, and it is indeed not so memorable in the earlier parts of the game, but alone the mellow jazz tunes in the Entertainment District on Hephestos or the sinister monastery melody surely qualify as musical masterpieces. As for the graphics, I disliked them very much the first time I tried playing this game, mainly because of the character graphics. Granted, the characters look a bit blocky, and their animation is not always natural (ever tried putting Stiletto at the head of your party?), but their design is great, each one of the characters has so much personality, and after a while you stop noticing their blockiness. The game is entirely in 3D, and the backgrounds are excellent. I should also mention the fantastic cut scenes, all made with in-game engine, with great camera work that would do an honor to a movie and that make "Anachronox" so naturally cinematic.
The actual story of the game might seem as a clone of a classic console RPG, but the story line alone is not what makes "Anachronox" so great - it's rather its details. First of all, your party is a great bunch of unusual and cool characters, that can't be surpassed even by
Final Fantasy IX. Ever had a
planet in your party?.. And not just this, the various NPCs you meet while playing the game are not just item- or quest suppliers: each one has something to tell you, and the amount of different, quite original lines written for each NPC is astounding. They will tell you about their religious or political views, complain about some silly stuff, or say a joke or two about your appearance. You can just run around in "Anachronox" and talk to NPCs, and you have a game inside of a game. Although most NPCs are not important for advancing the story, talking to them and listening to what they have to say enrich the experience immensely.
But the strongest part of "Anachronox" is its humor. This game is funny. It is very funny. It is maybe even funnier than
Monkey Island or other famous videogaming comedy examples. It is, quite possibly, the funniest game I ever played. From standard humiliating jokes about the main protagonist to extremely witty satire - this game has all kinds of humor, that never gets over-the-top or corny. Many comedy movies can learn from "Anachronox". What makes its humor so great is not even the countless jokes and hilarious situations (alone the scene where Sly talks "science" in a foreign language is guaranteed to make the most melancholic person laugh), but the very clever writing. The guys who wrote all those dialogues for "Anachronox" deserve a prize. The English language is brilliant in "Anachronox", the vast vocabulary makes the dialogues rich and versatile, and the slight ironic tone is wonderful. Sometimes, the humor in "Anachronox" rises to the level of a true satire, like the merciless parody on democracy in the Democratus section. The high quality humor of "Anachronox" is unparalleled to any other game I know.
The Bad
There are very few flaws in "Anachronox", one of which is the abundance of bugs. The game can crash suddenly or display some weird graphics from time to time.
Some areas seem a bit unpolished, underdeveloped. It is still remarkable they could fill the game with so much content, it almost seems there was
too much talent put into the game, which is the reason why even the most interesting peripheral locations and the most brilliant secondary characters seem superficial at times - they are so well made that they should have been more important to the game.
The combat system is pretty simplistic, and the difficulty level is a joke compared to hardcore console-style RPG fans. This aspect of the game is the one that needed most extra development.
I felt that some scenes were a little bit too light-hearted and superficial, compared to overall serious tone of the main story. It is always great to have some diversion, but it seems that the game is afraid to take itself too seriously and to be dramatic where it should be. Two scenes come to mind: the destruction of the planet where you meet Rho, and the end of the comic-book chapter. In both cases, the scenes of mass destruction and death should have been made in such a way that we would feel the tragedy, but instead they are treated almost as a comedy. This was the part that bothered me most in "Anachronox".
The Bottom Line
One of the best games ever. Seriously. You don't know what you're missing. Stop playing whatever you're playing now, turn off the computer, go to a software store and purchase this baby. You won't regret it. The sales are poor, you say? Then the gaming community is nothing else but a bunch of suckers!
