I had a lot of goodwill in the reserves heading into this, being incredibly fond of the team's other works. And as such I'm conflicted about I feel now it's over.
My top line take is that I love everything about this game other than playing it - the characters, story, music, a world that transcends dimensional space... but the experience is marred by hostile design choices and so, so many puzzles that got me riled up by their obtuseness or finicky solutions. Not to mention the backtracking, janky traversal in the overworld, and potential late-game grind if you aren't mindful of the game's primary resource. Also some sections are just agonisingly long.
The writing is again the star of the show here, but for such an explicitly anti-capitalist game, I didn't expect to feel so... alienated, I guess, by the game's design philosophies.

Good ending, 100% of achievements unlocked. Deeply weird in its thematic premise, Anodyne 2: Return to Dust is clearly a personal labour of love for the developers, following up on the original Anodyne with significant divergence in gameplay. Where the first game was a fairly simple 2D Zelda-style experience, this sequel takes place with an explorable 3D overworld, though individual 2D 'dungeons' are much more in keeping with the prequel. Anodyne 2 sees the player taking control of a 'nano cleaner', a being birthed with the purpose of cleaning 'dust' from the minds of various NPCs via an ability to shrink down to microscopic size - and the overall setting's surreal themes are very much in keeping with this unusual premise.

There's not really much here in the way of mechanical challenge and it takes until the final 'dungeon' before the puzzle elements move beyond fairly simple concepts, and the game would benefit from some greater variety of abilities, but what's here is decently enjoyable to play and exploration is rewarded with various collectibles - including several which offer 'behind the scenes' areas and commentary which speak to the investment that Analgesic Productions evidently has in their creation.

unfortunately doing very bad with video games lately! the early energy i felt toward them this year has dissipated into feeling like kinda a chore more often than not...which is not the fault of the games i've been playing but i think i need to do better at finding my niches

and this is not really for me...like, i've more or less been informed that having a history with this sort of game makes it significantly more intuitive and without that background it feels more like, tedious than inviting...i got stuck countless times and the solutions were ultimately arbitrary and unrewarding, but again, maybe that's on me for lack of experience

oh well, going back to the beginning to better understand what i want out of games...DS Director's Cut soon!!

short and fairly sweet with nice environments and chill music. neat dungeoncrawling, but surprisingly buggy and awkward at times in gameplay. the final boss was a little confusing but it worked well enough, though the bosses in general tended to be flaccid. guess i'll also mention that the aforementioned bugginess is part of what gets this a lower than average rating, as otherwise it'd be somewhere right in the middle.

kinda weird how few npcs there actually are in the game, especially since the long-winded writing mostly comes from rocks and bosses. i was hoping there'd be some cool writing to get out of this but it's so far beyond cryptic that even while looking out for it i didn't really get what was going on at all, nor was there enough dripfed to me for me to even come up with a theory. dunno, maybe there's lore in the second game or something. closest thing i got was just there being a loose connective thread of some of the characters healing from pain and avoiding pain? it fits with the title at least.

anyway i don't regret the 5 or so hours i spent in the game. i hope we get more games in this style as time goes on. i'm planning to make one myself at some point if i can get past my current projects. they're fun!

🧹💨🪰🪱☁️🪢🌫🔪🃏🥪

perfect little vaccine recovery game. the texture of the setting is weirdly satisfying: ominous red bugs carving out health bars with loud teeth, massive unshackled worms digging up fresh maws for exploration, the proliferation of dust in every corner of reality and it’s universal utility. everything down to the two button action controls is simple enough that this could easily be burned onto a GBC cart and spun up as a creepy forgotten game from the era.

playing through the this feels like an interweaving of dream-feuled obscure gameboy logic with this anti-narrative clawing against the idea of a chosen hero, all while staying on a pretty linear path towards it. parts of the beginning felt abrasive at first contact—like the game resented me for playing it—but a few hours in you can start to see that it’s more of a og grumpy animal crossing villager vibe. i personally wish they leaned more into the dream stuff, but having done that messy work of creating a nonlinear story that tries to be satisfying no matter what angle you come at it from, i get it 💯

it’s fun to see a small game that came out in 2013 & see how much it was doing ahead of the indie crowd. i don’t know if we’ll ever be able to track its influence on a map, but it’s out there. mostly, i’m glad that there’s no pitfall damage, since that would have drawn out the game unnecessarily. the post game looks like it’s own beast that’ll be fun to jump into sometime! for now, i’ve got plenty to chew on.

((DISCLAIMER - This review(like all reviews) is biased and is entirely my opinion based on my own gaming preferences.))
Definitely an interesting 2D Zelda-like. I went in completely blind and had no clue what to expect. I got the game on sale but I feel that there was definitely a substantial amount of playtime for an indie adventure title at around 8 hours for my personal completion.

PROS -
- The gameplay is very open and leaves a lot of room for exploring and discovering new things.
- Dungeons all feel unique and filled with combat, puzzles, and exploration, each with a unique and fairly challenging boss.
- The artwork is definitely well done and very reminiscent of 16bit video games like ALTTP with perhaps even a bit more detail.
- There were a few characters who had funny moments and I definitely enjoyed some of the humorous writing.
- Mitra is hands-down my favorite part of the game and the most helpful person in the game. I genuinely looked forward to talking to her and appreciated the little hints she would give.
- Without giving spoilers, there is more exploring to do after completing the game with a very unique method of interacting with the game world. I honestly began having even more fun with the post-game than I had with everything that led up to it.

CRITICISMS -
- The atmosphere was so melancholy that it often times became unsettling in a not fun way for me personally.
- The writing and themes seemed to hit both extremes. At times I would chuckle at a light hearted, sarcastic character line one moment and then walk over to an area that was extremely dark in a sickening way.
- I often found myself lost and with no direction, having to backtrack through area after area just trying to clear the map in hopes that something might happen. Eventually, I realized that all the exploration amounted to was finding little art cards all over the place. The cards function like power stars in a Mario game, letting you enter the final area once you acquire them all. In the end it felt more like a chore to me, searching every inch of the map and dungeons just to get the game to move forward rather than a satisfying or useful collectible that gave any sense of progression.
- There were moments where characters using foul language, seemingly out of the blue, completely broke immersion for me, often during lines that seemed overly meta. While most dialogue in the game is entirely optional, there isn't much more to the writing and characters.
- The story... Honestly, I feel that this game was lacking much direction when it comes to plot, motivation, and character development. It seemed like it was more of a joke that the story is nearly non-existent with names being very much like placeholders rather than parts of a fictional world. In the end, I was left wondering why any of the game was even taking place or even what at all was taking place with seemingly no answers.

I know nothing about the developers or the development of this game, but in the end, I look at games as what they are. As a game, it delivers on some pretty solid Zelda-like exploration, dungeon crawling, boss fights, with the last one being challenging in a satisfying way, and some beautiful pixel-art, varied biomes and creative puzzle-solving. I was not very satisfied by the lack of story, and the atmosphere was not something I personally enjoyed all the time. Overall, Definitely a unique experience that scratches the Zelda itch pretty well, though I would have enjoyed a bit more on the story side of things.

Indie Zelda-like (exactly my jam)! Weird vibes, weird dialogue (affectionate), creepy/dark. Boss fights solid but a small part of the experience. All of that is good.

The level design was basically just a maze. No mechanics are more interesting than locks and keys, very few items that do anything, and rarely any puzzles. Not engaging, not innovative. Only challenging because the world is so overly vast for what little it has to offer.

I reached the final gauntlet dungeon and decided I didn't care enough about the story to bother with janky parkour.

I will certainly try Anodyne 2, however! There's good here, I look forward to seeing how they expand in the sequel.

There's one truly inspired moment in Anodyne. I won't spoil it here, but it has to do with a context-sensitive action surprising the player with an unexpected outcome. I play games for moments like this: that catch me off guard and enlighten my understanding of game design. Overall, I feel pretty mixed on Anodyne, so I thought it best to start with the positive. Of every game I've rated below 2.5 stars, Anodyne is the one I'm most glad to have played, purely because of its willingness to surprise.

That said, Anodyne's downfall stems from how plain its inspirations are. Anodyne is Zelda meets Yume Nikki. This isn't necessarily a problem: Zelda and Yume Nikki are among the most influential, especially for indie games. The problem is, taking so much from such landmark titles invites a comparison that is seldom favorable.

Much like Zelda, Anodyne is a top down dungeon crawler. Anodyne's main innovation is using a Broom as a weapon: it functions much like a sword, but it has the added ability to pick up and place down dust. Unlike Zelda, there are no dungeon items, and few upgrades to speak of: every dungeon is designed entirely around the Broom. There are a few interesting puzzle solving applications of the broom: you can use dust to swim across water, or to block projectiles, or to power moving platforms. This central mechanic isn't horribly shallow, but it definitely lacks enough depth to support 6 dungeons. The result is, in spite of its short length, Anodyne feels quite repetitive, and easily wears out its welcome.

Much like Yume Nikki, Anodyne is an exploration-focused game taking place in the protagonists subconscious. Though I think Anodyne is a decent Zelda-like game, I really feel like it misses the mark on this front. Yume Nikki is gripping not just because of the surreal imagery, but because said imagery communicates something about the protagonist. Yume Nikki has a section that switches to an 8-bit art style--but this makes perfect sense considering Madotsuki owns a Famicom in the real world.

Anodyne also has a sudden 8bit section. But, what does this tell us about our protagonist, Young? Not much. After the 8-bit area, Anodyne drops all pretense and shoves the player into a Circus-themed dungeon for seemingly no reason.
Overall, Anodyne's setting captures all of the weaknesses of dreamlike settings, and none of the strengths. Anodyne feels incredibly lazy: It doesn't want to put in the work to establish a consistent setting, nor does it put effort into making its surreal imagery symbolically resonant like Yume Nikki does.

Ultimately, Anodyne blindly copies from Zelda and Yume Nikki, while embodying none of the lessons those games actually taught. It's not horrible, but its a long way from greatness.

i don't want to be too harsh on this as it was made by such a small team and has so much passion but i could not stand actually playing this on a moment to moment basis by the ending. Link's Awakening and similar titles are great to take inspiration from but this ends up playing as a version of those with rancid gameplay elements at times.

lots of little issues that came together to do a lot of damage to my experience with the game as time went by. invincibility frames when taking damage feel extremely brief (enough so that taking damage during some of the later encounters is never a single thing so much as a string of hits) while enemies felt like it took ages, labyrinthine map design with tons of areas that lead to nothing, miserable platforming mechanics, and so forth. the game only took me a little over three hours to finish and the fatigue i had with it felt like i had played for triple that. not a good sign tbh.

absolutely loved the art design and soundtrack at least. the strange world of the game kept me going more than anything, i think.

Anodyne 2 looks like it has potential to click with me more so here's hoping.