Anodyne did it's job in satisfying a lot of the simple puzzle-solving and engaging mechanics I remember enjoying from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, while concurrently not satisfying my want for SNES-like difficulty in boss design and challenges. Although some of the dungeon designs and concepts that were attempted to be built upon did not ultimately come together to create a cohesive/consistently polished Zelda-like title, I found that Anodyne made up for that through stellar environmental and atmospheric design. The game built upon themes of isolation and disconnection quite well, even during moments where the dialogue seemed somewhat clunky. Though as far as my general perception of the writing goes, I think it's off-kilter design lends itself well to a narrative centered around escape and guilty discomfort. Overall quite an enjoyable game experience, looking forward to see what this team accomplished with it's successor.

Review

I gave it a real shot, for 8 hours!

You can read my notes and thoughts here : https://twitter.com/han_tani2/status/1735187901296836666

Or read an essay in which I discuss TotK https://melodicambient.substack.com/p/why-ocarina-of-time-cant-be-recreated

The short version is: the game has its nice charming moments, I actually like the idea of janky physics dungeons and riding around on stuff. NPC designs are nice and some of the side quests looked interesting. But I hattteee the crafting stuff, it kind of ends up padding almost everything in the game out. There's also so much distraction, it feels like YouTube recommendations or TikTok...

Shitpost review

Zelda but if Miyamoto wasn't inspired by wandering the countryside as a kid but opening up Genshin enough times to get the 30 day login bonus