Anachronox

Boxy graphics, repetitive combat that scales to match your level, and hopelessly unfinished, including a sudden ending and a centerpiece roller coaster that never actually made it into the game. Doesn't matter. The sci-fi setting is creative and expansive, and there are lots of fun little minigames embedded throughout. Above all, the game is one of the funniest I've ever played. Think Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Galaxy Quest humor with a little JRPG gameplay thrown in. Where else will you find a game that lets a planet join your party? If you can accept that it falls short of its goals, it's a great ride.

What is Anachronox? It is a 2001 sci-fi rpg with a comedic bent. While the actual story of the game is perhaps nothing that surprising or groundbreaking, I felt that the actual characters and their interactions were rather fun. Maybe not in a “constant roaring laughter” kinda way, but I chuckled more than once when playing the game, and generally I’d say I was rather consistently... amused, at least at a basic level. Because you do gather quite a team - a grumpy old man literally called Grumpos (whose superpower is yammering in annoyance!), a robot seravnt with a budding sense of independence, a literal comic book superhero, and even a shurnken down planet! There’s a lot to do in Anachronox – it is a rather long game that could easily take you 30-40 hours if you want to talk to everyone and check everything. That being said – a lot of that time is going to be spent in combat. And I didn’t really like combat in Anachronox. And the more I played, the less I liked it. It has really grinded me down. The worst thing about Anachronox’s combat system is that the attack animations of both you and your enemies just take SO DAMN LONG, and you are going to see them over and over and over again, hundreds of times. Some attacks can take a dozen seconds. By halfpoint of the game I was really, really tired of it. The characters are rather limited in their combat skill selection, so you tend to gravitate to using the same ones over and over again anyway. That being said, I still had fun with Anachronox. It is a very light hearted adventure worth a chuckle or two, but it also has some pretty weird (but interesting!) dark undertones here and there. If you want to see how it plays, or if you would enjoy seeing how someone discovers it for the first time, you can see my blind playthrough on my youtube channel, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLaXlByHU7w&list=PLp4TpsJ7HUWW-RnvtkTqZ-ao-kooxUP3O

Okay you probably read some other reviewers here mentioned very correctly that the game just would not "click" initially. Somehow after the intro and a little bit of playing a very incompetent main character you probably feel that the game just joking around with shallow humor. Fortunately I remember when the game "clicks" for me, and I will share it with you. It is when your character is standing, doing nothing, and then suddenly there is this subtle vibration around you, a little bit of shake, a little bit of dust falling.... that is when the the city of Anachronox rearrangge itself like some massive and crazy Rubik's Cube, and you live on it (and somehow got bored of the awesome fact). And when you (at least me) stop playing and consider this and think,"what kind of game is this? why this setting?" then you realize the game is probably much more deeper than you previously think. If you decide to continue playing then you will be in for a very pleasant surprise. You will laugh, you will fight, and you will feel DRAMA, something that is very rare in a game of any kind in any history. Buy it. Play it.

I didn't think a game this old could be enjoyable. The graphics, story and characters were a joy. Kind of an homage to douglas adams. at times the gameplay did drag a bit but it was truly impressive. lets kickstart a sequel

Yes, it is buggy. And the first version (unpatched) took more than 30 seconds to load between locations! At times it was like "wait 30 seconds for location to load, proceed 5 seconds to another exit, wait another 30 to load". The first area (Bricks) was a bit too large and there the load times were the most maddening, I guess many players would abandon the game before venturing to Sunder. But if you would endure the first 6 hours or so, the whole wonderful world of Anachronox would open before your eyes. + Characters are wonderful and lovable. + Dialogues are sooo good, great humour + Storyline is interesting and very diverse + Battle system is great. Weapon crafting is impressive and extensive