Anna's Quest

This is a surprisingly deep Point-and-Click Adventure. From the very beginning, it becomes clear that it's aimed at a younger audience, but the story is the kind that makes more sense on a second playthrough, because there are so many elements that are not what they initially seem. The ending is also very good, even though it didn't end quite how I wanted it to. Tonally, it wobbled a bit more than it should have now and then, but it wasn't wildly inconsistent. The characters were great, too; Anna is a lovely, innocent, very demure girl. For some reason, though, my motherly instincts didn't quite resonate with her, like they usually would with this sort of character. The voice acting was mostly very good, but - a minor gripe - there were a few mythological references that were pronounced incorrectly, but only by some of the characters; others nailed it completely. This is hardly exclusive to this game, either, so it remains a minor gripe from a mythology buff. The visual style is enjoyable, and works well with the style of narrative, but occasionally fell right on its face when something that was supposed to be majestic looked overly cartoony. The game's biggest flaw is its puzzles. I've seen quite a lot worse in the genre, for sure, but there was the occasional moment where I exclaimed, "How was I supposed to come to that conclusion!?" Often, there seemed like many logical solutions to a puzzle, but there was only one, and it was often the least logical. Their biggest problem, though, was the heavy narrative focus; even if you already knew the solution to a puzzle, the game would throw up a wall between you and its resolution until it wanted to you solve the puzzle. As I said, though, they weren't terrible by any means, and a walkthrough is a simple enough solution; you at least couldn't screw yourself over because of something you forgot to do 3 chapters ago, forcing you to start over.

I'm feeling I'm not the target audience of this game, but younger kids. Anna is a cute naive child, but that makes the dialogues quite boring. Especially with Ben, he is the most useless sidekick in the history of video games. The gameplay suffers from the weakness of many Daedalic titles, namely very illogical puzzles. I've basically finished most of the last 2 chapters because I've had enough. Not to mention some dialogue options necessary to move the plot appear without any hint or logic. If you are a fan of combining every item with every other items and environments then you'll have no problem since the options are not that vague as in classic point'n'click games, but if you try to solve the problems just by thinking logically, and your first guess to get wax from a beehive is not freeze it with dry ice (with a tip that you need gloves to handle it) sucked up with a furnace bellow, you'll have a hard time. There are MANY references to other Daedalic titles, but they stood out too much to be enjoyable. The ending is so unsatisfying it hurts. The last chapter is basically a flashback explaining minor parts of the story with a very short interaction after that. Now the pros: some parts of the story are really touching, and perfect for the young, naive protagonist. The art style is really good for the genre. Also, putting an achievement to a point'n'click adventure which is purely luck based is a terrible move. I literally saw in threads that many players don't get it on the first play-through.

I've just finished the game and so it's a warm feedback I would say. This game was really nice since, as other people point it out, the story was quite good, the animation and the voice acting convincing and the difficulty level very reasonable but not too low. In addition, I can also understand that some people complain about the ending which occured really in an abrupt way but I think that what makes us feel this way is that we got involved in the story so well that it's difficult to come to the ending screen :( So to summarize, I really enjoyed my time in this game and so much that when the ending happened I would have liked to get even more background for some of the protagonists!

Adventures depend on likable characters and engaging plot. For me, Anna's Quest somehow passes and fails those criteria at the same time. If you dose your playtime right, it still may work for you. You'll likely find Anna to be naive, gifted, and slightly dull. Mostly because she is. I really didn't feel strong connection to her character... but Anna is so obviously Anna. The character works internally, and externally, within the game's logic. It's the fourth wall's problem. Ben is... quite an annoyance, but plays well with Anna's naivety. The plot for most of the time is okay, fine, not excelling. The Quest shifts it's focus several times, and rarely returns. The conclusion of the story was really so much unsatisfying for me for this reason. During the finale, you switch Anna for another character from long ago, and you get to discover some of the past, motivations... which is fine, but I felt like that bit was slapped onto the game after characters were created. It sort of switches cause and effect. Again, it's just a personal feeling. Both story and puzzles contain some yikes moments. Parents may want to think twice before gift this game to kids. Talking about the puzzles, they were mostly okay, with some non-obvious and some totally out-of-the-box. Overall it's a very fine mix of difficulty. I consulted walk-through few times, but it was during moments of "I don't want to solve this puzzle" rather than "I cannot solve that". Especially there is that piano puzzle which heavily relies on player's memory. The solution is quite straightforward, and carrying out the solution is trivial, yet tedious. Why bother doing unproductive heavy-lifting?

Shortly! Game with a good story, excellent voice acting and graphics. And you really need to use your brain. I love this game.