Anodyne

I beat the game in less than a week. It was amusing for a bit, but it lacked an overall plot + motivation to keep it from dragging in the final third or quarter. The puzzles and mild platforming were generally uninspired, even though the game did save you a lot of irritation wtih some of its death mechanics (e.g., no fall damage, menu screen instant teleport out of dungeons). The boss fights were creative, and the variety of sub-worlds was impressive. But without any real motivation for what was in the world or why, it largely fell flat. The exploration aspect was generally fun, but it got tiresome. I was particularly sad about this because the post-game mechanic for finding secrets was really excellent. Music was ok for the atmosphere, but it needed to be a couple of notches better to sustain extended play + exploration without any plot support.

Anodyne 1 has a symbolic plot that's simple to understand, but fun nonetheless, and played out in an interesting way. Most of the difficulty comes from exploration and navigation. There is no "world map", and the local maps are really sparse on the details. This comes up in mazes and multi-level stages. Combat is not challenging at all, especially if you look around for health-ups. The post-game is not as good as people may lead you to believe. It's pretty dull, actually, but most of the fun is in the main game, anyway. Overall, it's good stuff!

The game is awesome and the story ist very good. The Puzzels in this game ary difficult in some playces but doable. I am already looking forward to the second game.

been enjoying this immensly. it's a cute little gaem not to dissimilar to link's awakening and other gameboy rpg like games.

This could be a good game if the gameplay itself wasn't that tedious. The game evokes nostalgia and feels like one of the old classics. At the same time it tries to be funny by self deprecating humour, but that falls flat and just seems wannabe clever. That wouldn't be so bad, clumsy humour can be funny too. But for that, the game would need to be interesting. Which it isn't. The actual gameplay is just tedious and the story is so thin and meta that it is just boring.