In Anodyne, the character Young wakes up in a mysterious void filled with geometric white platforms, guided only by the voice of the mysterious character, Sage.
Take the role of Young as you explore and fight your way through over twenty nature, urban and abstract themed areas in the human Young's subconscious, ranging from diverse, monster and trap filled dungeons, to passive and friendly pastoral landscapes.
Anodyne's aesthetics are presented with a 16-bit-era visual style and a moody, dream-like soundtrack. Are you ready for a nostalgic adventure in the land of classic pixelated action-RPGs? Are you up for some deep and moving storytelling? All this and more awaits you in Anodyne.
Just, maybe play this game on anything that isn’t the Switch for the sake of not having a bad framerate or godawful scrolling, since after finally giving it an honest marathon session, I easily can see that being a dealbreaker for some like it was for me, and no matter how many times I tried to throw myself at this game in hopes the performance would...
Anodyne mixes solid old-school dungeon crawling with a delightfully weird and warped narrative set in a fever dreamscape full of bizarre secrets and surprises.
If you are a fan of the genre, it may be worth picking up on the cheap, but overall it never rises to the same heights as other 2D adventures available on the Switch.
Anodyne is definitely a strange game. On one hand, the surrealism it provided definitely made for a cool game world, but it did not feel properly executed on the story side of things. On top of that, the lackluster game map and limited aspect ratio did not do the game any favors either.
While Anodyne has its share of shortcomings, it more than makes up for it through beautiful dreamscapes and a compelling narrative about a serious and worthwhile topic.
