Anodyne Reviews

dusty

Pleasant RPG.

beautiful and resonant

Amazing game. If you like zelda-like games I definitely recommend it. I still think about it months after finishing it, not sure what happened but I enjoyed the journey lol

even compared to even the ocean, analgesic's very next game, anodyne is a young artist's project in many ways...split between a nostalgic impression of its influences while also approaching them with an almost mischievous iconoclasm, every creative decision wrapped around a clear and readable goal (despite their ostensibly cryptic delivery), and a raw emotional reality delivered with very little self-consciousness. it is in many ways analgesic's most alienating game, which makes the set of circumstances that lead to it being likely still their most popular kind of amusing...some of those circumstances could be looked at with cynicism (perhaps a links awakening-like is just an easier pitch than anything theyve made since) but i believe part of it was also a greater patience and interest at the time for even more alienating and amorphous masterpieces like yume nikki. and much like yume nikki, anodyne is best played simply for the sensation of Playing Anodyne...a lonely, absurd, morbid, raw experience. having gone back to play this game as many times as i have, ive formed a very steady and endlessly expanding mental map of all the symbolism and emotional evocations (this playthrough i was particularly interested in the ways areas on the same progression path are grouped together), to the point where ive long wanted to do some kind of commentary video or annotated longplay. but i always feel like im missing Something, and i think i always will, and that maddening gnawing is ultimately what has brought me back to it so many times. not to undersell the richness of analgesic's other games, but they have remained much easier to feel like i have Fully Conceptualized Them to a degree that satisfies me,,,but despite the overall easy-to-understand thematic/narrative big picture, the smaller details of anodyne have spent years sitting in my stomach, sometimes genuinely uncomfortable to play and think about, yet always so rewarding. anodyne is, strangely enough, the duo's coldest, least inviting game by some distance, which almost makes it feel chronologically wrong. and yet it also makes perfect sense as the seed from which the rest of their partnership sprouted...the precise, minimalist-leaning design emphasizing long-form texture over short-term dopamine, a living world shaped by the subconscious emotions of a sentient being, the desire to re-explore highly specific crevices of game history, and the thoughtful integration of video game artifice into the larger aesthetic. that last one particularly defines analgesic for me...while the willingness to jar their players is occasionally clearly meant to rip you out of the art-induced haze and remember the Real World you live in with a semi-brechtian effect (the endings of even the ocean and sephonie, No Such Scene from anodyne 2), more often than not the effect can be even more world-swallowing, as potentially jarring elements are treated with casual artfulness. the very first Analgesic Moment might be one of the easiest to miss...sage telling you that you Will use the keys to move.

Great little short game! Had a lot of fun playing it, and the art is really good.

Absolutely fantastic game! I just love the weird dialogues and mystic elements of it.