80%PC

Anachronox is one of the best RPGs ever made, a hidden gem. It's got a fairly unique take on the genre, with heavy JRPG influences.

The cast of characters are fun and memorable and there's a good deal of humour in the game. Exploring the different planets on your quest will remind you of Mass Effect, but of course this game came long before before Mass Effect!

However, I didn't gel with the turn-based combat and the game is definitely showing its age. If you can get past all that, then this is a game definitely worth checking out.

90%PC

My journey with Anachronox began with one of the most intriguing titles, and some odd screenshots in the community feed. Once I'd begun, it felt like I was going to play a combo of Deus Ex and Final Fantasy 7. But by the end, it had developed into something truly, truly unique. I have never played like this before and likely never will again. They don't make them like this anymore, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It shows its age in some places (in terms of design, anyway, the game always looks like it was made it '96, even though it came out in the 00's. Truly a diamond in the rough. Thank you Steam sales for sometimes putting something in front of me that truly floors me. I absolutely love this big, dumb, kinda bad, very buggy, sometimes very frustrating, beautiful game.

70%PC

73/100

70%PC

So I just finished Anachronox, and I was surprised at the good times I had. Sure, it has its problems, but it's definitely worth a twirl.

In the game, you play down on his luck private detective, Sylvester "Sly" Boots, whose office compromise of a bit of storage space above a bar in the space colony of Anachronox. The game starts with Sly being bitten up by a mob enforcer after failing to make his payments on time. This proceeds by his digital secretary telling him to pick himself up and find a job. It so happens that the minor assignment he does find sends him in some fantastic way across many plants and make him somewhat reluctantly save the universe.

The game has very zany humour to it, the kind that gathers a cult following. Each planet has a unique feeling to it, with most characters being quirky and charming in their own way. Sly party members (he gathers seven of them throughout the story, although each party can have only three at the same time) are mostly oddballs and include a comic character, a robot, and a shrank planet(!). Voice acting is great, the game flow feels almost cinematic and the story absolutely bonkers. I also liked that there was no randomised fights – and the fights that were had an interesting mechanic and even some basic weapon crafting later on in the game.

There are, however, some annoying issues with the game. I suspect this has to do with the game being 20 years old now and probably has some kind of graphic envelopes to make it work on modern hardware. Those things are never perfect, and some glitches are very obvious. In many places, movement is jerky and part of the screen turns momentarily blank during action sequences. In other, there is a significant frame slowdown during battle animation. When the game came out in 2001, it was already very late in the release and was using the ageing Quake 2 engine – and while they made the absolute best they could with it, the graphic is bulky and the polygon count very low. Also, the game is very dark. I sometimes struggled to see the path ahead even when I turned the brightness level of the screen all the way up.

Overall, Anachronox is a fun, unconventional romp, with crazy ideas that somehow hold together. Without using a walkthrough (and I rarely do) - it will provide around 40 hours of play. I feel almost sorry that I didn't play it in its heydays and I vote it as a great candidate for a remake. The ending leaves an opening for Anachronox part 2 – and I wouldn't mind having that being made either! I'm giving it 70% this time around. Probably would have been 90% twenty years ago.

70%PC

Good story, characters, lore and music. Some frustrations: minor vagueness where to go, what to do. Story a bit random. Characters were extremely varied and interesting. some really cool locales. Gameplay: combat mediocre, levelling system mediocre, party management mediocre. Very satisfying puzzles and problem solving. Script was very funny. Encountered a bunch of bugs which cause replaying parts and extended time. (Final boss thought had playthrough killing bug, wouldn't start after first failure and reload). Liberal use of fast forward feature.

60%PC

Lots of walking. Cryptic puzzles that would be fun if you didn't spent so much time walking (without fast travel). Some playable characters don't show up until you're already 80% into the game. Story is not well written - you go from paying your debts to saving the universe in a heartbeat. Also it's hard to care about that universe. Combat really sucks, animation is so slow. Started strong, I dragged to the end

70%PC

Well written, funny, tedious combat and boring at times

90%PC

9,5

70%PC

Nice adventure with the combat system killing the whole game.

40%PC

The game started off so good, but never really took us anywhere. Never really gets top any punchline, never a crux, and there was so many game breaking bugs that really spoiled the whole attraction.

One bug (right on the last boss) stopped me from completing it, due to a glitch which didn't allow my people to move into the inner circle.

Highly disappointing from a developer that i Loved.

70%PC

quite nice once you get used to the outdated mechanics. Really hated the fact that there is alot of walking in the game and no fast travel. Thank god I found out that there is a speed up button in the game (#) and made used of it quite extensively about half way through the game.