Anachronox

"One of the best RPGs I've ever played."

This is one of the first RPGs I've ever actually finished (some others being Ultima one with heavy cheating, and Rogue (from '75) also with heavy cheating). I am a lazy bugger when it comes to video games and if a game loses my interest for more than a minute, I'm off playing something new. This game however never once lost my interest. I always wanted to find out more pertaining to the characters -- how Fatima died, why Boots is in dept, and, especially, the secret of Mystech. But the story isn't the only thing that kept me playing.

Gameplay (9/10): I love this game. Most RPGs I find boring because they rely on a good story instead of a fun game (not that A-nox has a bad story). I found the controls annoying at first, but in 15 minutes they were second nature. The battle system is my favourite from any RPG ever. I actually had fun (what's that? fun in an RPG?!?) fighting in this game, as opposed to almost every other RPG I've played. The mini-games are great and although they are insanely repetitive, I never got tired, bored, or frustrated with them. However, the first half of the point I did dock is due to the fact that since the mouse cursor is rendered over the 3D stuff, it suffers the same framerate as the rest, which seemed fine whilst exploring, but apparently wasn't good enough to move a 2-D MOUSE CURSOR SMOOTHLY! For Paco's and Stiletto's games especially, the actual mini-game was not a problem, it was fighting the mouse. The second half-point deduction is the game is so easy at the first (and I really suck at video games). I found that I didn't have to use a healing item, inn, etc... until I was about level 10 (my final level was 42). Yet, near the end, I found myself using a resurrection item every round of combat. I was on the easiest setting though.

Story (9/10): Yowza. The story for this game is great. I don't know why it's so great, though. It's the same old schlock you find in every RPG -- save universe yada yada yada magic yada yada yada Chaos vs. Law -- but I found myself compelled with the characters, possibly because they had so much depth and background -- it really was amazing. I've found after reading hundreds of books and watching hundreds of movies that the story is not as important as the way it's told: ''the medium is the message''. The same applies here. The camera work, voice acting, and scripting is of such high calibre you'd think the game was made in a (good) studio in Hollywood. At the end of Paco's solo mission where he rescues the little girl, there is no speech or sound of any kind, but the message is relayed masterfully just the same (despite the limitations of the graphics). I really couldn't believe it. I'd rank it on level with the story of Monkey Island -- interesting, funny, and engaging.

Audio (8/10): Yikes. Here's where the game kinda let me down. The sound is pretty awful at times. In combat, a giantic fireball that took 30 seconds to whip together lands with next to no sound at all. Everything the mouse cursor moves over in the menus makes the same dull thud, and when you float over hundreds of items, it gets old pretty quick. The music was decent, probably a 7 by itself since it is so ambient it's almost not there. However, the voice-acting of the characters is tremendous. The voice of PAL the robot is obviously robotic, but also funny and human. Grumpos was also very well done -- the plot twist at the end is almost revealed in his voice.

Video (8/10): I have to say, the graphics for this game were pretty impressive for being two years or so old. Some of the scenes were awe-inspiring: the Russian-like town, the various locales of A-nox itself, and the battle scenes were very good. However, A-nox gets an 8 out of 10 in this category because of some of the textures. The models are all great, but some of the textures are simply flat colour or extremely low-res. These dock one point off the score. The other is lost by Boots' facial expression when he uses certain MysTech. It looks like something out of South Park. He's supposed to have this snarly battle-cry face on, but instead his mouth is a triangle, and the rest of his face is... well, I can't remember since his mouth distracted sooo much. Anyone who's played Max Payne knows what I mean as far as bad facial expressions go. (''Uh oh, my wife and kid were killed. Better look like I'm taking a dump in my pants the rest of the game.'')

Replayability (n/a): I'm not going to rate replayability because there's no way I'd ever replay a game that took any more than three hours to beat. Gobliiins? Sure. Mario World? Of course! Baldur's Gate II? I'll have to beat it once first... (I guess I beat GTA3 twice, but the first time didn't count :) Anyway, if you're up for playing a 25-hour game again so you can see what awesome 6 or 7 items you missed, there are plenty of side-quests that can quench your thirst. Oh, and the battles were pretty tubular, so you might want to play again for them too.

Buy or Rent? I don't know any places you can rent computer games, so I'll treat rent as ''borrow'' (ie, burning a copy from your friend's). There's no justification to not buy this game. I picked it up for ten Canadian dollars (~$6 US) which is easily worth the time, money, and trouble you'd have burning it and bothering with copyright protection. Plus you get a sensual manual and an Eidos catalogue, let alone another jewel case (yes!).

Overall (9/10): The average is 8.5, and I could round it down to 8 for GameFAQs' sake, but I'll give it one more half-point because it has a sass-talking robot in it. By the way, I guess someone made A-nox ship before the developers were satisfied and done with it, and this could be the explanation for the sound and some graphics. DAMN YOU TO HELL WHOEVER YOU ARE! Buy Anachronox as soon as you possibly can, especially if you think Squaresoft doesn't know how to make a fun RPG. It was the best $10 videogame I ever bought.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/17/03, Updated 02/17/03