Anachronox

"Great plot, average gameplay in this console-style RPG"

Anachronox is a PC Role playing game set in a science fiction world.

You begin your quest on the planet anachronox, a strange world constantly re-arranging itself. At first, you will have to investigate on the nature of ''mystech'', which seems like ancient alien artifacts. But you'll discover that something bigger than life is happening to your world... It sounds vague, but believe me, the plot is so great you don't want it to be spoiled



The game looks more like a console RPG à la Final Fantasy than like your typical PC RPG (baldur's gate style). There are two modes of play : one for exploration which is your typical 3D adventure mode (think escape from monkey island) and one for fight, which is exactly like any turn based console RPG



What is there to like ?



The plot : I cannot tell you anything more here, except that the plot is actually what drives the game. It succeeds in gluing you to your mouse/keyboard. only flaw in the plot is that it is somewhat slow to start. But once it gets its cruise speed, nothing can stop you from going on.

Graphics : While they may not be technically perfect, they succeed in depicting various, living environments. It's simply incredible all that is going on in the background. Such a level of detail has rarely been achieved.
The music : The music is almost always impressive. It is worth any good movie score I can think of. It creates an atmosphere efficiently and is never too melodramatic.

Voice Acting : The voice acting is, simply put, the best ever heard in any video game. Granted, most of the dialogs are written textually, but within the many cutscenes, characters talk. The actors splendidly contribute to giving presence to the characters encountered.

Mini Games : There are a few of them. They're not all great, but they give a nice pace change.

Length : Pretty long game. Especially if you like to explore. I'd say it takes 35 hours to finish it, maybe more.



What is there to dislike ?



Endless wandering : many parts of the game (including sidequests) involve going through an entire town several times. The first time through, enemies will keep you entertained, but once they're dead, they are for good, so future passages feel so empty.

Side quests : many of them are just delivery quests, and even those more interesting fail to give you any interesting reward. Many people will just offer money for your service. The problem is, you never run out of money, so you couldn't care less !

Inventory management : Speaking of which, inventory management is not interesting at all. It feels very passive, mainly because you never have a choice to make. As soon, as you see something you like, you buy it. Why ? because you always have enough cash.

Replayability : Despite some efforts made for the game's replayability, I wouldn't go through it twice. Sure, at one point, yo get to explore totally different areas depending on which characters are in your party, but the endless wandering between empty places, sometimes hard to stand the first time, are just unbearable a second time.

Bugs : Last, but not least, Anachronox is full of bugs. Actually, the second patch has just been released (2 years after the game's release), but there are still a couple of them, some pretty nasty.



So ?



So, anachronox is a worthy game. It's quite unique, at least for the PC, and has a real interesting story. But, let's face it, the gameplay itself is just average. If you agree to play a game the same way you would read a good Science-fiction novel, I'm pretty sure anachronox will delight you. If gameplay is your only concern, look elsewhere.



Score : 7.5

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/10/03, Updated 06/10/03