Grade: B+
Dreamscape 2D RPG Adventure
Anodyne stuck out to me in the racial justice bundle for the simple fact that it had an interesting name. “Anodyne,” the word, has twofold meanings. First, it can mean “not likely to provoke dissent and to be deliberately unoffensive.”. Second, it can also refer to a pain-killing drug or medicine.
This name makes sense, as the game itself is a dreamscape. The player gets dropped with little explanation into a modern yet fantastical mishmash of settings. You are given a quest by a Sage to stop the darkness of “The Briar.” The protagonist’s name is “Young.” As Young explores areas, fights enemies, and solves puzzles with their handy broom, they assemble a card collection. Collecting cards allow additional areas to unlock and helps you progress through the game. The world of Anodyne is large, and your dream hub has mirrors that you can jump through to quick travel.
Varied and interesting landscapes
As you proceed through your quests, there’s a wonderful set of intriguing areas to explore. There’s a lake, cliffs, forest, caves, space, apartment, hotel, village, and more. Some settings are nightmarish and surreal in nature. Others are quite mild and normal. It’s quite the grabbag of environments, and there’s not a strong theme that connects everything.
Some examples:
Ambiguous story and meaning
If you are looking for concrete rhyme and reason in your gameplay story, Anodyne will frustrate you immensely. The game is vague about its intent, and like a dream, everything is reality adjacent. The story pieces never completely fit together about why you’re doing what you’re doing and what the goals are. In a debrief, one of the game developers, Melos Han-Tani, wrote that they regretted not giving a journaling system to help keep things organized. They also agreed with critics that the mishmash of themes felt overly chaotic and unfocused.
The NPCs highlighted the thematic chaos of Anodyne. Each NPC had little snippets of information they imparted, but none of them really connected in any significant way. What does a demon have to do with a space cube or a circus performer? Not much.
I wasn’t sure of my own opinion of the meaning of the game, and so, of course, I looked to the internet to gather some outside perspective. The prevalent interpretation is that Anodyne is a coming-of-age story about a boy finding confidence in themselves. The core tension is whether the protagonist will build the self-esteem needed to leave the dream world for the real world or stay locked into the dreamscape forever.
For me, the story isn’t where the enjoyment in Anodyne is going to be found, and I think it’s best not to force meaning onto something random. Deriving meaning from nonsense pushes me down an unenjoyable rabbit hole. So instead, I find it better to let the scenery flow over me and enjoy the ambiance.
Phenomonal Soundtrack
The sound overall is beautifully designed and is a big part of what keeps the atmosphere alive throughout. Without such a great soundtrack, the dreamscape mood would have fallen flat. I love this opening motif that boots with the game.
Overall Impression
Without some walkthrough guides, I would have been lost in this world. Anodyne is a dense game, and I don’t expect I would have been able to beat the game without some walkthrough help. At the end of the game, the payoff from defeating “The Briar” was good, but it didn’t fully land because of the utter mishmash of themes. The exploration was much more fun than the conclusion. I think that’s the meaning I’ll walk away from Anodyne with.
I appreciated the risks the game developer took to make something unique. While not everything landed, I certainly noticed sparks of brilliance in Anodyne, and the high spots were some of the most memorable in any game I’ve played. Anodyne was released in 2013, and I genuinely look forward to playing through Melos Han-Tani’s other games. It looks like they took the lessons from Anodyne and wrapped them into improvements that they carried forward into their future development.
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