Anima: Gate of Memories
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Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for Anima: Gate of Memories
Much of the time in this review was spent bagging on Anima: Gate of Memories’ many, many (many) flaws.
If you're a fan of Nier and looking to get your fix until the proper sequel is out, it is easy to recommend Anima. RPGs rarely hold my attention but I happily sank my time into this one no problem. There's enough quality content here that it feels like the developer or publisher is selling itself short by setting the price so low, as I would have easily been satisfied with this at double the price. It's even more impressive knowing the game was developed by three people. Just know going in that toward the end, you're going to be frustrated with some boss fights, pending the developers don't tweak them in a future update.
The fact of the matter is: Anima: Gate of Memories just isn’t fun. It’s not that the puzzles themselves are bad, nor that the lack of handholding is a huge deterrent in itself. Yet, the game gives very little feedback as to where to go, features mediocre combat and poor visual presentation to boot, whilst featuring some of the most hackneyed narrative and voice acting of recent years.
Anima: Gate of Memories is a crushing disappointment. There are plenty of places where the love Anima Project’s team has for its world is evident, but they’re buried under an avalanche of stunningly poor design choices. Being forced to listen to the terrible voice acting and relentlessly unfunny humor of protagonist Ergo made me wish for his quick and agonizing death — but even he’s not as painful as the game’s punishingly poor level design. Maybe there’s a way to make the world of this tabletop RPG fun and interesting when translated to the video game medium, but the developers sure didn’t find it this time around.
Anima: Gate of Memories is an ambitious, but uneven, anime-inspired third-person action adventure game now available for the Nintendo Switch.
It may sound like i'm being too hard on Anima: Gates of Memories but the truth is I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. After getting used to the camera and the awkward lock-on system I found a lot to enjoy, and the Arcane Tower hides many secrets and additional side quests to expand your playtime. Gates of Memories’ fantastic world building made me want to invest in the actual pen and paper game; in fact, I’ve already gone ahead and ordered one of the books. The great boss fights and incredible music brings its mystical locations to life even though some of them can be bland.
Anima: Gate of Memories is a solid action/RPG that would have easily slipped under my radar. It is longer than I expected, and continuously spices things up with new enemy types and puzzles throughout. I had a blast with this game, and it surprised me at almost every turn.
Anima: Gate of Memories is a classic example of a developer trying to create something bigger than they're capable of. The game attempts to be a grand RPG with platforming and puzzles, and yet it fails to pull off any of those mechanics off.
