The range!!! This studio always makes games that tell wonderful, nuanced stories about existing slightly outside of systems, but also: the games are funny as hell. They are weird and delightful and silly and cutting and satirical. Also, mechanically, they are super diverse and do a great job of setting up interesting elements, making you stretch your brain a bit, and then moving on before beating you to death.
And yet every time, I spend years agonizing over "am I in the right space to play this?" Yeah, man, they're excellent. You should be running towards their latest release, not letting them languish on a backlog.

This game is super underrated. Its ps1 retro atmosphere and sound design is strangely encaptivating. The NPCs that inhabit the world go from humorous references and silly meta comments, all the way to philosophical dialogue. The writing is amazing at creating profound encounters. The game also does not stick to one thing for long and changes mechanics around when you least expect them, such as the ability to go out of bounds although not required.

Great enlightening piece of work that encaptivated me into its world and troubled characters.

I typically go into games without much knowledge so I was expecting this to be a 3d platformer lol. I went from playing Lunistice and Spark 3 to this hoping to get a more satisfying 3d platformer kick. While I quickly found that wasn’t the case, I was down for giving a story-driven game a shot but it didn’t really click with me. A lot of the text seemed pretty unnecessary for the first few hours, after the prologue anyways. I was really considering dropping this because I wasn’t feeling it and I thought to myself “I should really just drop games when I’m not liking them instead of just sticking through it.” Then a major plot point occurred and I was like ok ok. I wasn’t big on the miscellaneous musings from like every npc. I’m reminded of how my friend didn’t like how hylics used literally randomized text for dialogue.

I got stuck a bit and literally found out how to clip through walls before I figured out where to go lol. I just needed to deposit my dust manually. When I went to the next major area I figured out how to climb less than 90 degree walls and boom it was kind of fun platforming lol. This was actually super ironic considering I just finished playing pokemon scarlet where you literally do the same thing with your car in that game lmao. I managed to get to the farming town without talking to the rock guy (I literally didn’t know he was there and must have drove past him twice while in the pit) (I looked up a walkthrough afterwards). I was afraid that I hard locked my save or something because I didn’t know what else to do but apparently the next event was triggered kind of ambiguously (once you get the first 12 cards).

Oh yeah but the gameplay was a little too dull up until that point. It was just going place to place with little going on, even the 2d places were pretty automatic. Oh and I really did not like having to do the rhythm thing to enter each person, it just added to the time spent doing nothing. Also it like, didn’t even go with the song? Idk. I’m being too harsh and negative right now so I apologize for that.

To go back to the positives, I haven’t even paid my respect towards the audiovisuals! I found the design of it all to be very cool, I’m gonna go back and listen to the whole ost now that I’ve finished the game. I won’t go into detail regarding the story but it really turned up when it sticks to the overarching part. Even after that, the dungeons started getting much more creative in both storytelling and gameplay aspects. Like rather than just “get to the end,” they started having unique mechanics like with the gum, isometric view, rpg (kinda), etc.

Overall, I’m glad that I finished this. The visuals, music, and story are all great. It’s a bit of a slow start, I honestly would have preferred being without the city area. My favorite part of the city is that you could see it when you went up the elevator, and if you clipped through the wall then you could fall back into it (although I’m super upset those raptor-houses didn’t have collision). This actually reminded me a lot of Fatum Betula, no not because of the visuals, but because of the consideration of the world. I feel like the creator of each respective world probably shares some opinions/outlooks in world-building, specifically through video games as a medium. At least I got a similar sort of existential vibe when I played both.

The Anodyne series is an interesting one, I've thouroughly enjoyed both now and each time I feel I haven't quite grasped what I've played.

There's a density to the games despite their light play time, weaving meta-elements, out of bounds exploration and a just vague enough storyline and lore that the player is left to think on what they've experienced.

The games are such a love letter to things like Zelda and the psx era too. There's a lot to love here and a lot worth exploring.

First and foremost, wow. This game has had a hold on me for the last two years since ive played it. I havent even been able to properly put my thoughts into words since ive finished it until now. Anodyne 2: Return to Dust is a collectathon done right. Without getting into TOO much detail your character, "Nano Cleaner Nova" is given the task to cleanse the word of this Dust that effects and "hurts" people by this organization called "The Center". And as she is helping people throughout New Theland, she discovers the truth behind the Center and the Dust.

And now that im done with like the general review, I FUCKING LOVE THIS GAME SO GOD DAMN MUCH! From all the diverse landscapes to all the funky and unique characters, Anodyne 2 has held a special place in my heart ever since i opened it up for the first time. I 100% suggest giving this game a shot because every single character has such like personality and i abolutely loved interacting with every single npc <3

anodyne 2 has some of the cleanest aesthetics in a game ive seen in a while. exploring the 3d areas reminded me of playing ocarina of time for the first time as a kid, which compliments the 2d zelda style within the game super well. also the music is fking gorgeous. like incredible. the narrative is thought provoking and beautiful as well, despite having some problems with its pacing.

my only real gripe is with the meta content inserted in the middle of the game. completely broke my immersion and sort of altered the tone of the game. i would've loved to have seen the post-game content post-game... still 100% worth playing!!!!

Oynadığım oyunların tamamını hep başkalarından keşfetmem ile duyan biri olarak, Anodyne 2'nin adını bir kez bile bilmeden oynamak güzel bir histi. Hayır, bu öyle "gizli cevher" denilebilecek bir oyun değil ama yine de... değişik bir şekilde dikkat çekici.

Kirden ibaret ve baya baya eski PS2 modellerini andıran karakterler ile mekanlarla dolu bir dünyada temizlikçi robotu olarak çalıştığımız bu oyunda, yine o zamanların basit ama büyülü hikayelerinden ve estetiğinden birini barındırmasının yanında, karakterler ile etkileşime geçtikçe artan mekanik ve en önemlisi "oynanış" çeşitliliği sayesinde, aslında günümüzde oynayanlara pek yabanclık çektirmeyecek bir oyun.

Çıktığı yılı da göz önüne alırsak, Anodyne 2'nin neredeyse tamamının PS1-PS2 dönemlerindeki oyunların esintileri ile dolu olduğunu rahatlıkla söyleyebiliriz. Yani o dönemin müptelaları için bir aşk mektubu. Estetik ve müzik, kendini baştan ele veriyor bile zaten.

Ama çok yürek yakan cinsten mi? Meh... Hele o muhteşem "dünyayı keşfetme özgürlüğünü" gördükten sonra pek sanmasam da, yabana atılır cinsten olmadığı kesin.

In a year of what feels like 5 all-time favorite games to me, Anodyne 2 stands out for its nostalgic, childish approachability, but also its surprisingly mature themings and sharp writing. Over the course of about 12 hours, I remembered what it was like to be a kid again, and also re-experienced some painful parts of growing up. Theming-wise theres a lot going on here, too much for me to recognize it all on one playthrough, but I feel like something will resonate with basically everyone.

A recommendation for Pathologic 2 or Disco Elysium would come with lots of qualifiers but I think I could recommend this game to anyone. It's at the same time progressive and immediately charming.

I had a lot of goodwill in the reserves heading into this, being incredibly fond of the team's other works. And as such I'm conflicted about I feel now it's over.
My top line take is that I love everything about this game other than playing it - the characters, story, music, a world that transcends dimensional space... but the experience is marred by hostile design choices and so, so many puzzles that got me riled up by their obtuseness or finicky solutions. Not to mention the backtracking, janky traversal in the overworld, and potential late-game grind if you aren't mindful of the game's primary resource. Also some sections are just agonisingly long.
The writing is again the star of the show here, but for such an explicitly anti-capitalist game, I didn't expect to feel so... alienated, I guess, by the game's design philosophies.

Good ending, 100% of achievements unlocked. Deeply weird in its thematic premise, Anodyne 2: Return to Dust is clearly a personal labour of love for the developers, following up on the original Anodyne with significant divergence in gameplay. Where the first game was a fairly simple 2D Zelda-style experience, this sequel takes place with an explorable 3D overworld, though individual 2D 'dungeons' are much more in keeping with the prequel. Anodyne 2 sees the player taking control of a 'nano cleaner', a being birthed with the purpose of cleaning 'dust' from the minds of various NPCs via an ability to shrink down to microscopic size - and the overall setting's surreal themes are very much in keeping with this unusual premise.

There's not really much here in the way of mechanical challenge and it takes until the final 'dungeon' before the puzzle elements move beyond fairly simple concepts, and the game would benefit from some greater variety of abilities, but what's here is decently enjoyable to play and exploration is rewarded with various collectibles - including several which offer 'behind the scenes' areas and commentary which speak to the investment that Analgesic Productions evidently has in their creation.

(BacklogBeat's Game Club - March 2024 nomination)

This was a great time. The pacing's a bit weird but the aesthetics are gorgeous, the world is intriguing and the gameplay's pretty great for what it is. It's also probably one of the best sequels I've ever played? I don't think it's a masterpiece or anything like that, it just legitimately takes everything, and I mean everything from the first game and improves upon it to a degree that I've rarely seen before. The jump in quality is just absolutely insane.