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.

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.

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.

Middling Blaster Master and classic Zelda dungeons barely keeping together a shambling pile of misguided liberal musings on far too many topics. The player is bounced between scenes about maternity, capitalism, modernity, suicidal ideation, whatever, without a compelling or particularly confidence instilling thru line ever being established. The evil of the world is all encompassing, but in a deeply unscientific and nihilistic way.

I enjoy a lot of the style and intent behind the biggest swings here, but they always fall into the same hollowness the game desperately wants to criticize. Speaking to the evils of expansion and then doubling up on half-finished mechanical additions when the core tools aren't particularly well developed is so incredibly insincere. There's just no space in the game to meaningfully reflect upon the information and character beats presented to you. I would love to have played a version of this game with better management of duration and time which this release desperately needs.

Anodyne 2 é um jogo que me fez pensar como poucos no ato da criação. Não porque em seus temas centrais toca no ato de moldar algo ou alguém, de preparar-se e/ou preparar alguém para encarar um mundo nada ideal, de triunfar diante de todos os buracos e decepções que possam ter no caminho; não porque tangencia esse tema com mensagens sobre solidão, de sentir-se incompleto, de compaixão, comunidade. Anodyne 2 tenta, desesperadamente, parece, falar de tudo: um potpourri de anedotas, contos, poesias; também uma aula sobre como escrever flavor text e gerar ambientação. Anodyne me fez pensar no ato da criação porque, ao reconhecer suas limitações como um jogo de baixo orçamento, feito por apenas uma dupla, o jogo prefere mostrar seu lado vulnerável e humano, prefere se conectar ao seu jogador através da honestidade, da conversa, do partilhar - as quebras de quarta parede não são piadinhas idiotas aqui, e sim lembretes de que foram duas pessoas, cheias de vontade de colocar em tela e em controle o que elas sentem - que fizeram esse jogo. As fronteiras invisíveis expandem, ao invés de limitar; a baixa contagem de polígonos¹ revela, ao invés de esconder. Ao mostrar-se vulnerável, a equipe de Anodyne faz de suas limitações realísticas uma janela cristalina para o cerne da obra.

O jogo reitera em seu passado, o aproveitamento das mecânicas de Anodyne e seu mundo sendo transplantados dentro da camada mais interna da cebola, mergulho dentro de mergulho mecânico e narrativo escondendo surpresas deliciosas; não necessariamente homenagem, e sim reaproveitamento que denuncia a nobreza do processo de manufatura, nunca linear: Anodyne 2 tem Anodyne dentro de si, e não teria como ser diferente - o simbólico se torna o literal. Anodyne 2 também tem em si Even the Ocean, e muitos outros projetos de Melos e Marina; talvez também tenha Sephonie, em seu estágio embrionário, escondido em algum lugar aqui.

1. Nunca leia isso como uma crítica, o jogo é lindo.

There's a dichotomy in Anodyne 2. It's constant. In the same ways it asks us to break away from our complacency, the systems that bind and pull us to accept simple easier truths, it plays its hand through various fundamentals of the games that make it. In its commentary on trends it plays on trends, has you walk through trends, blasts away trends with trends. It forges its own path full of its own dust and blemishes. It too is trapped within its own cycle, hoping for more. Hoping to be better than it is. Hoping we can all be better than we are.

All of this is so viscerally poignant to me. It's almost nauseous to me how melancholic and constantly on your shoulder it is. It seeks to understand you as much as you're trying to understand it and there's constantly a bit of friction. It swaps between very clear explicit tones and vague musings. It wants to touch on as many facets of life and experience as it can but in some ways it almost commodifies that idea. There's a sort of 'contradiction' in it all.

I think that's better for Anodyne 2, though. The journey is hard but we'll be free, I believe that. Even if none of this makes sense to 'you', the story is crystal and upfront, we must choose the path to walk forward between some perfect communion full of Limitation vs. accepting us all for our little frictions and attempting to think more Beyond. Also just kind of genius how that's all distilled, whether some of that was intentional or not. All up to you anyhow. Go forth, Nova!

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.

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.

Became one of my favourite games of all time about 5-6 hours in.
Beautifully written, filled to the brim with charm. Manages perfectly to be funny, unnerving, and emotionally charged all at the same time while elegantly avoiding tonal dissonance.
This is overall an incredible sequel to Anodyne 1 that improves in every single possible aspect and fixes all the small issues and nitpicks one could possibly find within the first game, letting the talent and passion of the developers shine through beautifully.
It's creative, it's genuine, it's funny, it's consistently amazing and it made me teary-eyed as I read the final blurbs of text in the ending.

Also it's subtly but unapologetically queer as fuck which nets it +.5 points in my book, so this is actually a 5.5/5.

One of Anodyne 2’s driving forces in engaging its players is its unapologetic absurdity. Designed to be half a Link’s Awakening dungeon crawler and half a polygonal Playstation 1 creepypasta fan-fic come to life, Anodyne 2 barrages you with flowery dialogue and abstract imagery right up front and it does it so intensely that the you’ll go from “oh wow, I don’t know if I can take however-many-hours of this nonsense” to “alright, it know what it’s doing, I’m here for this” all in the span of a tutorial.

The first Anodyne conveyed its abstract themes through pixelated madness in its explorative overworld that takes inspiration from games like Link’s Awakening, however the sequel (which has nothing to do with the first) brings its overworld into a 64-bit 3D realm. Jump, run and drive around the crudely designed terrain of New Theland in a strangely nostalgic, and surprisingly endearing addition to its own formula.

The 3D overworld is solely designed for exploration and advancing the story so you won’t find much challenge there (you have no health meter here) but it is an absolute joy to just gaze upon the low rez textures pasted on nonsensical buildings or meeting the absurdly designed denizens that don’t seem to obey any sensible notion of anatomy. You’ll also find yourself trying to see what any of these adorable abominations have to say in their clever sometimes 4th-wall breaking, sometimes existential-crisis-inducing but always world building banter.

It’s here with the NPCs that you’ll be able to delve into the true action of the game. By entering the shrinking down to size and entering the psyches of certain characters, the game takes the 2D dungeon levels from the first game and works them into the main puzzles of the game that act as ever evolving combat areas and obstacles that don’t stop coming until the very end. It may the super simple premise of just vacuuming up objects, shooting objects out of your nano cleaner and attack enemies with stars.

Not only are you treated to most of the gameplay variety found in the game in these areas but you get to really experience the stories of some of these NPCs and understand the dilemmas they are going to in their personal lives that caused them to be so corrupted by the dust.

And dust is the flowing theme of the game’s story. Just as you sucked up dust in the original game, Anodyne 2 embeds its entire lore in the idea of dust and how it creeps into every nook and cranny with the sole purpose of corrupting everything in the world of New Theland. And you are Nova, a creature born of an egg with the nurtured purpose of cleaning the world of the dust. Nova is sent to fulfill this purpose by The Center, the origin of everything, as well as the Glandilock Seed attached to her very self and fills her with the urge to destroy the dust.

While there are a few inconsistencies with the story as well as a player choice at the end that really misses the mark, it is a pleasant and wholesome coming-of-age story focused on being able to follow one’s own path amidst staggering peer pressure and expectations.

Anodyne 2 offers just enough quiet absurdity to its story as well as enough puzzle elements to keep the player engaged all the way through its 12 hour playthrough. With a game that looks as crude and janky as it does, it runs surprisingly well and his held together solidly. Not to mention the devs weren’t afraid to get too weird or existential with its story and gameplay elements and some of the scenarios are must-plays. If you choose to play through Return to Dust you’re into one of the most endearingly weird gaming experiences of the last year or so.

Tan superior a su antecesor que se ha convertido en mi juego del año. ‘Anodyne 2’ consigue dejar atrás la faceta de “clon zeldíaco” que hereda para presentarse como un juego en constante evolución, sin miedo a romper su estructura y trasladarte a entornos y jugabilidades difíciles de anticipar. La aventura de Nova, la purificadora, no es tanto la complejidad argumental o jugable que hace gala el juego (no superlativa), sino la creación de imágenes evocadoras que templan el alma del viajero y abren espacio a la reflexión, por encima de un mar de nubes de polvo. La secuela que proponen Melos Han-Tani y Marina Kittaka sigue evocando los panoramas extraños, surrealistas y mansos del primer juego; ocasionalmente enturbiados por la oscuridad que ofrece nuestra naturaleza humana. La inseguridad, la insatisfacción o la melancolía que impregna el aire de malos recuerdos y el arrepentimiento. Jugar a ‘Anodyne 2’ (y su antecesor) es trasladarse a un espacio de trance en el que todos estos sentimientos se magnifican por la ausencia de malos malosos o mundos que salvar. Es una delicia vivirlo y apreciarlo en primera instancia.

No sólo eso, ‘Anodyne 2’ también es un juego realmente agradable de jugar por su alternancia de ideas y su nostálgica presentación, que mezcla gráficos 3D low-resolution típicos de la era PS1/N64/Saturn, con mazmorras zeldíacas en 2D y un pixel-art más colorido y mejorado que su antecesor. Nova es controlada en los espacios 3D como si fuese un plataformas, sin riesgo alguno, pudiendo explorar los entornos a gusto y placer en busca de secretos y recovecos que llevarse a la boca (y hay muchas sorpresas escondidas). Para seguir el planteamiento inicial, no obstante, Nova debe colarse dentro de las criaturas de Nueva Zilan y liberarles del polvo que acumulan sus corazones, reduciendo su tamaño a miniatura para meterse en dichos organismos. Estas fases en 2D funcionan de manera similar al primer ‘Anodyne’, y aunque las mazmorras no posean una complejidad muy allá, sí están estructuradas de maneras tan diferentes que ninguna resulta repetitiva de por sí. De hecho, llegado a un determinado punto de la aventura, ‘Anodyne 2’ se vuelve más trasgresor y sorprendente con cada paso que das, hasta el punto de no saber qué tipo de juego tienes en tus manos. Y lo mejor es que todo tiene sentido, dentro de lo raruno que resulta todo a gran escala.

‘Anodyne 2’ es un juego que merece la pena probar una vez en la vida, aunque los focos (y el éxito) hayan ido a parar en otras partes, y se puede disfrutar perfectamente sin haber tocado el primero. No será para todo el mundo, pero quienes abran su corazón a Nova, la purificadora, igual encuentran algo bien especial que preservar en su adentro.

You know that feeling you get in a game when you're not sure if you're going the right way? Like when you've managed to climb up some cliff and you're not quite out of bounds but you suspect this wasn't the intended path? That slight unease and mundane mystery is most of what I felt while playing this.

It's a unique experience, mashing together memories of early 3D collectathons with the intentionally vague, sometimes off-putting aesthetics of arthouse media. It's not an exciting game, but if you've got a bit of patience, it'll tickle your brain and stir some feelings.

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.

It’s not like the ideas Anodyne 2 lives off are totally unique, but the way they are built so wholeheartedly, so creatively will make the entire time you play this game a pure joy. It doesn’t matter if it’s PS1 aesthetics open world or the 16 bit top-down snes era vibes, exploring the world is simple but addicting. It’s such a welcome change to play something so cozy and wholesome, listening to a wonderful soundtrack. I can’t recommend the game enough, If a weird little rather experimental indie sounds like it’s something for you.

An amalgamation of micro-worlds, bound together by human connections and pain, in order to escape the homogeneous void and uniformity of the world. The system won't give you resolution, only a small comfort until your demise. A 32-bit/16-bit/8-bit adaptation of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

The smaller you go, the more concrete these worlds seem, but also more constraining. They might also hide bigger possibilities, new ways of rethinking live and community.

At times, this feels like a search for limitations, instead of actually being limited by software/hardware/manpower. That's why the little card-hunting there is didn't bother me, it went as far and wide as it wanted to.

(Outdated review, will make a new one eventually)

I have played many games, and as such, it took me a while to find a game that I could say was truly my favorite of all time. However, after deciding to give the sequel of Anodyne (a game I was lukewarm on due to some underdeveloped gameplay despite having incredible audio and atmosphere) a chance, I found it.

Anodyne 2: Return to Dust is a culmination of everything Analgesic Productions learned in the years after making Anodyne, and it shows. This is a game that draws you in from the title screen alone, and keeps surprising you until the very end. The crux of the game is, of course, the gameplay, and it's outstanding for the most part. There is much more going on than Anodyne 1, yet it still feels simple at its core in terms of controls. You play as a Nanocleaner, who shrinks inside people to remove toxic dust from them. The gameplay is split into two sections: The overworld, which is adventure-oriented with PS1 styled graphics, which you use to find people who need to a Nanocleaning. The Nanocleaning is done in a top-down Zelda style with 16-bit visuals. The dust removed is used to open up new areas along with cards collected from various sources (As a side note, I love how when you shrink, the resolution of the game shrinks from 32-bit to 16-bit styles). The overworld is pretty fun to explore. There's no battles, and you'll mostly just be looking for collectibles. It does have a problem which I'll get to, but the Nano sections really shine. Each level introduces new mechanics that are excessively creative, and many levels do things you would never expect. I don't want to spoil any of it, but it will make you rethink how you play games. I haven't played a game with such a variation of levels that are both interesting and well designed.

There's also the story, which is pretty good, but is elevated by the atmosphere and some subversions. You work for a deity called 'The Center', which supposedly created all life, and the dust you clean sullies the sanctity of life, but this sanctity is seemingly extremely strict. The story is essentially about meaning in life and nihilism, and does some interesting things with your preconcieved notions of videogame stories (Although not on the level of Undertale or the like). As I said, the atmosphere and direction really elevate this aspect, and there was a particularly disturbing moment halfway through. There's also the contained stories of all the people you jump inside to nanoclean. Some are basic, but some are very interesting and are reflected in the levels themselves. The game also has a very meta sense of humor, and can be pretty funny. Another interesting aspect of this game is that it has lore. While you can play this without having played the first, there is a post-game section tied to the first game, and it hints to a possible origin of the world the second game takes place in, New Theland. The next paragraph will be a spoiler, because there's some interesting things I want to talk about.

As I said, the story is about finding meaning and freedom in the world, but halfway through the game, something very interesting happens. You meet a seemingly glitched character named Desert-NPC, and when you try to dive into him, you're sucked in. You then go to this more realistic-looking world where you play as Nora, a normal person working a 9-5 job who is tired of the monotony. It's suggested Anodyne 2 may be a game Nora is playing. Eventually, she is chased by a giant Griffon creature, and the only way to get away is to start playing Anodyne 2 again. Some may see this as nonsense, but I think it's a hyperbolic symbol of escapism, as if to say Nora is avoiding her problems by playing games, and she is rejecting nihilism by thinking that she has purpose in this game world. That's an element of videogames that isn't touched on a lot, so I thought it was a great extra message.

Of course, any great game needs to give reason to keep playing and replaying, and Anodyne 2 has an extensive and interesting post-game, although it may be the one aspect the first Anodyne trumps it in. You have to collect meta coins that are hidden in the overworld, and here's the kicker: Many of the (seemingly) 585 are hidden out of bounds and in level geometry. It's a very cool side quest, and the rewards are great, but it has one big problem: Did you notice that "seemingly"? Well, I actually don't know how many there are in the game. There's an NPC that says I have ALMOST every metacoin, so I guess I'm missing some. There's a metacoin tracker, but it doesn't work in the nanolevels, and there are a select few hidden in some nanolevels. If they would patch the metacoin tracker working in nanolevels, that would be great, because this is the biggest problem with the game. However, there is seemingly no award for collecting them all, and the developers are known to troll, so it's possible I do have them all, especially since I can't find anyone online with more than 585.

The audio and visuals are pretty great too. I already mentioned the meaning behind the visual changes when shrinking, but both styles can be beautiful in their own right. The Pastel Horizon and Outer Sands East stick out especially, and I like how the overworld integrated modern lighting into its retro style. The audio contributes a lot to that atmosphere, and most of the tracks are ambient ones, but there's still a decent amount of variety here.

Overall, Anodyne 2: Return to Dust is a game that hits pretty much every mark. It's a once in a lifetime experience that you need to play, and my favorite game of all time.

I archive the history of the Orb. Games are my specialty.
Have you ever felt like you're playing the same game, over and over again, year after year? That, despite the newness, you're playing the same thing?
It's so easy to be consumed by this cycle, only to find years of your life gone. Staring at your reflection, scrambling to justify your past. Is it possible for all of the hours to mean nothing?
I was once that way...but through the field of game history, I found personal growth. Detecting trends and following artistic movements...it's beautiful.