With Anima Gate of Recollections, builders Anima Venture took on the Herculean process of translating the tabletop RPG Anima: Past Fantasy to digital life. Selecting to convey any tabletop RPG to a different medium with its oodles of dense lore and techniques is a frightening process, and the world of Gaia and its impending apocalypse hit gaming platforms in 2016. Two years later, the second recreation within the sequence, Anima Gate of Recollections – The Anonymous Chronicles, took avid gamers again into the approaching apocalypse.
Now, Anima Venture have plunked each of these video games into one remastered assortment with Anima Gate of Recollections I and II Remaster.
Story & Characters
Within the first recreation, you’re thrown into the sneakers of twin protagonists, The Bearer and the demon Ergo Mundus. Despatched to reacquire an artefact referred to as the Byblos, they discover themselves trapped in a wierd tower whose innards are constructed from the recollections of its monstrous inhabitants. Your selections will decide their destiny. The Anonymous Chronicles places you within the sneakers of the mysterious Anonymous immortal from the primary recreation who stood in your path. His story takes place concurrently that of the primary recreation, displaying you the opposite aspect of the battle. Is he a saviour? Or a destroyer?
Gameplay & Fight
Regardless of popping out in 2016, Anima Gate of Recollections seems like an motion RPG from a a lot earlier period: from the late PS2 to early PS3 period of design, the truth is. Now that’s no slight on the way in which the sport performs, as that age of gaming had no scarcity of legendary motion titles and RPGs in its midst. Whereas Anima Gate of Recollections makes use of a extra open world-ish strategy to its recreation design in the way you’re allowed to deal with its environments, it feels very harking back to video games like Nier, Drakenguard, Satan Could Cry and simply that little little bit of Legend of Zelda.
The Anima video games are extremely hack-and-slash, combat-heavy, and it’s very clear that Satan Could Cry offered a major quantity of inspiration right here, although the sport can’t dwell as much as these bombastic motion chops. It does do a very good job of supplying you with a pleasant array of expertise and melee assaults to deal out, and within the first recreation, you may swap between the Bearer and Ergo on the drop of a button, permitting for some fancy chain combos to juggle enemies with. Ergo and The Bearer play pretty in another way as effectively, with Ergo a extra in-your-face brawling powerhouse whereas The Bearer works higher as a ranged attacker.
Anonymous, from the Anonymous Chronicles, is the one shoe you’ll be getting into for the follow-up recreation, and he performs like an all-rounder; nice at each melee and projectile assaults. In each video games, fight is weighty and fast-paced with gentle and heavy assaults, AOE’s, ranged magic assaults and dodges, all ruled by a stamina bar and a magic bar, each of which refill over time.
There’s an assortment of weapons and equipment to choose up alongside the way in which, every with its personal stats. Ergo, the Bearer must share these things, so there’s some thought into who you’re going to equip with what. As you degree up, you’re given ability factors to place into every character’s ability tree. Main expertise are linked by stat upgrades. You’re restricted to what number of expertise you may equip, however one good contact is that you may have a distinct set for aerial assaults versus floor assaults.
One minor visible determination did irk me somewhat bit in that, within the first recreation, weapons are solely used for stat and talent adjustments, and it’s solely within the second recreation that every weapon has its personal mesh. A minor quibble, however one I overcame.
Fight Balancing & Design Updates
One of many adjustments that Anima Venture made to the video games was gameplay and fight re-balancing. For probably the most half, fight is quick and enjoyable, and each really feel and sound meaty due to some great sound results, however most fights ended up turning into projectile spawnathons because the enemies deal these out fairly liberally. Whilst you can hit a magic assault with a magic assault, it makes it troublesome to get to some enemies with out getting hammered and caught in a string of knock-back loop assaults. I really feel like that is one side of rebalancing that the builders didn’t nail.
Narrative & Lore Presentation
For a story-heavy recreation, you may guess that lore performs an important half right here. There’s a good quantity of dialogue to devour, together with diary entries to delve into the tragic backstories that a lot of the characters have. The narrative is certainly one of many recreation’s strengths, as I by no means uninterested in discovering out extra about this world and its inhabitants. How the lore was offered to gamers has additionally been refined with this outing, and I really feel like Anima Venture did a incredible job right here.
I’m much less enthusiastic concerning the recreation’s voice performing, although, which, fairly frankly, is fairly unhealthy. There’s loads of absolutely voice-acted dialogue right here, which I can get by, however I might have completed with out lore exposition dumps and diary entries being learn to me.
Visuals & Artwork Course
Probably the most putting improve, and the one you’ll instantly discover, is the sport’s visuals. Anima Gate of Recollections employs a stylised, Western anime look with character fashions sporting a pleasant, thick, black define. It’s not fairly cel-shaded, however moderately has facets of the type in its visible id. The sport’s textures, supplies, visible results and lighting have obtained a stunning improve, making the sport putting to take a look at. From its burning Church galleys to its haunted mansions, the sport has a haunted, Gothic ambiance about it.
That stated, ranges are moderately sparse in design, favouring giant, empty open areas moderately than prop-heavy ones we anticipate by as we speak’s requirements.
Conclusion
Anima Venture have completed a fantastic job in making Anima Gate of Recollections simpler to get into. Whereas not all of the adjustments and balances work, particularly the projectile-heavy aspect of fight and the voice performing, the easier-to-understand lore and engaging narrative make sure that is the version of the video games it is best to play, even when you’ve skilled them earlier than.
Anima Gate of Recollections Trailer
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The sport was offered to us for the categorical goal of reviewing.
The evaluate was written by me and edited by my companion.
