First 50:
51. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (PC)(FPS)
52. The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (PC)(FPS)53. 9:05 (PC)(Text Adventure)54. Mercenary Kings (PC)(Run and Gun)55. Super Pinball: Behind the Mask (SNES)(Pinball)56. Pinocchio (SNES)(Platformer)57. Iron Brigade (PC)(Tower Defense/TPS)
58. Iron Brigade: Rise of the Martian Bear (PC)(Tower Defense/TPS)59. Anachronox (PC)(RPG)Oh, Anachronox, you are such a flawed gem of a game. I adore some portions of you and loathe others. I find you enticing, exciting, baffling, and enigmatic, brimming with wonderful ideas occasionally marred by execution or genre convention. You are at times both a great friend and a bitter enemy.
If you haven't noticed, I have some mixed feelings about this game. A part of me really does want to sing the games praises and expound upon why you need to play it, but...well, I just can't. The glaring flaws it possesses keeps me from being able to do so. There are problems here, ones I find significant enough to keep me from declaring this the top of the pile. Ones which I figured I should just go ahead and break down. But first, a note on the positives:
The story is marvelous and well-crafted, capable of reaching a variety of themes and intermixing light-hearted humor with dramatic intensity. If ever I have encountered a story that could hit all the points, this is it. Seriously, you get intrigue and betrayal, hidden sorrows behind masks of joviality, a neo-noir hero working alongside his femme fatale, alcoholic superheroes, a lesson in extreme democracy, religion vs. science(and science as pseudo-religion), rampant corporations, powerful criminal syndicates, prophecy, threats to multiple universes, and even a twist ending that will leave you shaking your head before the cliffhanger ending. I am in awe at how much game designer Tom Hall managed to fit into this, and I admit that all of it leaves me clamoring for more. It is a spectacular shame that a sequel never materialized, but what we do have features a cast of characters so intensely lovable that I will forever have fond memories of them. If this game had been an adventure game, I think it would have worked just as well.
Unfortunately it is not. Instead it is a hybrid of western game design in a JRPG, which makes for an interesting idea that unfortunately doesn't entirely hold up in execution. For one, it relies on a Final Fantasy-esque battle system, which means an attempt at an active time battle system. This means you'll be waiting...a lot. The camera occasionally likes to freak out during these waiting periods or during actions too. But combat also comprises of a grid to move around, meaning your melee characters may have to blow turns moving to get close to the enemy while potentially getting in the way of your range folks. This is at least partly mitigated by most characters using range weapons at some point or having special abilities which can circumnavigate this issue, but it is an issue nonetheless. These abilities also don't come with leveling but with performing secrets in the game, which must be explored continuously to be found, which ties into another issue...
...extensive backtracking. Some nights I would start up the game only to spend the next few hours retreading ground so I could get folks to certain places to talk to certain folks for a new weapon or ability. Each time I would then have to spend another ten minutes getting back to base to swap out characters so I could do it again. This quickly became a laborious chore as I tried to find all the secrets hidden within. I do not lament this portion being done. I also didn't end up finding everything either, meaning I missed out on a weapon for Paco, my aging depressed superhero. His best weapons involve you searching for obscure objects to grab or photograph from the start of the game, some of which are entirely missable. This is maddening.
Not only are these almost necessary benefits hidden, but the stats are obscure too. Your characters statistics are represented by bars, not numbers, with no real definition as to what they mean. Heck, the whole game is largely cryptic in its explanations of how things work and don't work. I had to have Popo explain the Elementor system to me because the game does a horrible job. Status effects also don't get much of an explanation, and I didn't figure out what some of them do until the final boss battle, when they became a crucial piece which artificial extended the game by half an hour for me. I like PAL, but he really let me down there. Actually PAL is probably the worst offender for some of the game's problems, as acquiring his best equipment involves letting the game sit for four hours at a time while he goes and plays. Seriously.
At the same time, PAL's minigame special ability was one of my favorites. Every character has a special ability they can use to attain secrets or occasionally further the plot, and all of them are upgradeable. Some are fun, like Boots' lockpicking minigame, and his upgrade is a huge improvement that effectively eliminates his time requirements. Unfortunately some of the other characters aren't nearly so great, particularly Paco and Stiletto. I loathed both of their minigames from the start, and upgrading them actually made them worse.
Ok, ok, I suppose I have leveled a lot of criticism at the gameplay here, but I don't want you to think I hated the game. No, actually, I really loved it. I do want to take a moment though and praise one particular aspect, which is character design. In fact, I want to praise one particular character, whom I will call the Big D. Big D is the greatest RPG character ever. I'm not kidding, the Big D is the reason why I want to play video games, because ideas that are utterly ridiculous can be executed with such awesome and incredible style and handled so well that it just seems normal. Unfortunately I don't want to ruin why the Big D is such an amazing character, so to find out, you are going to have to play Anachronox yourself. Really, if you love RPGs, you should at least give it a try. It has some massive problems, but the reward is a story worth exploring.