I remember reading about how much work went in to modding the Quake2 engine to support all the crazy things the camera does in Anachoronox.
Things have gone haywire for me at the moment and I fear I won’t be able to join in as planned. I did finish the game way back when. I hope some of you get more than halfway through as there’s a point where it’s clear they ran out of time and just had to finish the game.
Still one of my favorite games of yesteryear.
I really want to dig into this–and also continue digging into Freespace 2!–but I’m afraid I’ve gotten a little caught up working on a little game I’m building. When you have a breakthrough and you start making serious progress, it’s hard to tear yourself away.
+1 more hour. Suddenly there are all these side quests that you need to write down yourself. At least the quest giver gives a one-line summary after exhausting all their conversations.
Let me ramble a little about “corridor levels”. While such a restricted design is normal for most types of games (platformer, 2D shooters, adventure, etc), RPGs have always strived for an open-world design. My personal earliest memory of such a design is from Ultima 3, way back in 1983. Within a short time, many other games of the same type followed: Questron, Ultima 4-5-6-etc, Phantasie 1-2-3. It seems like many people in the west are figuring out how to make an immersive open-world where character movement is not restricted.
That’s why JRPG completely flies in the face of such progress. When is Final Fantasy 2/4 for SNES released? 1991 in Japan and North America. It completely restricts the world movement of the player until maybe 1/2 way through the game, all to serve the story that it is telling. Players have no choice but to move from this town to that village, or from this forest to that cave/dungeon, all the while teasing you with glimpses of the outside.
So how about Anachronox? Being based on Quake 1/2, it must keep its level relatively small due to its tech. Its setting of a weirld convuloted alien constructed world makes it plausible for a world to be made up of all these twisty turny levels…with lots of corridors restricting draw distances. Yet, this place feels less corridor-y than FF13. Of course, in a modern RPG, the whole Anachronox world is probably equivalent to a single town in terms of places to visit, polygon budget, NPC’s and dialog.
I downloaded this over the weekend and got it all setup but haven’t had my first proper go yet. Hopefully I can get started before the next club! This would be the first one I’ve taken part in too if I manage it. Never played Anachronox before so no idea what to expect.
On the technical side I ended up sticking to 4:3 to avoid all that nasty off-screen spawning crap. I forced some anti-aliasing too and the game looks pretty reasonable to my eyes. I won’t deny, despite it’s aged graphics, it’s still got a certain atmosphere about it that I dig; reminds me of Beyond Good & Evil.
Well, I spent about 30min on this, which is not nearly as much time as it deserves. I would propose an extra week, but we’re actually coming up on an extra week already, due to my slovenliness.
Is anyone still playing? And those who played–or have memories of playing–it would be great to get your thoughts on the game. KaoFloppy, your discussion of how Anachronox both is and isn’t on rails was a nice insight. Just having an RPG made in an early Quake engine puts all kinds of unusual restrictions on the design.
I’ve had very little free time this past week, but I hope to come back and play at least a couple of hours tomorrow. I plan to continue on and off from now on, so I don’t mind if a new game rotates in.
So I’ve been playing this over the last few weeks between other games and have been really enjoying it, more so than Pillars of Eternity which I ditched after a good 18 hours. I just couldn’t handle the fiddly combat, weird ability/spell timings, and the barrage of icons and necessary explanations. Anyway, back to Anachronox!
It looks old but man, I still find it really evocative with plenty of cute details littered about the city, like a pair of trainers hanging in some overhead cables high above the streets or newspaper sheets flapping around at the station when the shuttles pull away. The camera work, such as when you activate lifts, is surprisingly dynamic too. Amazing what the Quake 2 engine was capable of.
The dialogue is great, as is the acting. The characters, despite their low poly appearance, have obviously had a lot of care and attention poured into them; their textures and slight facial expressions I still find impressive for their time. Aesthetically I think it holds up really well. It’s also made me laugh a few times now.
The combat so far has been pretty humdrum yet serviceable but I don’t think that’s really got going yet. The side quests have been a good reason to explore and poke around and I’ve found myself getting a bit lost at times which is… unlike me. Those little red dudes you have to snap with your camera have been a fun thing to keep my eyes – and most importantly ears – out for.
Overall it feels like an adventure game without the puzzles, and reminds me of Beyond Good & Evil and Bernband but with the look of the original Deus Ex. We’ll see how the combat and the rest of it shakes out though. I’ve just got to Sender Station after 8-9 hours.
Errant Signal released a video retrospective for Anachronox today, in which he compares the game to Rodney Dangerfield; they both get no respect!
That was great, thanks for sharing. Despite its flaws and lack of closure I came to love Anachronox. It’s got a big heart and so much more personality and wit than most games I’ve played. Seriously impressive given that I only played it for the first time just over a year ago. Such a shame it wasn’t successful enough to be continued.
Anachronox is a super cheesy RPG like Superheroes of Hoboken.