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In Anodyne, you explore and fight your way through nature, urban and abstract themed areas in the human Young's subconscious, evoked by a 16-bit-era visual style and a moody, dream-like soundtrack.
Created by Analgesic Productions - Melos Han-Tani and Marina Kittaka.
Japanese translation courtesy of Kakehashi Games
Watch the Trailer
Buy the Soundtrack
The soundtrack is available for purchase separately at Bandcamp. The price is pay-what-you-want, with a minimum of $5.00.
Critical Reception
"Melos and Marina have made magic with this game, creating a world that I could be afraid to enter but never want to leave…The locations are vibrant and detailed, going to all manner of different places…[the music] can take the visual mood and shift it into territory that pixel art shouldn't be able to inhabit…I know we're only in February, but this has Game of the Year written all over it."
Joel Couture, Mash Those Buttons
"The game's sound design is the strongest facilitator of Anodyne's sense of dread and unease; the ambience and music give off an air of suspicion and danger, with ugly chords and disquieting, unnatural-sounding synthetic pings. It all adds up to a game where you're not sure who to trust, and you can't be sure of what's real."
Sam Prell, Penny Arcade Report
"Yet saying that Anodyne is a simple Zelda knockoff would be a mistake for a number of reasons, the most glaring of which is the substitution of a save-the-princess story for bizarre psychopomps and solipsistic explorations of the human condition."
"Kittaka and Han Tani were certainly flying by the seat of their pants on large parts of Anodyne, but that's offset by the tremendous amount of care they've put into the game's atmosphere and overall design (fractured as it may be)."
"It makes up for the deficiencies of its narrative through the beautiful visuals you encounter as you trudge through everything from unsettling suburban neighborhoods to crumbling temples, and the poignant musical score surges with emotional power."
"It's dark then, but has a strange lightness of touch with it: the typical hero's questline and all-round pixellated cutesiness sugar-coat the bitter themes."
"More than just a Zelda-like, this is a true work of art from the hands of two passionate masters. Anodyne will make you travel to a vast world that abounds with small humorous touches…"
"The demo…shows some smart design and has a charming weirdness to it…It's cheering to find a game whose retro pants are as slick as the fashions that inspired them."
Adam Smith, Rock Paper Shotgun
"Scenic water stretches and skyward spangles decorate idyllic countryside villages and moody, rain-drizzled night scenes. This is another one of those games I've flicked through the screenshots as if it were a global travel book outlining places you should visit before you die."
"…an indie spiral into the fantasy dream world of protagonist Young. It's a top-down tribute of Zelda-esque dungeon derring-do with a 16-bit coat."