Anuchard is doing okay for a new indie game hitting the scene. It’s hard for a new IP, indie or AAA, to get their name out there. There are just too many games. The reviews across all launch platforms are a bit sparse. Still, of the reviews aggregated on Metacritic, the game is wavering around the seventies.
What’s wrong with this highly inspired top-down action RPG? Is there anything wrong with it at all or are the reviews out there not giving it a fair enough chance? It’s time to take a quick look at both sides of the argument to see if Anuchard is worth playing.
8 Loved: The Assist Options
It’s getting to be more and more common in games, but Anuchard ditches difficulty levels in favor of assist options. It’s more like one assist option, in fact. Players can decrease how much damage they take between 0%, 50%, or 100% at max; the latter effectively making the player invincible.
It’s too bad that the game doesn’t allow players to customize the damage the other way in case some find Anuchard to be too easy already. Minor gripes about the damage counter aside, what is here should be appreciated by those interested in focusing on the game’s story.
7 Didn’t Love: The Save System
The save system goes in the complete opposite direction of user-friendliness. Like the retro graphics imply, this is designed to be an old-school game with save points. However, there is only one save point in Anuchard and it is in the Elder’s House.
If this were right next to the dungeon, it would be fine. However, his place is on the opposite side of the map. This means that if players die and have to restart, it’ll take longer than necessary to get back into the dungeon. It’s a weird setup overall since there are no autosaves.
6 Loved: Short Digestible Dungeons
At the very least, dungeons in Anuchard are short. Depending on if players get stuck on a puzzle or not, they should be able to complete each one in around 15-20 minutes. That makes Anuchard extra perfect for the handheld that is the Switch.
This is good since there is no way to save in a dungeon. If players quit, then it is straight back to the save point in the village. That’s a good thing to know before starting the game.
5 Didn’t Love: No Map
One of the things that players might not be thrilled about with the dungeons is that they have no maps. Putting a map in an action game like Anuchard, whether it is a menu map or just a mini-map, is fairly common practice, yet that’s not the case here.
Thankfully, the dungeons aren’t that hard to navigate. There aren’t that many branching paths and it can be easy to tell what roads players have been down. For example, if there is a massacred area of pots on the ground then players surely went past there. Still, it’s hard not to dock Anuchard a few marks for lacking this somewhat obvious feature.
4 Loved: The Art Style
It was said earlier, but Anuchard is clearly going for that all too popular retro indie look. The game nails the art style well as a top-down action RPG. It plays like an older title in The Legend of Zelda series, but it looks more modern. That’s because the colors in Anuchard are dazzling.
The style of the characters looks a lot like some of the designs from Deltarune. For those not in the know, some fans of Anuchard may think the two games are related. It’s that close, almost like stained glass windows coming to life as people. The food deserves a special mention too, as it always looks delicious.
3 Didn’t Love: Dungeons Look The Same
Another problem with the dungeons in Anuchard is that they often look the same. The 16-bit+ style graphics are beautiful, but fail to make the dungeons any less monotonous. The Legend of Zelda series has common elements in its dungeons.
However, they couldn’t look more apart from one another. Ocarina of Time, for example, goes underwater, into a volcano, a giant tree, and so on. Granted, there is more variety later on in Anuchard, but many will see this as a case of too little, too late.
2 Loved: Rebuilding The Village
The whole concept of Anuchard revolves around the player becoming something of a legend, the Bellwielder. They are called that because they wield a literal bell (albeit elongated into a staff). This bell has the power to restore time to petrified people, which the town is littered with.
Every time players jump into a dungeon and rescue a citizen, something changes or opens up in the town like a new shop. There is even a skill tree-style system that can grant town upgrades, like roads and character buffs. It’s a small element of Anuchard, but a fun one.
1 Didn’t Love: Lots Of Talking
The absolute worst thing about Anuchard is that it is incredibly slow. That’s because the NPCs don’t know how to quit yapping. This is an old-school, top-down action RPG. Players kind of know what they should expect from a game like this, but that will make it no less annoying for most.
It should be gameplay first, story later. Unfortunately, it sometimes feels like the split in Anuchard is 70/30 in favor of text after text after text. It’s a bit much even though the story isn’t technically bad. It’s just very long-winded.
Anuchard was released on April 21, 2022, and is available on PC, Switch, and Xbox One.
