I’ve covered a lot of weird games on this site by now, so instead of giving the breakdown of why you should play more weird games (again) I thought about just getting straight to the point. For the last few weeks I’ve been binging a couple of indie games sitting on my backlog, and part of it is due to the next big project I have in store. Most recent in that indie binging is an obscure story driven adventure that takes influence from 2D Legend of Zelda titles and games released during the original Playstation era. That game was Anodyne 2: Return To Dust and it was made by two individuals, Melos Hani-Tani and Marina Kittaka. The original Anodyne came out in 2013 and I know absolutely nothing about it besides that it was attempting to be like Zelda. Hani-Tani met Kittaka through one of their mutual friends, and together they dreamt of a game that would pay respect to the classics they grew up playing. They worked remotely and evenly spread the work between themselves. Kittaka was responsible for the game’s dialogue and art direction, and good old Hani-Tani was responsible for programming the game and composing the soundtrack. They released Anodyne onto Steam and iOS later in 2013, and reception for the game was pretty good. It wasn’t fantastic but it wasn’t terrible. A lot of critics saw it as a bog standard Zelda clone, and I partially blame how a new 2D Zelda was coming out later that year, A Link Between Worlds. It’s a shame the original Anodyne didn’t do well, but yet again most indie games don’t do well when they release. It was a diamond buried deep within the rough, but that didn’t stop the two from pursuing bigger and more ambitious projects.
Using the money they made off the first game as well as starting a Kickstarter campaign, the two developers got to work on Anodyne 2. They decided to carry over the 2D Zelda inspired aspects of the first game, but decided to introduce a fun twist that would separate Anodyne 2 from many of its contemporaries. The game would have a full on 3D sandbox to roam around in. A plethora of NPCs to interact with all of whom possessed different personalities and quirks. Players would access those 2D Zelda sections via these characters, and this would add an element of discovery. Find these characters, enter their minds, and rid them of their problems. Anodyne 2 would also be a story about suffering and defining oneself. You are helping these people with their troubles a bit like Psychonauts, but there was also your journey and how you slowly question all of the acts you are being put through. It was an ambitious sequel and took quite a bit of time for the duo to make. The game was revealed in 2018 and the full version came out one year later. Critic-wise the game did alright much like the first one. It wasn’t a bad game nor a good one, and plenty of players were confused with what Anodyne 2 was trying to be. Like I said earlier, “it’s a weird game” and lots of players nowadays can’t take in obscure forms of art for what they are. A lot of people don’t know about this game or what it is probably because they took a quick glance and brushed it off. I used to be one of the individuals until I gave Anodyne 2 a shot, and it’s a damn shame a lot of people are gonna get this impression because Anodyne 2 is actually really good. In fact it might be one of the best indie games I’ve played in awhile. It has interesting ideas and it’s been a bit since I played a game this creative. Sure it’s not going to be for everyone, but I’m into stuff like this so here's basically another love letter to an underrated gem. Today we’ll be talking about why I absolutely love Anodyne 2: Return To Dust and why it deserves your attention.
Story
We awaken to find ourselves freshly hatched. Lying on the grounds of what feels like a desolate shore. You are Nova, freshly birthed kin to become the next Nano Cleaner for The Center. That being a holy order which looks over the land. The Center protects all and maintains balance for the people. Without the Center there will be chaos, and surely enough chaos is looming over the shoulders of many. A mysterious plague has begun to ravage the people, Dust. It buries deep into their cells and begins to spread throughout their body. Those infected t don’t attack randomly, but will instead doubt themselves. They will grow weird desires and slowly become a shell of what they used to be. It’s hard to tell who is infected as it could possibly be people experiencing a bad dilemma. That’s why you were incubated. The Nano Cleaner has the power to shrink themselves down to a microscopic level and enter the stream of the infected. There they will fight against the Dust that corrupts them and remove the source. Freeing the infected and making them pure once again. The little Nano Cleaner we control is named Nova and she has a lot of responsibilities on her shoulders. She has two maternal guardians watching over her, Palisade and C Psalmist, and with their help she will rid the New Thealand of Dust. Cleanse the public, construct a device that will eliminate all Dust when finished, and exact a prophecy told dozens of years ago. You are the only one who can save the people, so make sure not to disappoint. There’s something else hiding deep beneath the surface. A unruly truth lies within it all....
Gameplay
Anodyne 2 is an even mixture between classic 2D Zelda and open worldish sandbox design. Your main goal is to find those individuals infected with Dust, shrink down to enter their systems, and collect cards to progress to the next area. Cards you collect must be deposited at The Center, and leftover Dust you suck up can be deposited into a tube. By the endgame you will need to deposit a total of three hundred and fifty dust, but the tube-like structure for which you deposit dust into has a small capacity at first. Hence why you have to locate those cards, and everytime you find four cards it expands the structure so it can hold up to fifty more points of dust. So you’ll wander into an area and have to drink around. The game isn’t gonna show you where the cards are being hidden away, and even though there’s a dolphin NPC that’ll give you hints they won’t always be the most descriptive. Explore, find Dust infected NPCs, and rid them. Once you do find an NPC infected with Dust you can spark them. This will initiate a short sequence you must pass to get into their systems. It’s kind of like a rhythm game where a flurry of projectiles will come your way and you have to press the right buttons to block them. Getting hit will send you further away from the target. Once you pass the test you can shrink down to microscopic size to clean them.
This is where you’ll enter the 2D Zelda inspired sections of the game. Navigate through a small yet complex dungeon, fight enemies, solve puzzles, and reach the clump of Dust lying at the end. Sucking the Dust will reward a card, but not every card will be lying at the end of these sections. Others will be hidden in chests and some will have to be found by exploring the 3D world. Each of the 2D sections have their own gimmicks and quirks, and you’ll need to work around them to get to where you need to go. This is where Anodyne 2 shines as it is always unique to offer with its level design. One dungeon you have to work with a drone that mimics your movement on the opposite side of the screen, and you’ll have to use this drone to activate switches you can’t reach. One dungeon has you shooting projectiles at these pink blobs, and these blobs will create small pathways to help you traverse across gaps. This is somewhat of a spoiler, but there’s one section that’s a full on quest. You traverse a massive world and solve various puzzles within it. You can then enter smaller 2D sections within this world and they are stylized after old school Atari titles. The dungeons are just really creative and will push your puzzle solving abilities.
Outside of that you just explore what’s available in the world. You may have to do a bit of 3D platforming, but you can transform into a car for some reason. Drive around the world at high speeds and there’s even a highway to help you quickly access each section of the world. Besides that there’s nothing else I can really talk about. Halfway through the game you unlock the Metacoin system which scatters a bunch of floating coins throughout the world. Collecting these will allow you to buy bonus content and rooms showcasing the work of the developers. Otherwise, Anodyne 2 is pretty simple. It has a straightforward gameplay loop, but it executes it really well. Let’s hope you can purge the Dust and bring upon a new age for New Thealand.
Thoughts
Anodyne 2: Return To Dust is a game that managed to take me by surprise. It’s weird in a lot of ways, but comes back around to being lovable and having a powerful message to say. I will say the best way to experience this game is going in blind, because the narrative goes down a lot of interesting directions. Trying to write this review without spoiling what makes the plot work is a bit hard, but I’ll try my best not to. Anodyne 2 is ultimately a game about fate and expectations. The protagonist, Nova, is constantly doubting herself and always wondering if she is pleasing the ones who look after her. Afraid to go outside the norms of The Center and define herself through her actions rather than what people tell her. The maternal guardians try to do the best they can to shelter her from the world and send her down the right path, but that isn’t enough. There’s even a section in the game where Nova stops doing what The Center tells her to do and instead does a list of things that make her happy. She learns to eat, entertain people, tend the fields, and for once say what is in her mind. Again, no spoilers, but one bit I found interesting is when you open up the data menu the bottom right hand corner gives you a message along the lines of, “What are you doing? You are not supposed to be doing this.” You are technically doing what is needed to progress the narrative, but on this occasion you are basically defying the game. You go against the video gamey objective most games would give you, and instead do what the character wants. You are your own being. Nova is her own being. This whole game is about breaking the system and learning to live free. Break the game and you will be set free.
Now there’s plenty of other reasons why Anodyne 2 is amazing. I personally love the 3D spaces for which you roam around in, and the graphics inspired by the era of the original Playstation and older PC games. A lot of developers are trying to mimic that style nowadays. Signalis and Dusk being great examples, but compared to those games Anodyne 2 is really pretty. Some of the areas have a variety of colors on display and vistats they’ve crafted will have you just standing there. Wondering how they could make such a gorgeous scene with just polygons. The music is good too as it gives you these calm and soothing tracks. Letting you soak in the world and atmosphere of the game. I like wandering around the world as Nova feels great to control. She functions a bit similar to old school 3D platformers, and there are a couple of cards that will require precision. The open world is easy to navigate and at least it’s bloated with things. Figuring out where you have to go next is easy as oftentimes the NPCs you have to talk to are different from everybody else. You might have to talk to this giant mother worm, a round stone creature digging into the earth, and much more. It’s that nice balance of weird and “I think I can comprehend what this is but not really,” and I love it. Being able to transform into a car is weird, but it’s nice and controls are easy to use. It makes navigating the world easier and helps us avoid inconveniences.
As I stated earlier, the many 2D sections are expertly crafted and every single dungeon focuses on a cool gimmick or mechanic. I forgot to mention how Nova uses a vacuum to fight instead of something more conventional like a sword or gun, but this allowed the developers to get creative. Experiment with the different ways Nova could use her gun and what would happen if she then sucked or shot out certain objects. It’s similar to how platformers like Shovel Knight or Celeste have simple controls, but overtime challenge and complexity ramps up as the game introduces new mechanics to toy around with. They do it here and I love it. The metacoins and unlocks can honestly be ignored, but I appreciate how the devs added rooms showcasing all the models and tests they did while developing Anodyne 2. Showing the process and what they eventually came to. I also appreciate how you don’t have to collect every metacoin to get the platinum trophy on Playstation. Not many people bought this game, but the percentage of those who obtained the platinum is high. I got it and it was really fun as more than half the trophies are just basically progressing through the main plot. Finally, tidbit is that you can play Anodyne 2 using an analog stick or the d-pad, which is neat as most classic Playstation games like Resident Evil are played using the d-pad despite some titles being designed around the 360 axis. Helps add authenticity to a game trying to pay respect to that era. Love it! Love, love, love it all to death!
Now I do have a few complaints, but nothing to really drag this game down. The two dungeons that have you navigate these open maps threw me off at first, because it felt like a departure from what the game had been showing me up until that point. I sparked a person thinking I would get transported instantly to the dungeon, and instead got thrown into the small hubworld called the Nexus. There were a bunch of gateways empty, and overtime they turned into warp points. It’s a simple place to help cut down backtracking between the areas, but it felt a bit overwhelming. Not too bad though as I shortly figured out what to do. The game performs amazingly, but the engine the game runs on isn’t the best. Sometimes you angle or jolt the camera in specific ways and then all of a sudden it clips through a wall and the whole entire map disappears. I can forgive the devs as at least Nova didn’t glitch through the world, and even if she does fall out of bounds she will then respawn shortly onto standable ground. However, it just feels at odds with how polished the rest of this game is. Final complaint is that there’s no reason to revisit Anodyne 2 once you beat it. However, that can be said about a lot of games and some of my favorites are games that lack replay value. Overall, Anodyne 2 is a strong recommendation in my book. It’s obscure and gonna be weird to a lot of people, but give it a go and you’ll fall in love with what it has to offer. In the end I am going to have to give Anodyne 2: Return To Dust a 9.5/10 for excellence at best.
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