Anima: Gate of Memories

I realy love the story and the variety of endings. But some jump sections are way to hard.

It is a bit difficult to review the game. However after I beat it and slept well I decided to give it a thumbs up.

Most of the negative reviews are correct! The game has problems. Subpar voice acting, lifeless models with little face variations and no animation during cutscenes is not what I’d say is a concern. It is a small studio and this is probably their first game in this genre.
The problem lies in the gameplay and its janky nature. One boss was buggy (stood still and did nothing till I beat him down to 20%). One other time, I jumped from a ledge to a solid ground. The character refused to land and got stuck in falling animation just above the ground. I had to restart from last savepoint.

The difficulty can be unforgiving but on easy, as I played, felt just about right for a character action game like Devil May Cry or God Of War (The Greek ones). I died the most against the secret/bonus boss. The 3 last bosses (Bonus and the 2 bosses of the True Ending) is where I noticed a big difficulty spike that forced me to actually use items beyond the healing ones and to change equipment a bit.

I like how you can customize skill builds for the 2 characters to make them different. However I felt shoehorned into turning the Bearer into a keep away mage, because her dodges felt more reliable. Also during combat you can combo between the 2 characters to produce impressive chains. But I rarely did so given how I focused the Bearer for magical ranged and Ergo for Close Combat.
There are a plenty of items to get, but it feels a waste to give them a short epic lore and names like Durandal, just for them to be a stat change + some passive bonus.

On the upside the story is good and the characters are likable. Ergo often jokes with the woman and their relationship is well presented, considering the cutscene quality. There are multiple endings.
Overall its a decent game that falls short. That being said It was enough to hook me and I will definitely try The Nameless Chronicles and Song From the Abyss.

Wish there was a middle recommendation. Too much frustration to say yes, but not really bad enough to say no. I put yes just to help devs out.

I enjoyed the gameplay and scenery of the game

𝕊𝕒𝕪 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕨𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕒𝕓𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕘𝕒𝕞𝕖; 𝕚𝕥'𝕤 𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕥𝕥𝕪 𝕘𝕠𝕠𝕕 𝕥𝕠 𝕞𝕖!

Anima: Gate of Memories is a game that's part of a huge universe akin to Warhammer, called Anima, that also spawned a very peculiar card game if you didn't know. Is the game that good?? Well...

The graphics are very Anime-like, but really bad if you look at it from a certain angle, the gameplay mechanics are also not up to par with other third person platformer RPG hybrids... However, the game in itself has got such a good vibe that you'll end up looking past the flaws and enjoying it.

The game takes place in Arcane, you play as the nameless bearer of calamities, a girl who's lost all her memories, accompanied by a demon that manifests himself everytime she opens the Ergo book. The bearer of Calimities, aptly named, is an agent that's deployed by the Church of Abel to take care of very precarious situations in this universe... This time it's a palace that eminates great power, a place called Arcane. When the bearer arrives, she understands right off the bat that Arcane is a multiverse place, that extends beyond the reach of time and space... She also finds out that many top figures of the world, such as the head bishop of the church, Romeo Exxet, and a nameless figure, are in position there trying to forward their own plan for this calamity. The Bearer of Calamities will slowly but surely recover her memories as she fights through the hordes of demons and messengers inside the Arcane.

The game is pretty straightforward from here on out. It kind of almost reminds me of a game I played ages ago called blade of time... Except the bearer has a thicker booty, I mean, she wears better clothes lol. The bearer and the Demon both have their own skilltrees, own healthbar and you can swap between them with the right-click of your mouse. The bearer's magic spells arsenal is much better than her combat skills, and the demon's the opposite, so here you're tasked to make a perfect balance between the two as some enemies take more damage from spells and others take more damage from direct combat.

Another aspect of the game that I loved were the different endings with different specific actions to perform to get them. There's literally a joke ending in NG+ where you basically destroy the last boss in the first few minutes of the game and leave all characters inside of Arcane awed haha... Like, nobody expects you to destroy a hellish creature come to erradicate humanity in the first minutes of the game?

All in all, Anima: Gate of Memories is a 7/10 game with mediocre graphics, mediocre voice-acting BUT a lot of lore and a lot of cryptic things to uncover during exploration! I highly recommend using a guide for this one... Some things you'll just never find out without a guide.

Game is fun reminded me of tim burton nightmare before christmas oogie revenge just cos of bearer dodge XD

if you have a itch to play a ps2 style game with voice acting and dialogue from those times as well this is a good game to pick up

even though dialogue can be cringey it can make you laugh sometimes too which is great

looking forward to next game