It’s always weird to me when games that aren’t even a decade old get remasters, but this one has a bit of a special reasoning behind it. The original Anima games were released in 2016 and 2018 by a different publisher that ended up shutting down, leaving the devs at the Anima Project (who are also responsible for a TTRPG set in the same universe) without a way to get proper compensation. Therefore, they decided to remaster both games themselves to try and make back some of that lost revenue. The original games have some jank and odd design choices, so is Anima Gate of Memories: I & II Remastered worth it or not?
The majority of the focus here is on improving two aspects, visuals and gameplay. The games have gotten lots of new textures and visual effects, making for a nicer-looking experience. Anima Gate of Memories: I & II Remastered doesn’t necessarily look great by any means, but it’s visually appealing enough. Granted, these games don’t really look modern, but that’s not a problem for indie games that are doing their best to resemble the age of grimdark Japanese action RPGs. I have to say, though, that the games absolutely nail that aesthetic, which is neat for me as a fan of Yoko Taro’s work.
Gameplay-wise, things have also been improved, and it’s harder to get stunlocked. Various aspects of the game have been rebalanced, making for more responsive, less annoying gameplay. That being said, there are still some large annoyances on display. The first game here has you swap between two characters; a young woman who has made a pact with a being trapped in a book, and the being in the book himself. They mostly play very similarly, although they do have their differences. The woman dodges faster but only has a three-hit default combo. The man dodges slower and has a four-hit combo. They learn abilities via a skill tree, and many of these have their own version with each character, while they also have unique ones.
You need to make use of both physical actions and magic, which both have their own meters that recharge automatically. They’re also useful against enemies of certain alignments, but the game doesn’t always remember to have this around. It’s a mostly good game, but the voice acting is bad and the characters aren’t likeable (the man, Ergo, constantly calls the woman “baby” and “babe” and occasionally sexually harasses her, which is all exactly as unpleasant and questionable as it sounds.) There is a lot of lore here, although much of it is fairly generic.
Even though I do like playing Anima Gate of Memories: I & II Remastered for the most part, it has some poor individual sections. There’s precision platforming despite the fact that the platforming itself is subpar, and there’s one section of the first game that I really hated in particular. It has this annoying 2D section where you’re sneaking past an enemy who one-shots you if he sees you. Then you fight him as a boss, which is just dreadful, as he can invert your controls, make your game upside down, and spams you with stupid amounts of projectiles that are incredibly hard to deal with.
When you’re up against lots of projectile enemies in Anima Gate of Memories: I & II Remastered, you’re mostly going to have a bad time. In the original releases, it was too easy to get stunlocked to death by these, but here you can dodge out of them. Granted, enemies that shoot strong projectiles rapidly can still functionally stunlock you to death anyway if they shoot faster than you can dodge. This goes double if they’re in close quarters and there isn’t room to manoeuvre. Although the games are improved, they’ve still got a lot of issues that could have been worked on.
I do really like how they’re not handholdy, though. You’re dropped into the world, and then you mostly just explore. It’s pretty easy to find the way forward, as the areas are well-designed and the way the game progresses is novel. What’s weird is that characters can equip two weapons that they don’t actually use, so weapons mostly just function like accessories, which is bizarre. The second game isn’t really as much of a sequel as it is an expansion that has you play as one of the main game’s bosses, so billing this as “Anima I & II” is more than a little misleading.
Anima Gate of Memories: I & II Remastered is a good deal considering how much content is on offer for the £20.99/$24.99 price tag, plus these games are kind of slept on as long as you can ignore the awful behaviour of the first game’s male lead. They’ve got solid exploration and generally interesting spectacle fighter-influenced gameplay that gives you a good amount of options, so I do think this is overall worth it as long as you don’t mind some jank and poor design decisions.
Fancy switching gears?
