Developer: Artifact 5 Inc.
PS4 Review
Platforms: PS4 (PSVR TBA), Microsoft Windows
*Disclaimer: I was sent the code for this game in return for a review, all opinions are mine and mine alone.
I just want to put a disclaimer at the start of this and explain a few things about the game before I get properly into the review, a lot of games have issue when they are released, issues that are usually fixed as soon as the developers can sort them but in order to patch Anamorphine the developers had to wait for the approval from Sony, I was able to get halfway through this game without any bugs such as the main one that took a few days for them to get fixed, they kept me updated and listened when I reported the issue. Now on to my review, Anamorphine isn't a typical video game, although you must explore and find fragments the game is more of a visual story, the game is designed to make you look around and take in the surroundings from the view of the character Tyler who moves into a new apartment with his partner Elena.
A lot of the game is based on Tyler's memories within the time of living with Elena and how their relationship pans out, the game isn't for the faint hearted though as some events that take place are devastating but also very thought-provoking. The story starts off as the couple moving their things in and slowly unravels to reveal that not everything is as it seems and bad things can happen behind closed doors. These doors I'm speaking about are actual memory levels in the game which you unlock and play through to find out more about the mental state of Elena and how she became depressed.
Your main task is to look around and trigger memories in order to go through portals which lead to more memories, in the portals things are often muddled up which I guess represents tylers emotions being all over the place but they also represent how Elena is coping after her accident which leads her down a dangerous road and unable to do what she loves most, play Chello. Tyler replays moments in his head to try and see what he missed which is devastating in a way it almost feels like he could have stopped or even helped with her depression more but in reality, it's not as simple as that.
The music allows you to step into Tyler's shoes and feel the emotions he could possibly be feeling and sets each scene wonderfully, my main issue with the game was how slow it was at times and it would stagger quite a bit but it didn't make the game unplayable it just meant the game took that little bit longer to get through. The game is so simple to follow and only when you get to the end are you given two choices to choose from for different endings which you can get trophies for, I think if I had played this on VR I would find the motion sickness too much as I suffer terribly with it when I use the VR and this game involves a lot of looking around.
Anamorphine makes your sole focus Elena, all the other characters are greyed out and she is the one who stands out in Tyler's memory the most, each memory he has led to the moment he is trying to deal with on his own and each object in the game is there for a reason it has a place, some of them you will have to go up to and trigger which lead to you getting a trophy called The Collector which I still have to go back through the game in order to get. Some of the objects which you trigger will often merge into one and open a portal which will take you into another part of the game to explore, a lot of the time you will be able to hear Elena's Chello which is haunting at times.
Memories which Tyler plays out in his head often turn into pictures which are displayed in each of the rooms where his memories of Elena and their lives are, store away for him to pop in and look at whenever he wanted, you could come out of these rooms and walk out onto a balcony where you would find a silhouette of an object, when getting closer it turns into a portal taking you to the next part of the game. One thing I did find weird was that when I looked in the mirror as Tyler he had no reflection but it could be to do with him focusing more on Elena in his memories than himself at that point. Although the game tackles a very heavy subject I think it's one of those games that everyone should play in order to see depression from another point of view and how it can truly affect someone's life, not just the person who is suffering from it but the guilt that loved ones have for not noticing fast enough. I know a lot of people who are left with these feelings, they don't blame the one who is suffering but tend to live with the guilt of it all, so I definitely think this game represents both sides of the story and how someone may deal with the aftermath of it all.
The game comes with a trigger warning so if you're unable to a video game with sensitive topics such as this I advise you not to play Anamorphine, one scene, in particular, may be too triggering. Anamorphine as a whole has an interesting take on mental health but I found it hard to want to carry on playing at times due to how long the loading times were, I would play a little bit of a scene and then have to wait for ages just for the loading screen to end which was frustrating at times, the game overall took just over 2 hours for me to finish but that includes going back and playing through the bad ending. I've chosen to give this game 3 different ratings, gameplay, story and overall rating, I chose to do it this way due to the fact that it's not fair to just focus on the loading times when the mechanics and story worked really well together:
Gameplay:
Story:
Overall Rating:
Elle May
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