Anode Heart

this game has a few problems that are entirely overshadowed by how good the gameplay is. this game doesn't limit you in terms of strength, the satisfaction of getting to be extremely strong is immensely palpable. there are even a few tactics one can use to nullify all incoming damage as a RESULT of attacking. only one of those tactics is often used by enemies (armor) and when that happens it DOES suck ass (endless loop of attacking and waiting for the other monster to recoil itself to death). overall though, the battling almost always feels satisfying outside of bosses. for bosses, i advise actually using the "info" button, which i never hit until post-credits and probably would have helped me strategize. the story isn't INCREDIBLE (stylish though), the battling isn't always balanced, there's a high chance you'll miss unlocking a major function because it isn't clear that that's what a mission leads to, all 10000 characters are very one-note and are only relevant for a short section of story/side mission, the list goes on. HOWEVER, i love this game. in spite of all of it's flaws, I beat the post-game joyfully, because the game makes the grind feel fun as hell. anyways, if you're a fan of the creature collecting/battling genre, i highly recommend this. theres a lot of little things to do outside of the main story beats, so even if the jankiness gets you down, there's something to take your mind off of it for a bit. great game.

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宝可梦设计不错，但是卡牌设计极差。可以说是纯粹的恶意，这个游戏是每回合固定抽2，然后打出宝可梦PK，也就是说如果你有抽牌或者抽牌多你就是占优势。于是乎，你本身卡组就没几张抽牌，对面AI有一堆抽牌抽2抽3，我想问你怎么打？你说AI总不可能一直能抽牌吧，那么更恶心的地方来了，制作人为了防止你轻松获胜，把PVP游戏的ELO，PVE的动态难度设计学到了，一旦你占优势，对面就疯狂抽牌，起码抽2，3张，这你怎么完。你好不容易占优势，开局铺场4能量宝可梦装备强攻，对面直接套个陷阱卡摧毁场上所有宝可梦，你直接烂完。这个时候你肯定想说那我不玩不就行了，聪明的你想到了，聪明的制作人肯定也想到了。卡牌游戏设计到一个隐藏宝可梦，对于完宝可梦的大多数人而言，收集宝可梦乃至集齐全部宝可梦的兴趣都不低，你不玩就别想全收集

"Anode Heart" is a great pixelated monster tamer RPG by a single dev/small team with interesting gameplay-mechanics, great world building, a good story and exceptional OST. Traverse the digital realms as an android protagonist, find friends and allies, get your roaming monsters tamed and unravel the bigger threat haunting the world and your background. There is a good amount of mechanics in tweaking and optimising your team, the rebooting of the monsters for example is interesting but sometimes a little cumbersome. The menu and UI can be a little fiddly, but this is just a minor complaint. Game progression feels quite nice, there is a lot to do and find while the game does not hold your hand (a plus in my opinion). Late game encounters can get a little steep in difficulty, but you never felt that you have to grind. Got the 100% monster-dex (with the help of a guide on the more obscure ones) and the normal ending in around 25 h, but my playthrough was quite slow. There is postgame-content and different challenge runs, so even more for you if you dig it. Definetly a recommendation for genre-fans who like it retro and from the heart!

Overall, I have mixed feelings (leaning positive) about it. The game has a lot of potentials gameplay-wise but because some basic mechanics end up holding it back not allowing it to shine as much as it could. The graphic is cute and music is good. I really enjoy the lore and the story, and I’m excited to play the sequel, assuming I’ll get to learn more about the world! So, even if the gameplay falls short at times, the story somewhat makes up for it. The tama designs are pretty fun generally. But here are some pros and cons of the gameplay. This game has a pretty interesting combat system. Even if the fights are 1-vs-1 at a time, the TP system allows you to pull off combo moves with a different tama on your main team because swapping tama cost only a certain amount of TP depending on their difference in speed. But while I can see some promising team combo, there are not so many of those. And the lack of online resources (e.g. guide, etc.) doesn’t help when you want to customize your tama team either (not necessarily the fault of the dev). The progression of the game starts to open up after the first 6 hours of the game where you have options to explore different biomes. The problem is the levels of the enemies don’t scale, so I recommend people looking up guide for it because you can end up over-leveling very easily. But you'd still have to deal with the difficulty curve problem because rebooting mechanic reset (and consequently devolve) your tama to level 1. This mechanic gives you more extra stats point to allocate to your tama, increase their experience gain, and increase their max level. But it makes your tama’s levels cycle over and over again, so you never quite settle on the “right” level for any specific biomes / dungeons / bosses. Now [b]the most important take away[/b] from me in this game. This game has so many mechanics that improve the complexity of the combats. Stackable status effects of all kinds like shield, recovery, poison, burn, freeze, daze, slow, etc. coupled with type interactions that create side effects depending on the type of your attack and enemy’s type make for a really wicked tama customization. BUT all that depth of the combats and team customization is [b]flattened by type weaknesses![/b] At a certain point you realize that this mechanic makes it so that your strongest strategy is to always have attacks of all types and constantly hit enemies with whatever they’re weak to. You will notice that whenever you fight against bosses that have type weaknesses and you have plenty of those types on your team, they become be a cake walk. In contrast, bosses that are exception to this rule end up being the challenge in this game, and those are what really let this game shine. This is just a one-off thing: I really dislike the final dungeon. The dungeon crawler format is quirky, and I see why considering that there has been other gimmicky areas in the game as well. but I feel like it doesn’t add anything other than making me annoyed that it takes so long to get through the dungeon for no reason because you’re pretty much forced into an encounter with a lot of monsters that don’t even give you enough exp. Then when you encounter the bosses, they are just different grades altogether. All in all, I had fun with the game and thoroughly enjoyed the story and lore around it. I’m just mildly disappointed not because it’s bad, but because it could’ve easily been my top favorite game and didn’t manage to be that. I am excited about the sequel regardless!

An interesting take on a Pokemon clone. More challenging, cute designs. Killer soundtrack.

as a fan of the older pixel-art style pokemon games (gens 4 and 5), anything to do with glitches and virtual worlds, monster catchers, and town builders, this game scratches an itch that i'm not sure anything else could really scratch. granted, i only have five hours in the game, but what i've experienced so far has been an absolute blast. i wish there was a more active community, there isn't even really much of a wiki, which is an absolute shame, and there's hardly any guides either. - the story so far is mysterious and compelling - the characters are all very unique and so far quite pleasant to talk to - the new mechanics introduced work very well and make you pause for just a moment before you act lest you give the opponent the opportunity to strike back harder - the locations are all absolutely gorgeous, very unique from one another and hard to get bored of the tama designs themselves are also very awesome and unique, i can't wait to catch and evolve every single one i find - there's a potential and a "rebirth" mechanic, which pretty much allow you to customize your tama how you want with stat points, and if you're absolutely garbage at assigning stat points like i am, there's an auto-assign (this also solves evolving into a split evolution you regret by just waiting to rebirth) - and although you don't get to customize your little town, recruiting people and watching it slowly expand and build up is still very satisfying to see - the pixel graphics are incredibly charming and cute, i'm a sucker for pixel graphics!! really, like other people say, if you love pokemon, if you love digimon, and if you love monster-catching games, you'll definitely love anode heart.