Anima: Gate of Memories Review
Anima: Gate of Memories is an action adventure style role playing game where you play in the third person and hack and slash your way through enemies and bosses while you claim precious upgrade points that will go towards levelling up your character. The game is played in a semi open world environment which will send you out into the vast outdoors where the world is lush and vibrant with colourful greens and blues, and also send you through dark musty hallways that I could almost smell. The gameplay is heavily based on hack and slash combat but exploration is also key to getting through this game.
First of all the graphical style is reminiscent of Japanese anime styling with a different feel to the environments. It's almost like the characters from an anime game have been placed into the world of the likes of Dark Souls or DarkSiders II. The characters are built in 3D for the full 3D environment and world. I could also draw similarities in the art style to Gravity Rush on the Playstation 4 and Vita. Animations go well within the universe and the characters and special effects look pleasing when mashed up in the heat of battle. All of this just amazes me when I realise that this game was created by a team of only three.

If I have written all of that well enough, you might be able to see that even though the basis for the story is as farfetched as these types of games go, it's pretty easy to understand and really sparks my interest. Most games of this genre lose me in heavy lore that even the most seasoned Dungeons and Dragons players would have a hard time following. This one just makes sense I guess. It's not a bad starting point to have such a powerful and genuine basis for a video game.
The controls for the game are not the best that I have experienced from big name games, but they're definitely not terrible. The controls for the most part are very intuitive and follow the usual layout for video games of this genre. There is a lock on feature which will allow you to lock onto an enemy to assist with the camera movements, however when there are several enemies on screen it's not very user friendly to switch over to the others without having to disengage the lock on and then re-engage it again while aiming at a different enemy. Even though I felt it necessary to mention here, it's not something spoiled any part of my experience. It was simply something that I needed to overcome to move on. The game does allow you to quick swap from enemy to enemy, but I did find that to be a little tricky to execute on some occasions.

Anima isn't an easy game by anyone's measure. Previously I made mention of some similarities between this game and Dark Souls. The boss fights and ultimate difficulty also resemble the Souls games which means you're up for a struggle in some parts of the game. The best part about it all is that the more and more you play (and die) you will learn new tactics and tricks that you can use to your advantage to overthrow the enemy.
Anima Gates of Memories is a solid video game experience that appears to have been motivated by a lot of very top notch games that are already out there. If you're anything like me, you are very likely going to enjoy the game with respect to quite a few rage sessions along the way. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Anima and I won't hesitate on recommending it to fans of the games and I have previously mentioned in this review.

Positives:
- Strong lore and story lines
- Interesting characters with witty humour
- Enjoyable solid gameplay mechanics
Negatives:
- Weak lock on enemy system
- Can't control menus using D-pad
- Skill tree map hard to navigate effectively
SCORE: 8.5 out of 10
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC/Steam
Genre: Action, Adventure, RPG (Single Player)
Initial Release: 3rd of June 2016
Developer: Carlos B. GarcĂa and Badland Indie
Publishers: Badland Indie
Lucas Aurelius
Aussie Gamers Express
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC/Steam
Genre: Action, Adventure, RPG (Single Player)
Initial Release: 3rd of June 2016
Developer: Carlos B. GarcĂa and Badland Indie
Publishers: Badland Indie
Lucas Aurelius
Aussie Gamers Express