Recent reviews by Pathetic

Forced account sign up bad. I can do it but a lot of people cant. Lies around why its occuring

EDIT: Despite some newer reviews saying they fixed the PS issue, they are wrong. The game is still banned in 180 countries, Playstation havent walked back anything.

Wanted to wait until the first few bug fix patches before leaving a review. There were a couple of odd visual glitches but these have been fixed.

Anode Heart is a surprisingly in depth and interesting take on the creature collector/battling genre, taking some familiar cues from other large series and implemented in a unique battle system that adds a bit more strategy to a tried and true turn based system.

Ive seen a lot of comparisons to older digimon games, which I cant comment on, as I never played those earlier games, but so far its a charming game with very lovely looking world to explore and a fun and interesting battle mechanic.

If youre looking for a creature battler then I would absolutely recommend giving this one a go.

The easiest comparison I can make in terms of gameplay is a turn based version of Zero Sievert. The game mostly gives a good balance of harsh difficulty, dangerous enemies, while providing you the tools to win the engagements you find yourself in. The music is great at making you feel more like as a expendable lethal clone rather than someone in a scary engagement zone full of cryptids. The guns sound great, and finding new armor within the level feels very rewarding and having to manage your inventory between ammo, food and health items is done well, ive seen a few complaints about the hunger system, but in this release, it feels very fair, you'll only starve if you abuse your class' hunger draining abilities often.

Roguelike features include a blueprint system, allowing you to bring back new weapons and armor, and providing an increasing risk vs reward for your current run alongside infinite dispensible clones. I currently dislike the clone variation being very one tone (some are tougher, some have better accuracy), having a more specialised clone being found would change up the gameplay a bit compared to checking stats, seeing they have less health, pain threshold and hunger meter and keeping them on standby forever.

I would say currently theres far less of a focus on crafting and progression (likely due to being a prologue meant to ease you into the game).

Overall its a great demo, and im excited for the full release. It really scratches the itch formed by other looter shooters and provides its own relatively unique experience. Just expect to walk up to a mysteriously open door atleast once and get your head turned to red mist by a PMC with a burst shotgun.

PS: As of the time of this review; obtaining a single rifle blueprint allows you to grab a rifle, unload the ammo, drop it out of your inventory and repeat. Allowing you to carry hundreds of rounds alongside your weapon into the missions available, which is especially fun with the heavy machine gun and gatling gun.

The Good:

Great atmosphere, some great voice lines from player characters. Weapon design, especially sound design, is near perfect. Lasguns sound like lasguns, Bolters sound like bolters. Its something other 40k games struggle with a lot.

The Bad:

The game is not complete. This has no right being sold as a full experience, when half of the progression options are "coming soon", while the predatory microtransaction store (for A FULL PRICED GAME!!!!) is up and running.

Buy in a few months to a year, when this will be on steep discount and QoL patches and new content will make this a complete experience.

Solid game with a great story and relatively satisfying combat.

Can get a bit repetitive near the end but for its current price its an absolute steal for the high quality content you get.