REVIEW – Despite Anamorphine not being an outstanding product, I think it still managed to achieve one thing: it was capable of going off the usual trends and go into a subject that caught the attention, thus earning the chance to stick in our heads for some time despite the game having a „way too artistic” approach in its design…

The game doesn’t get too talkative with words. Instead, it uses emotions and their expressions. Talking is close to zero – it won’t help you understand what happens (or HAPPENED). I think the last time I saw something similar was roughly a year ago with Ovosonico’s The Last Day of June, although that game had more GAMEPLAY than in Artifact 5‘s Anamorphine. (Which is why that game a higher score.)

Brain

Anamorphine tends to have some extremely random transitions between the scenes. For some players, it might make them think about uninstalling the game altogether, and for others, it might be disturbing. Don’t let it be an annoyance, though: in the game, a photographer, Tyler, and his wife, Elena’s story come alive in style modelled after the human memories. Elena, a cellist, suffers in an accident, and it makes Anamorphine revolve around it for nearly two-thirds of the game. It might be a spoiler, but for me, I needed roughly 90 minutes to play through (?) the adventure, and the accident happens at thirty minutes or so.

Anamorphine goes off the usual path by its characters both suffering from mental illnesses. Elena falls into depression, as she won’t be able to play to the faceless characters (or more like mannequins, which sometimes don’t even have CLOTHES on – perhaps the developers cut a corner here by not making textures for them), and Tyler has post-traumatic denial.

The story, which I think is heartwrenching, has two different endings, which is why I recommend playing the game through twice. In one of them, we won’t be able to bring back our wife from the hopelessness, and we also follow suit by falling below with grim visuals. The other ending has just as upbeat colours as they were at the beginning of Anamorphine. However, the endings are quite abrupt, and you will only notice them when you are suddenly thrown into the credits… Take note of Elena’s hair’s colour, as it expresses how she feels: if she’s happy, the colours will show that. The white colour is going to be a returning motive throughout the story, though.

…

There is an explanation behind the most demotivated lead ever. Anamorphine falls flat of getting a seven out of ten because of its technical issues. Yes, the game is short, but it is GOOD, and it could have received 7. The problem is, the game’s loading screen will be seen A LOT. I’m not joking: one loading could take as much as NINETY SECONDS, and Anamorphine pulled it off despite being delayed by half a year to fix bugs on the PlayStation 4! And it’s not even much better on a PlayStation 4 Pro, which loading times still above a minute.

Then, let’s add the switching between the memories: you will see how the visuals get bad, and the frame rate will also provide some drops. I haven’t seen such a technical farce in quite a long time. (Oh, and I’d also like to bring up that you will only have to use the analogue sticks in Anamorphine. It’s not a negative, but it makes me close to say the game is more like a movie…) At least the audio is above average, which was necessary (you’ll have to rely on sound effects, remember!) because otherwise, Artifact 5‘s game could have been one of the major flops in gaming in 2018!

Exit

The game costs 20 dollars. I don’t think it’s worth that much in its CURRENT FORM. Sure, it will get a PlayStation VR version later this year, but I still have one lingering question: how will Anamorphine affect those who are suffering from depression? The execution might not be the best, even though the subject deserves attention. Thus, I am giving this game a six out of ten: it’s a short but unique adventure. Despite its flaws, Artifact 5 created something surprising after a delay, and it could have been better. Experience it once, but I’m pretty sure Sony will throw it at us in PlayStation Plus. Maybe I recommend watching a YouTube video for roughly ten minutes, and then you can vote with your wallet. Well, I ran out of mineral water, and I wrote enough characters, so performance end.

-V-

Publisher: Artifact 5

Developer: Artifact 5

Genre: mental illness

Relase date: July 31, 2018