Anodyne (Highly Recommended)

Title: Anodyne

Genre: A retro, Zelda-esque action-adventure game

Completion Time: My logged playing time was 6 hours and 25 minutes. Someone more coordinated than me might finish more quickly.

Anodyne is, for the most part, a dark, surreal, and cryptic imitation of old Zelda games like Link to the Past or the Game Boy ones. Add in its Earthbound-like diversity of quirky worlds and characters, and Anodyne was pretty much everything I could want in a game concept. Your mileage may vary.

Interesting:

Like I said, Anodyne is very firmly based in old Zelda games. However, instead of a sword the main character is armed with a broom, opening up a whole array of dust-related puzzles. (Not a phrase I ever expected to write.) There are also a lot of puzzles that involve exploiting the behavior of enemies. An old concept, but with some compelling twists. 3/5

Fun:

For starters, I will tell you this: you are going to fall in pits and die. A lot. Jumping is always finicky in these kinds of games, and plugging in a gamepad bumped up the fun level at least two points, and even then there were some rooms where I was ready to pitch a fit. That said, the gameplay is otherwise excellent. Puzzles are logical and varied, and combat is at a nice level of challenge. The world is sprawling and involves a ton of exploring, but a good map and teleportation system means that the spatially challenged (e.g., me) can wander about the beautiful maps without fear.  5/5

Moving:

What this game lacks in coherence it well makes up for in atmosphere. This is clearly a very personal game for the writers, but not in a way that tells you anything concrete for them, so I think your reaction to the game depends on whether their personal mythology resonates with you. In a world so packed with detail, though, I had no problem finding plenty of things that pulled on something deep in me. If any of you play this, I will be very curious what you think. 4/5

A bizarre, beautiful, and compelling game in the body of a much more commonplace one. This game will stay with me for a long time.