[Review] Anna’s Quest – Nintendo Switch
Developed By: Krams Design, Daedalic Entertainment Published By: Daedalic Entertainment Categories: Adventure, Puzzle Release Date: 06.30.21
Anna’s Quest immediately pulled me in once I saw who was involved with it. Daedalic Entertainment, the developers of the Deponia series, a more modern point and click series I’m quite the fan of. Once I played Anna’s Quest, I had one thing on my mind, it seems like a less crude and adult Deponia.
What does that even mean, really? Well, both are are more in the vein of old school point and clicks. What does that mean? You’ll have your character, free to move in a room, of which you’ll usually need to do a puzzle to leave or get an item for another instance. You examine, touch, or comment on your surroundings, or use whatever is in your inventory on them. Combine your items at times to get a new one you might need. Occasionally, it’s nonsensical or even just a little out of the box, which to many leads to frustration. If push comes to shove, just select everything with everything.
Anna’s Quest is the story about Anna. Anna lives with her grandfather in the woods and loves him very much. He’s ill however, and despite warnings to never go deep into forest, she does so in order to find a cure for her grandfather. Unfortunately, she’s kidnapped by an evil witch. The witch seems to have something in mind for Anna, experimenting on her, trying to get her to use some kind of special ability…This leads Anna on the journey the game has her going on, meeting a quite eccentric cast of good and bad folk, the first of which is a shy, taking teddy bear.
What somewhat sets Anna’s Quest apart is how the titular Anna can use telekinesis. I often forgot I had this ability, which led to me walking in circles for a minute until I got that “Oh yeah!” moment. If you’ve exhausted everything, try using your telekinesis, it’ll probably be the key.
Despite how kiddy it looks at times, I wouldn’t exactly call it a kids game. It’s definitely less “mature” or immature rather than the Deponia games, I’d closer call it a PG to Deponia’s hard PG-13. It’s the kind of game that feels like a kid can be shown darker or scarier themes or content, but not going overboard. Like something out of the nineties. I always appreciated when people working on these shows or films respected it’s audience enough to feel like a child shouldn’t just be treated like a small child, but as a person. Anna’s Quest feels like that.
The music in Anna’s Quest is amazing. Even in scenes and rooms where there’s very little going on, I was loving what I was hearing. It’s definitely stuff to listen to outside of the game. As a whole I liked the voice acting too, though Anna in particular sounded confused or a tad too soft spoken at times.
All of Daedalic’s games are lookers, and Anna’s Quest is no different, just now this time a little softer and brighter…for the most part. This can lead into how Anna’s Quest has a little bonus section full of art and the cutscenes you’ve watched, which I always like to see.
Any big issues that could be grabbed from Anna’s Quest are ones that plague the genre as a whole, such as just being lost at times and forced to use an item in a ridiculous way you’d never guess. Anna’s Quest isn’t *too* bad in this regard, but it can happen and especially when forgetting about using her powers. Besides this, Anna’s Quest is great and I’d definitely recommend it to fans of the genre, developer, or even people who might be new to the genre.
4/5
Buy Now: $19.99
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*Game Download Code graciously supplied for the purpose of review