Is Anthem Good?
No. While I wanted it to be good because I love Bioware, Anthem was a load of Donkey Mess. But I still hope that one day Bioware hires me as a Staff Writer. In an Open World, Cooperative, Iron Man-like RPG, success was the only option. Created by a successful major studio with a big budget, I bought anthem on sale for $10. Now I’m sure it wasn’t even $10 worth of fun. I’d have been better off ordering a McNuggets Combo- Large, with two cheeseburgers and a Coke, barbecue sauce, and hot mustard. Anthem is a waste of your $10 and if you paid full price, I’m so sorry.
What does Anthem do well?
Conceptually, Anthem is one of my favorite games. It was birthed by Bioware, the studio that brought us two of my absolute series, Knights of the Old Republic, and Mass Effect. With four classes to choose from, and different loadouts to customize your Javelin (mechanized flying exoskeletons), Anthem seemed poised and ready to strike success. With the surprisingly awesome Character Customization and Graphics aside, Anthem starts dying quickly after concept.
What does it do poorly?
Even with the ability to fly nonstop, in a fully rendered cooperative 3D flying environment, Anthem isn’t fun. It feels like most fights and base instances are on the ground. Flight is only used to get from one uninspired base to another. There are few if any sky-fights and nothing remotely feels like a dogfight. Nine out of ten times, flight is only used to get to secret collectible locations that seemingly do nothing for your build.
Your load-outs take place of the traditional RPG elements such as a skill tree or actually pumping points into a physical stat page. The load-outs are effectively your skills, weapons, and level. The higher level your loadout, the higher your power level is. It is a lot like Destiny’s light system, except worse.
Hands down the worst part about Anthem is the town instances.
The Town Hub in Anthem is awful. It is absolutely one of the worst gaming experiences I’ve ever had the misfortune of sitting through in my life. The entire control scheme of the game changes, and now that your character is out of their Javelin, you finally learn just how slow and boring they really are while walking around town.
The Dialogue is long and boring. The story is forgettable or mostly irrelevant. None of the characters in town were memorable, except the one voiced by Kristen Schaal, but that has everything to do with her voice, and nothing to do with the writing. I felt punished every time I had to walk around the sluggish uninspiring town.
In KOTOR and Mass Effect my decisions mattered, my relationships mattered, and I still fondly remember characters from ten plus years ago – Jester and Malak, Revan, Taliyah, Grunt Rex. I still remember races and lore- the Anari, the Reapers, the Taurian and Krogan. I just don’t know how to nicely say Anthem sucked, I won’t remember any characters, I won’t remember any lore. I’ll only remember how bad this project whiffed, and the awful town instance and uninspired characters that came along with it.
Should you buy it?
NOPE!
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