Elections are a messy ordeal, but in Anomaly President, campaigning is more than just persuading the masses — sometimes, you have to take matters into your own hands.
The game opens with a political rivalry that feels oddly reminiscent of real-world affairs. President Raxford is running a smear campaign against a group of beings known as Fluffies, while presidential candidate Mister Sev and his son Venty find themselves caught in the middle of the growing chaos. Things take a turn when Sev is kidnapped and Venty sets off in pursuit, kicking off a campaign that is far more action-packed than any presidential race should be.
President gone rogue
If you’re familiar with games like Dead Cells or Skul: The Hero Slayer, you’ll recognize Anomaly President’s gameplay loop. For the uninitiated, though, Anomaly President is an action roguelike game with hints of resource management tied together by minigames. That means it’s the kind of game that grants more abilities and upgrades the more you start a new run, since you die and start over.
Anomaly President’s difficulty is tied directly to the skill level of the player as well as the upgrades they have at the time of the run, but it does get better the more you play. Early on, damage is on the weaker side, with your options being limited, but as you progress, the weapon and ability variety improves. Apart from your standard fare weapons and generic movement abilities, though inclusive of a dodge roll and parry, you also get an Anomaly, which could be likened to a spell or ability in other games. Utilizing all of these, you wither down enemy health bars or stagger them to go for the execution or kill.
So fluffy you could die
What really sets the game apart, though, aside from serving as a vehicle for the story, is the presence of the fluffies. Fluffies aren’t just some random mascot character serving as the damsel in distress but full-on augments to your abilities. Attacking, dodging, using anomalies and taking advantage of the elements, combat may be on the repetitive side, but creating builds off of the game’s mechanics was one of its highlights with each run. While there are set cooldowns, once a fluffy’s ability has been used, there are augments later on in a run which double each instance and even lower cooldowns.
It does get repetitive from time to time, but Anomaly President does something that makes each run worth it. While roguelikes incentivize you to do more runs to get stronger, in the case of Anomaly President, you get more world-building and a surprisingly deep story.
More than just politics
Traditionally, roguelikes focus heavily on the gameplay rather than the plot, but Anomaly President had these subtle hints to what had been happening. As citizens were being brainwashed, families would get torn apart with every run; early on, you get a storyline of a father looking for his son. You get glimpses of what happens to the pair as you go through more runs and while it may not have had a happy ending, it’s still quirky enough to warrant tanking a run or two.
It’s not a repetitive story either, with multiple runs being needed to get the full picture, but if the rest of the game was like this, I’d say the writers should cook more.
It’s a campaign home, not a car
Serving as the central hub for your game’s upgrades, the campaign bus is a fun little hub reminiscent of games like Fallout Shelter. Basebuilding is at the forefront, and at the moment it feels a bit barebones, but this could change as development continues for Anomaly President. It has a nice touch of letting you move rooms around but other than that, it’s more of a chore than anything else. Similar to the base, the overworld area also begins to feel like a chore with more runs done and unless fast travel or fast collecting is implemented, it’ll be an afterthought.
A tedious but fun affair
Anomaly President is a fun, fast-paced roguelike filled to the brim with references and cheeky humor, which deserves a 7/10. The combat’s fluid and build variety is diverse, with the fluffies really making you consider how you’d go at it with each and every run. It does show its flaws the more you dig into the game, though, with repetitive and tedious gameplay, and resource management and minigames feeling so barebones. On the upside, though, it’s still under development, meaning there would definitely be improvements over time. Whether or not the game’s for you, though, is a different question entirely.
You could tell that the development and support for the game come through as you play more and more, but at the moment, it isn’t recommended to play the game in long bursts. Check it out on Steam here.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3156330/Anomaly_President/
This review is written by Doby from the Replays; you can find him on his Facebook page