Anamorphine

Overall Anamorphine is a touching and interesting story which is infinitely relatable. I wish the storytelling had been a bit more varied and I hadn’t had my issue with motion sickness. All of that said, if you enjoy narrative exploration games this is a good one to check out.

Anamorphine is an important game. It has a story to tell in very few words, managing to evoke deep and moving emotions through music and visuals. That story struck me in a number of ways personally, bringing to light my feelings on a number of events in my own life. The poignancy of the whole thing made it all the more difficult to run into the shoddy presentation and packaging that Anamorphine was presented in. How much does one reward intent when the delivery is far from perfect?

In truth, there is some good use of visual metaphors signaling how someone with depression closes themselves off from others, and how one’s mental state decays when faced with trauma. These good moments are few and mostly clumped together in the game’s final moments, when things start to ramp up. Ultimately, however, Anamorphine fails to engage consistently and doesn’t do too good a job of relaying its serious subject matter properly. It feels like a slideshow someone quickly goes through expecting deep investment from the person watching. The title tries to hint at despair and pain but does s...

Anamorphine is one of many walking simulator titles available for the PlayStation 4 and is noticeably similar to the likes of Gone Home and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture in the way it explores very mature themes such as depression, drugs, drinking, and suicide.

The indie video game scene has made huge strides and seen so many successes in representing issues of mental health lately that it hurts that much more when a game falls this far short.