Anima: Gate of Memories I & II Remaster Review – Budget Value

Anima: Gate of Memories I & II Remaster Review

Anima: Gate of Memories I & II Remaster is a collection of two low-budget action JRPGs. The games are Anima: Gate of Memories, and its side story from a different perspective, Anima: Gate of Memories – The Nameless Chronicles. Even though the games have action JRPG gameplay, they were developed by a small Spanish team and based on a Spanish tabletop RPG called Anima: Beyond Fantasy. If you’ve never played these indie games, read on to find out if you should. And if you’re already a fan, read on to find out if Anima: Gate of Memories I & II Remaster is worth a double dip.

Anima: Gate of Memories I & II Remaster’s story takes place in a world that was torn apart by a war 700 years prior. The Holy Empire of Abel rose from the ashes of the war as the world’s most powerful nation. It’s also outlawed all supernatural powers. Our protagonist, The Bearer, is a member of Nathaniel, a supernatural order that defies the laws of Abel. Ten years before the beginning of the first game, The Bearer made a pact with Ergo Mundus. It’s a powerful, enigmatic being known as the “calamity of the world”. This pact gives The Bearer magic powers.

Search for Byblos

The Bearer’s former teacher, The Red Lady, steals an important book from Nathaniel called “Byblos”. The story of the first game is about The Bearer and Ergo tracking down The Red Lady. The plot gradually gets more complicated, and the player discovers tons of lore about the game’s world. The story of Anima: Gate of Memories II – The Nameless Chronicles, is about a villain from the first game called The Nameless. The events of the second game parallel the events of the first, and show a different POV, as The Nameless battles The Bearer and Ergo.

On paper, I really enjoyed the story of Anima: Gate of Memories I & II Remaster. Some of the script is very poor. The terrible voiceacting only accentuates this. Some of the naming conventions are cheesy; naming a protagonist “The Bearer” sounds like a fantasy story I would’ve written as a ten-year-old. But the plot really drives the game forwards. The world and lore are very rich. Overall, the narrative and world building are one of Anima: Gate of Memories I & II Remaster’s highlights.

Action JRPG Gameplay

Anima: Gate of Memories I & II Remaster is a third person action JRPG. Square performs a melee attack. Triangle does a dash attack that closes the distance between the player and an enemy. X is jump. Circle is a ranged magic attack that uses a chunk of a magic meter that quickly regenerates. R2 dodges. Pressing R2 after getting hit does a forward recovery. Items can be equipped to the d-pad for fast use. L1 does an upwards launch attack, and L2 does a magic launch attack. Pressing R3 locks onto enemies.

The player can switch between The Bearer and Ergo at any time. They play very similarly, but can be built differently through unlocking skill tree abilities. The Nameless plays by itself in the second game. It also plays similarly to the other characters, but each is unique enough to keep things fresh. I really enjoyed the combat in Anima: Gate of Memories I & II Remaster. Attacks and movement felt great. There are some challenging platforming sections I’ve heard criticized, but I didn’t feel like the controls or difficulty ruined the game. I really enjoyed the inclusion of occasional platforming and puzzles, and found they kept the gameplay fresh.

Lots of Game to Play

Anima: Gate of Memories I & II Remaster has a hub area with different level areas the player can access. After beating the first three areas, they unlock another three. Each area has very different environments, and they can be played in any order. This structure gives the player a bit of freedom. The biggest flaw in this collection is that the games can get repetitive. They’re both over 20 hours long each, and the final stretches can feel too familiar. Anima: Gate of Memories – The Nameless Chronicles also reuses a lot of assets from the first game. Both games have a lot of backtracking. But there’s also a lot of game to play, and the Anima: Gate of Memories I & II Remaster package is a lot of value for only $40 CAD.

The changes to Anima: Gate of Memories I & II Remaster are mostly cosmetic. The characters have a new cell-shaded appearance, and the environments look much more vibrant. Both games are still clearly budget titles, but they looked very low budget nine years ago, so these changes are likely necessary to attract a new audience. The reused assets, lack of animation during dialogue, and awful voiceacting are the biggest indications of the low budget. The music is fine Western fantasy score, but there are no particularly memorable compositions.

In Conclusion

Anima: Gate of Memories I & II Remaster is a collection of two very low-budget action JRPGs that I really enjoyed. Anyone looking for something in the vein of Nier should definitely consider playing it. The changes in this remaster are almost entirely cosmetic, though, and probably won’t justify a double dip for anyone with the original games. The price is very low, though, and there’s a lot of content to be found. Hopefully, developer Anima Project gets enough attention to develop games on a grand scale in the future.

***PS5 code provided by the publisher***