An Agent's Day Never Ends: An Anomaly Agent Review

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PC

Anomaly Agent is a cyberpunk action-platformer with an emphasis on fluid, combo-rich, combat and a story that involves a lot of time-shattering elements. It comes to us by way of Phew Phew Games, and has a retro-inspired graphic style that is definitely pleasing to the eye, but also with enough new bells and whistles that it isn't stuck in the past. It's out now on the Nintendo Switch, XBox, and PC, and we're going to be taking a look at the Nintendo Switch version to see what makes this game stand out from others in a rather crowded genre. These time and space anomalies aren't going to fix themselves, so let's get right into it!

Enter our hero.

Those moves ARE smooth.

I'm actually at a loss as to how to cover the story of Anomaly Agent, as there are several plot points that I'm still not 100% on. I know that action platformers like this don't necessarily need the deepest of stories to drive the action forward, but Anomaly Agent does give it a good shot. Sadly, it doesn't always hit its mark. You're placed into the shoes of Agent 70, a white suited, smart-mouthed agent that is about to receive a promotion when he is sent on one last mission to stop a series of "anomalies" that have popped up around the city. What is this agency, and what are the anomalies, you ask? Well, it's never totally laid out as far as I can tell, but the group Agent 70 belongs to (TDAY is their name by the way.) is tasked with taking out any anomalies that could wreck the delicate balance of reality as we know it, basically a sort of time/space/multiverse police. The latest set of anomalies are a quartet that soon get Agent 70 locked within a time loop. This creates all sorts of time-based shenanigans, and also slowly uncovers the truth regarding what's been going on, who these anomalies are, and the dangers of what happens when you mess too much with time and space. It actually gets quite complicated at times, and you can even shift the story a bit here and there depending on the choices you make in game, but you can definitely ignore it all and go straight for the action, if that's what you desire. I tried my best to follow along with the story, but I eventually found it better to just accept each scene as standalone, and mostly turned off my brain when it came to anything interrupting the core action. This definitely worked out for me gameplay-wise, but probably wasn't the best course of action when it comes to reviewing a game. That aside, there is a surprisingly well-crafted story here for anyone willing to take the time to sort out all the baggage a time-jumping story will always eventually pick up.

The first thirty minutes or so of the game give you a somewhat false impression of what the gameplay loop is going to be. You think you're going to defeat an anomaly, go back to your base, report a mission completed, get your next task, and repeat, but that gets thrown out the window rather quickly. The game is broken up into several chapters, but these seem to have little to do with the actual levels you'll be playing within them. Each chapter has certain locations to clear, and these are divided further into individual rooms. Each room can have enemies, obstacles, or even NPCs that move the plot forward or a robot that allows you to purchase character upgrades. The latter NPC areas act sort of as a safe zone, but they can sometimes be mixed into the action scenes as well. Some areas end in boss encounters, and these are indicated by a giant health bar that occupies the bottom of the screen. Boss fights require a lot of beating up to bring down, but just about every boss fight happens in stages, usually moving you from one location to another, thankfully checkpointing you in between each of them. Speaking of which, a lot of the longer rooms have mid checkpoints, but most rooms act as checkpoints themselves, meaning that if you die you have to redo them entirely. While most levels/rooms require you to make it from one end to the other, you'll often have various goals in mind, usually involving the collecting of plot McGuffins. Scattered throughout the entire game are boxes, with many of them being hidden, that contain either money or stat upgrades. That's about it for the basics, so let's move onto combat.

Trying to explain the time loop.

The upgrade screen.

You'll be doing a lot of fighting within Anomaly Agent, and thankfully it's a very robust system that offers a lot of variety. You have a standard string of attacks when you start, and this is upgraded as you progress throughout the game. You can eventually bring out an "anomaly bat" that stuns enemies, breaks their shields, or can be used in a screen-clearing combo. You can also throw business cards/boomerangs to both attack and stun enemies, and to also clear stage puzzles. There's even a block/reflect mechanic where Agent 70 holds up his briefcase and can send some projectiles back towards whoever/whatever fired them. There's also various guns that can be picked up from defeating certain enemies. These guns can be used until they run out of ammo, and then your last attack with them is to throw it in whichever direction you're facing. Lastly, you have a rolling dodge and a double jump. All of these actions can be combined in various ways to create new combos that will take out the army of clones you're up against in no time. Oh yeah, you mainly are fighting clones in this game, which at least gives you an in-universe reason as to why you're defeating hordes of similar looking enemies. Combat may sound a little complicated when broken down to a handful of moves, but you'll get the hang of it quickly. You'll also come to realize that some attacks tend to work far better than others. There's also upgrades to some of the aforementioned moves that you can get by spending money on the upgrade robot, but keep in mind that I don't think it's possible to actually get all upgrades in any one playthrough. It's best to tailor Agent 70 skills to your particular play style. No matter how you choose to upgrade him, Agent 70 is always able to take on any challenge, and he (and by extension you) can pull off an impressive line of attacks smoothly once you've mastered the controls.

Anomaly Agent takes the platformer part of its name very seriously, as you'll be doing more than your fair share of platforming here. Starting from your chase of the second Anomaly, you'll be faced with some platforming challenges where a single mistake can lead to instant death. These are probably my least favorite part of the game as they often seem to drag on forever. Also, they're almost always mixed in with combat. You can cheese some attacks and instant kill enemies by knocking them off of ledges, but they can also do the same to you. Later on in the game you'll be tasked with performing some insane long jumps, basically double jumps combined with a diving dodge, to reach platforms that are just barely in reach. There are also in-air teleportation platforms that shoot you in the direction you're facing, sort of like the cannons from Donkey Kong Country, and these can be rather finicky to use in conjunction with the other jumping mechanics. The jumping controls are thankfully really tight and responsive, but it doesn't change the fact that some endgame areas require near pixel-perfect precision. Not all of the platforming areas have mid-checkpoints either, so be ready to repeat some of them over and over again until you get them right. I'm all for the challenges that the combat system provides in this game, but I really wish that they had toned down these platforming elements. It almost feels like the developers were designing two very different games as one usually doesn't see these two styles of gameplay come together like this, especially with this level of difficulty.

Reflecting bullets is a cool mechanic.

Beat up The Wrestler!

While I have a lot of positives to say when it comes to gameplay, there's a few negatives that really kept me from enjoying the game as much as I was hoping I would. As I've hinted at here and there so far, Anomaly Agent is an insanely difficult game. There are some enemies that can kill you in just two hits, there are lots of instant death traps, and there are tons of bottomless pits you can fall into as well. There were some jumping sections that I ended up having to do about 20 times to complete, and some action sequences where I just frantically button mashed my way to eventual victory. You do have infinite lives, some sections have mid checkpoints, and you can even lower the difficulty at any time, but the game can still be quite punishing in spite of all this. I nearly gave up more than once, and I did have to take a break a handful of times when I simply couldn't take any more of it. None of this is helped by the fact that each of the game's levels are insanely long. Like I'm not even sure where one stage ends or begins, but I can definitely say that just about all of them overstay their welcome. I have horrible memories of the rooftop and elevator sections in particular. The rooftop section the game seems to go on for thirty minutes, and never really changes much. Half of the area is a weird escort mission too, and everyone just loves those. The elevator area wasn't as long, but featured some very tricky platforming that felt never-ending. Both areas just keep on going. You'll clear one screen just barely and then be greeted by more of the same, maybe up to 7-8 times. And I'm just picking on these two areas of the game, everything I've just said applies to all of the game's levels in some way. While I understand that there are gamers who look for challenging experiences, I don't know if they want them this padded out. Anomaly Agent feels like it could've been a really strong 60-90 minute game, but I can only assume that the developers felt the game was too short, so they quadrupled each of the level's rooms. If anything it made me realize how short and brief the game actually is, since its long sections only broken up when you're moved to the next area. This nearly ruined an otherwise great game for me, but thankfully the game is pretty excellent in most other ways.

Do you love to clean too?

Why is there a giant hand???

I have a lot of mixed feelings regarding the visuals here, as they somehow manage to look amazing, and somehow rather basic and simple, at the same time. Anomaly Agent uses pixel-based graphics that look like something in between the 8 and 16 bit aesthetic. The animations are smooth, and everything moves along at a good pace. There were more than a few hiccups while playing on the Switch, but they mainly were in-between areas, and rarely affected any actual gameplay. I'm willing to be this game runs perfectly on other platforms. My problem with everything visually though is the overall lack of detail or variety. Tackling the first point, a lot of the graphics look like really rough versions of what they're supposed to be. I get that they're going for a retro look, but I really found it hard to differentiate one blob of sprites from another. Every so often a character will exclaim: "That's the person who was radioing me earlier!" and I'd be at a loss since they literally were a handful of tiny pixels the first time I saw them. And this isn't a Handheld Switch thing either, I played this entire game on a TV. I've seen other games pull off this style, but still maintain a degree of clarity where things still manage to stand out from each other. Speaking of standing out, a lot of the game's areas feel drab and uninspired. Besides a few outdoors areas, you'll be fighting in areas that are pretty much all dark, usually grey, and feature only a handful of room variants repeated over and over. I'd be far more forgiving if these areas were more quick and concise, but sticking around some levels for tens of minutes really gets you thinking about how everything looks the same. I don't want to make it sound like the visuals are bad by any means, just that they fall short of being a great example of a retro art style mixed with modern action gameplay.

Rooftop escort mission, great...

I hated this elevator shaft jumping...

I don't have a lot to say regarding the music in Anomaly Agent beyond the fact that it really suits the game well. It's a synth-based score, but it's far more upbeat and intense than that label usually implies. Think something akin to every track being JRPG boss-level of intensity and you might get an idea of what I'm trying to describe. It really does keep the action flowing nice, and even the more low-key tracks gel with the overall vibe. There were a few that I felt bordered on annoying, with some particularly ear-scratching sample choices, but I can't help but wonder if my disdain for a track here or there may have been due to when it was I was hearing it. Some of my least favorite songs come from the rooftop and elevator sections, and I've already mentioned how much I despised having to play through those parts. I don't think any of the music is of the caliber that you'll be checking it out outside of the game (though by all means do exactly that if you so desire) but it's near perfect within the context of the game. I noticed that the game's press materials referred to it as a Synthwave soundtrack, but I think it's a bit too industrial for that. Also, just to be thorough, I should point out that there is no voice acting in the game, though I bet you may have already assumed as much from the retro stylings.

Controls in a game that has action as tight and fluid as this one have to simply work for it to be a good game. Thankfully they totally do when it comes to the action, but there's a weird point I wanted to mention when it comes to controls that bothered me the entire time I was playing. For reasons I can't begin to understand, the button used to confirm choices is "B", and the button to cancel things is "A", totally going against what has been established in gaming for decades. I know that this is mainly a Nintendo thing since they switch the buttons around on their controllers, but it felt so unnatural to press B to select things. It made me feel like the Angry Video Game Nerd each time I found myself pressing A, but realizing it was doing nothing most of the time. It's even more annoying when you notice that the game sometimes switches the two buttons around on some prompts, and A indeed is the button that selects things. It's a rather small thing, but it will most likely bother other Switch players as much as it bothered me.

Lots of enemies down there...

You're not the only one stuck.

Saying that Anomaly Agent is a rather short game is somewhat missing the point, but it has to be said that it is. You can beat the entire thing in maybe 2-4 hours depending on your skill level. That time can vary greatly if you find yourself stuck in sections for long periods of time like I did, and can just feel like a lot longer since I think some of the sections just become grating after a while. That said, there is a lot of reason for you to go back. I actually played the game kind of like a jerk, and didn't earn all the health upgrades I could've in my first playthrough, and I also purposely skipped some optional sections of levels because I wanted to just get to the end as quickly as I could. Also, some in-game choices affect how the story plays out, and these are worth a second playthrough to see. Successive playthroughs will probably be less challenging too since you'll already be acclimated to some of the quirks of the combat system, and you might even want to challenge beating the game at a higher difficulty level. It's definitely replayable, and even if you're not one to go for that, its $14.99 price tag means that you aren't exactly breaking the bank if you want to just give it the single run. It's a great game that definitely offers up a lot of content and polish compared to its price tag.

There's lots to eventually reveal...

What is with this graffiti?

While I do think that Anomaly Agent is one of the best action games I've played in a while, I have to admit that I'm not exactly sure casual fans might get the right level of enjoyment out of it. The drawn out levels, and many frustratingly tough areas, make it that this is more for the hardcore than those looking for a something to casually power through in a weekend. Definitely give it a try if it looks like something you'd enjoy, but keep in mind that it can be really challenging even on the lowest difficulty setting. That aside, if you're looking for a challenge, or like your action games to be tough as nails, then this is the game for you. Just watch out for those pesky time loops!

Check Out Anomaly Agent on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/anomaly-agent-switch/

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Story: A
Gameplay: B+
Graphics: B+
Music/Sound: A-
Value: A

Overall: A-

Pros:
+ A fast-paced action game that has a very fluid combo and attack system.
+ Dialogue choices actually matter here, with some of them even changing how the game plays out.
+ There's a lot of customization options to mold the gameplay to your style, or you can ignore it entirely for a challenge run.
+ The soundtrack has a lot of bangers, and even the tracks that aren't standout hits aren't bad at all.
+ Highly replayable, and gives off a decent challenge while still being fair.

+/- This is neither here nor there, but I think Agent 70 looks a lot like Spike from Cowboy Bebop. (Within the game at least.)

Cons:
- Some levels seem to go on forever and wear out their welcome before long.
- While you have infinite lives, and the ability to change the difficulty at any time, Anomaly Agent can be quite the frustrating experience at times.
- The graphics look great, but there are a lot of repeated areas and characters. (Yes, I know most of the enemies are clones!)
- While there's a lot of reasons why one would replay it once completed, Anomaly Agent is a rather short game.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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Yeah, I need a drink...

#AnomalyAgent