Anuchard Review

Review code used, with many thanks to StridePR

Welcome to Anuchard….it may not seem like much currently, but Anuchard was once known as a place of wonder and peace. Five ancient Guardians had given the island their blessing and turned it into a land of limitless bounty suspended in the heavens above.

Anuchard LadiesGamers review — Side quests can be picked up at the Bulletin Board

One day the Guardians left without a word and the Anuchardian paradise fell from the skies, crashing onto the world below. What you see before you now, is only a tiny speck of the island that survived the fall. But you will soon see what’s left of the rest too, as we go and explore the underground with its twisted mass of winding passages. Best come prepared as they are full of wild magic and vicious monsters, known simply as The Dungeon. A good thing we are off on a mission together with the Chosen One, the Bellwielder!

Pick Up the Audros Bell

So this is where you, as the player, come in! Generations passed as few survivors eked out an existence in the Orchard, the sole village on the surviving island, which maintains the few remains of Anuchardian magic. You play as the Bellwielder, who takes up the Audros Bell to restore the village of Orchard to its former glory by waking up the Guardians.

The bell is inhabited by three spirits that start telling you what to do from the moment you pick it up. And they add some fun thoughts too, often bringing a smile to my face. You see, villagers have been disappearing into dungeons. They appear in Orchard as statues, but their souls are lost in the dungeon. The Bellwielder is the only one who can go into the dungeon and actually return. To find a soul though a memento is needed, to be able to warp to the part of the dungeon where the missing soul is.

Exploring the Dungeons

Being the Bellwielder isn’t a job I’d normally take on: action based fighting isn’t exactly my cup of tea. The first dungeons however weren’t too difficult, and there’s a nice system in place to replenish your health. All along the dungeon you can gather little green dots (essence) by smashing the clay posts and mowing the grass. Gather enough of them and fill the green bar, and by pressing Y your health is replenished.

The monsters that attack you are fierce, some shooting projectiles at you, some have a shield of sorts and need to be wacked into the wall first to loose their protection. By the time I found my first guardian, the Green guardian, I needed more help though to be able to keep going. That is where the settings came in: you can set damage avoided to 50% or 100%. Which means, in the case of 100%, that you don’t take any damage at all.

This allowed me to only focus on the puzzles and exploration and that means there’s still enough to do. The puzzles in Anuchard are physics based, and often involve a little ball of energy. You wack it with the bell, steering it in the direction you want by having it bounce in a wall and then change the direction. The puzzles get more difficult, by obstacles you have to take out of the balls way and working around corners.

Every time you search for someone the dungeon varies, based on the character you need to find. It has loads of growing cabbages in it when you try to find the farmer. For another villager, the dungeon has books strewn across the floor. And while exploring you will come across memory stones of the missing villagers to help illuminate their final thoughts.

Working to Develop Orchard

After you have fought and puzzled your way through, the soul is reunited with the body in a Soul Retrieval Ritual in town-hall. Orchard is a tightly knit community, so expect lots of cheers and encouragement from the villagers. Not that you are able to see if on the NPC’s faces, as they are only a couple of dots of color making up a villager. But the smiley faces and emojis appearing above are indication enough.

When the Bellwielder starts bringing the people to live, Orchard starts to blossom again. The first venues to open are a kitchen and a builders counter. The chef in the kitchen makes simple recipes that grant you buffs and upgrades. In Doran’s hut you can do some building, giving you upgrades from combat abilities or cosmetic upgrades. The materials found in the dungeon are used for this.

If you don’t want to straight keep on bringing villagers back, Orchard has a bulletin board for side quests too to keep you busy. The main goal of Anuchard of course is to save everyone and rebuild the village.

Lots of Cartoonish Character

Anuchard has a lovely cartoonish art style. It’s colorful and endearing. Even though you can’t see faces or such detail, the developer successfully conveys what the characters feel anyway. The writing is lovely and funny and helps making the population of Orchard likeable, even the spirits that inhabit the Audros Bell. The music is nicely in the background, Anuchard is really a nice game to pick up and play.

Conclusion

Anuchard is a combination of a action fighter and simulation game, with the emphasis on exploring dungeons and solving puzzles. With five guardians to search for, you have several different dungeons to explore, all in a different style. The cartoony style depicts the characters well with only a few color strokes. The excellent humorous writing makes the game stand out for me. I found the action-based fighting to turn hectic pretty soon, but the mechanic of avoiding damage allowed me to focus on the puzzles instead.

I’m pretty sure though that for someone who is more adept at action fighting and dungeon crawling will have a blast!

Final Verdict: I Like It a Lot