Indie Gems - Anode Heart | Phenixx Gaming

It’s been some time since I’ve discussed games here on Phenixx Gaming. This is in part due to my growing annoyance with the current state of the industry trends and rising costs. Recently, I’ve been playing a lot of older titles over current releases and making my way through my Steam backlog. It’s no secret to any hardcore gamer that Indie titles often are where the best experiences are these days. While some Indie titles like Hades, Hollow Knight, and Undertale have received lots of attention, there are still hundreds more great titles in the scene that are just waiting to be discovered.

With that in mind, I thought it would be nice to start a new series where I give a little overview and general recommendation for more niche titles within the independent space. This time around, I’ll be calling attention to Anode Heart. Developed by Stove Powered Games, Anode Heart is a retro-style monster-catching RPG, one of my favorite subgenres. While most of the titles in this space are obviously heavily influenced and inspired by Pokémon, Anode Heart takes more mechanics and trends from Digimon.

This was certainly a breath of fresh air for me, and I was immediately drawn in by the deep gameplay mechanics. Anode Heart’s creatures are called Tamas, and each one has the potential to be a valuable asset to your team due to the reboot system. Every Tama has a set max level and will no longer be able to gain experience after reaching this threshold. If you want your creatures to progress, you must reboot them to their weakest form.

From here, you can then reallocate stats as you wish, achieve higher level caps, and even unlock additional evolutions. It’s an elegant system that allows you to create unique builds and hundreds of potential team compositions. Though the creatures themselves are quite simple their are certainly some memorable designs like a species of alligator-like army men or a ghostly water spirit which possesses rain coats.

Battles are quite fun and engaging. Anode Heart forces you to be strategic with your moves, which not only have limited numbers of uses but also an associated action point cost. Higher power moves have higher costs, and thus using them when you only have a few points left will then have the adverse effect of providing your opponent a higher pool of action points to retaliate with on their turn.

As a result, you can’t simply spam the most powerful move over and over unless you are sure to knock out your opponent. As is the case with most monster-catching titles, every creature also has associated elemental types, which have varying degrees of effectiveness. However, even here, Anode Heart adds some fresh new mechanics with the addition of Dark types, which have inverse weaknesses and effectiveness to their counterparts.

On top of all this, the game boasts a charming world with diverse biomes, dozens of NPCs, and many side quests to accomplish. One particularly memorable quest involves playing a trading card game reminiscent of Gwent from The Witcher series, as well as a tournament mode. You play as an android within the main story, which involves you building a community within the digitized world where the game takes place, before saving it from being deleted by a virus-like antagonist. It’s certainly not the most complex or grandiose narrative, but it certainly serves the game well and remains interesting enough to see it through.

I would highly recommend Anode Heart to anyone looking for a perfect blend of both Pokémon and Digimon mechanics, as well as thoughtful turn-based combat. Anode Heart is currently for sale on Steam at a price of $17.99 USD and will offer you at least 10 to 15 hours of gameplay and upwards of 20 if you try to complete every side quest. All in all, a solid price for a wonderfully crafted and intelligently designed experience.