Anthem was released and many gamers had their eyes on it. Almost everyone heard about Anthem and there was some hype for it. Some were already salty because of what they think about Electronic Arts. We at X35 Earthwalker aren’t childish about these things. We look at the game that that’s it. We have checked out what some of these reviewers have to say about Anthem and so far a good number of them didn’t give a good review at all. Some like Angry Joe and others aren’t even that good at it and it shows. Check out what we think of it so far. We say “so far” as we haven’t completed the game yet or anything like that. Also this isn’t a full review as there is literally so much to say.
Anthem can be played both single player and multiplayer. How we see to do it is that when it’s a story based mission, as in it forwards the story, we tend to play it solo but when it’s agent missions and others we then decide if we want others there or not. Now we do prefer single player overall because we get to do things at our own pace, explore around that corner if we want to and even get stylish when facing enemies. You can’t really do that in multiplayer. In multiplayer you have players who just want to complete the mission as fast as possible and so they zoom from objective to objective flying everywhere. If they reach the next area you have around 24 seconds to get there also or you’ll be teleported there. So it’s a rush. This doesn’t mean multiplayer isn’t fun. In multiplayer we have come across some playful and friendly gamers. If we throw a flare, they all do. In fact we once had a flare party where everyone was emoting and tossing flares everywhere. In multiplayer, there enemies don’t stand a chance. You feel powerful. Plus we have to admit that some levels, especially bosses are very difficult to beat alone and off course a team makes a difference.
Now when do you get to play with others? The answer is whenever you want. Every time you go on an expedition you have the option as to whether to play with other or private. What they shouldn’t have done is keep presenting a warning or reminder that Anthem is better experienced with others and if you are sure you want to play private. Yes we are sure, that’s why we selected private and not public. It’s annoying that every time they have to ask you. It’s like they want us to doubt our choices. Just stop please. Other from that, the system works fine. You choose public and they find a team. The levels of your team mates are questionable but not a big deal at all. It’s minor.
We tried three of the four Javelins: Ranger, Storm, Colossus (haven’t tried yet) and Interceptor. These four play very different from each other. Rangers are fighting like actual soldiers using mainly their guns and equipment as backup. Storm normally stay at long range and use elemental based attacks like lightning, ice, fire and even wind. The Interceptor is all about getting fast, do quick damage and then get back out just as fast. The colossus wants to get up in the enemies face and use some melee action while tanking some damage. When you play each one, it does feel different but the principle is still the same as in, don’t die, take cover to recover shields etc. Your strategy and style of play changes with each Javelin type and that’s a good thing.
The enemies are quite similar to each other in some areas. The main enemies are: Scars, Dominion and Outlaws. They have foot soldiers, elite versions of those soldiers, unique units and even a shielded unit. The three main enemy groups are different when it comes to their unique units. The Scars have a big flame throwing unit that uses a big physical shield to completely negate all frontal damage. It’s weakness is it’s fuel tanks. The Dominion have a large animal like thing that has a cannon on his back which is really fast. There are even more enemies too including the wildlife. An Ursix is a giant beast that throws rocks, charges and smashes you with brute force. There are more enemies to but some are passive and will not bother you at all, only until you scare or disturb them.
We haven’t completed the main story yet but so far we do understand what’s happening. The shapers, shaper relics, anthem of creation, what the dominion wants, cataclysms etc. You can learn a whole lot more through the items that have information and lore like scrolls and books found in fort tarsus or certain identified areas in the main world that give the the background story and more. There is a lot of information to find and they do explain quite a lot. Some not good critics like PC Gamer complained that the story was complicated and confusing. We didn’t find it confusing, they were obviously rushing through the game to complete it to give their review. Take your time and you will see that it’s not that confusing at all. It’s a fictional game with fictional rules. So see it from Anthem’s universe perspective.
The characters are interesting. Haluk is straight forward to us and he needs to stay cool at all times and not just on the battlefield. Owen is quite easily understood and his actions can make sense but not justified. Faye its quite realistic, she’s one of those people who’s so into their field of study or interest that people forget she has hobbies like radio series. Matthias is the brilliant but reckless type and the whole manifold incident made him even better. The other characters just add to the social flavour. You can speak to them from time to time and they clearly have their own views, focuses in life and stories. There are other characters that you can speak to and you get to decide how you respond to questions and situations. In one of them we convinced Amal, the bartender, to always do the right thing and be honest. We also couldn’t deceive the old woman (Marelda we think) by letting her think we are her dead son. What she needs is the truth, gentle but straight up truth. We truly helped her in the end. Yes, it has been said that no matter what you choose, the outcome isn’t effected by much but these conversations do test the player themselves, their morality and what they think. Nice touch.
Now let’s talk a bit about what we don’t like. We don’t like that you can’t really decide what you can craft. From the earlier parts of Anthem we happened to find a harvestable source during a mission (we played in private) and it released a crazy amount of masterwork ember. We had a lot of crafting material but couldn’t craft anything great. We later learned that you need to collect and then upgrade blue prints by completing certain weapon challenges. That wasn’t made clear to us. It should have been spelt out to players.
Another issue is that moment in the story where you needed to enter four special tombs and those tombs can only be accessed by those who are worthy. You are worthy by completing specific challenges. Now what’s the problem? The challenges can take quite a while especially if you haven’t started anyone of them while you are playing missions. This whole section feels like a wall. Until you complete the challenges you cannot progress. We were fortunate to have only three more challenges remaining: melee kill a certain amount of enemies, complete world quests and find 15 chests (15 we think). It took quite a bit but not that long but we know other players had to spend a long time on it which isn’t fun. If they made it so that getting into the temples unlocks you weapons, upgrades, blue prints, techniques or whatever then it would be better and feel like rewards, instead of making that the actual main mission. We weren’t happy about this part at all.
A small sized complaint is that we can’t feel that much of a difference when we equip gear that increases our armour and shields. We even crafted a couple of stuff and really increased both armour and shields but enemies seem to kill us at pretty much the same speed (we always play on hard difficulty). Maybe when we get much better gear we can feel the difference.
Another issue is that the story could have included more encounters with the different groups like the regulators and how messing with them could have consequences. The outlaws could have their own branch of missions along with the scars; giving players the opportunity to know more about them and their whole system. There’s opportunities in there and we want to see Anthem take advantage more of what they have in their universe.
One more issue is the items drops you get for beating certain enemies. X35 Earthwalker, the legendary soldier himself, literally earlier today in free play mode defeated an Ursix and got two epic items from it but later X35 fought a War Titan and beat it solo and the reward was a rare and uncommon. The war titan was stronger, had way more health, can do way more damage and took five times longer to beat but the drops were inferior. That needs to be fixed as that’s clearly not right. By the way we will show that fight against the war titan in a video in good time.
Now some critics were complaining about the characters and the conversations you have with them. Let’s be real, the characters do what they need to do. They said the characters just stand around. Well what do you want? You want the characters running around in a route in fort tarsus so players have to chase them down just to get a mission or talk. Some really slammed Anthem for not having big story effected consequences based on your responses to some characters. This isn’t that kind of game (what’s wrong with these reviewers). Anthem isn’t about meeting clans, persuading them to join your cause and them lead an army and if you anger clans then they become enemies. It’s just conversations to keep things fresh, different and these conversations are interesting. People go through different things and it’s good to talk to others. Others slammed Anthem for having repetitive missions. We don’t find them repetitive. The developers can’t keep adding in completely different gaming mechanics all the time, there needs to be some sort of formula. Rescue and protect missions are not fun at all. There are limits on games especially those that are open world, RPG with world events and stuff to come. It can’t go on forever that’s why DLC have to come in bringing new stories and adventures. It’s sad that reviewers and critics don’t understand this. Like we said, ignore the critics and reviewers and certainly you tubers like angry Joe who just hop on the hate train to get views. Do your own research check out some gameplay and if you like what you see, try it for yourself.
Now another thing that’s good is the Javelin customisation at least in terms of the colours. You can change the colour of each limb separately. It gets better. You can decide what shade of the colour, the fabric, patterns and even the texture. Players who have some level of creativity will go to work with these options and we still haven’t seen a javelin that’s just like ours. Even better we haven’t see one that looks like ours. What we don’t like is how long it takes to get different helmets and javelin body parts. Keep doing missions to get coins and then rely on those. Or you could buy shards but we aren’t doing that.
Overall we are really enjoying Anthem. The option to play with others is easy and just as easy to play alone. The Anthem world looks very nice and it does make you want to explore. Little things like how flying in rain helps your thrusters and reduce overheating while going in water or waterfalls completely cools you off, extending the amount of time you fly for. The weapon types definitely feel different. The pistols don’t feel like the scout rifles. The LMGs don’t feel like the assault rifles either. We like how much of a battle it is to take down a titan and when you finally do, it feels like an achievement because of how strong they are as enemies. The rabbits and other wild life creatures are cool. You can walk up to them, chill with them and even follow them around. The world definitely feels alive. Anthem has way more positives than negatives. Don’t forget that we haven’t gotten to the end of the story yet and we still have more to see.
Now what’s our current verdict? Anthem is currently 8/10. We recommend it to other players. It’s negatives especially the challenges to enter tombs does hold the game back as it makes certain things annoying. There is so much more we can say about the game but we want to leave it here for now. Now many have a lot to say about Anthem but there’s way more to say about… the ‘Earth Walk!’
For more information check out the link below: