Dear Bioware and Anthem community,
I'm a rather new Freelancer, being Level 21, started in Fort Tarsis around a week ago. I'll be honest, I didn't even think about playing the game for the longest time, considering the reviews and backlash the game received when it came out. I knew it had some potential, but would fall apart in most places. I wanted to wait for Anthem 2.0 and was pretty disappointed when that was canceled.. But a friend of mine gave me his physical copy to simply try it out for a bit. I started out with low expectations.
Considering my progress, I don't know much about the endgame yet.
That being said... thus far, I love Anthem. I really love it.
I love the feeling of having so much tight control over your Javelin, and how different all of them are. Unleashing a swarm of rockets as Ranger. Running shield first into enemies as colossus. Floating around and raining fire as Storm. (Can't wait to try out Interceptor eventually.) Every ability and every weapon has so much punch to it, the feedback is great, setting up combos and blowing up big groups of enemies is just a spectacle. Simply flying around Bastion, gathering resources and lore-bits is just fun in itself.
I love the and lore that has been created here. This very unique style for Fort Tarsis, the oriental vibe combined with sci-fi is something you don't see very often. How humans have to survive in this dangerous environment, how Javelins are more than just combat-suits. The Anthem, as the music of creation, has so much potential, same for the mysterious Shapers. Generally speaking, it reminds me of a mix between the Silmarillion and the Matrix. I find it genuinely interesting, heck, I even take some time after sessions to read through the library entries. Which is something very rare.
I love the characters and story. I'm excited for every step of the journey, revealing the plot behind the Dominion and the Monitor, stepping foot into the tomb of General Tarsis. Running after the Javelin of Dawn. I'm excited for every speech bubble popping up in the Fort. Even tho I don't have much control over these conversations, they're very well written and the voice actors are absolutely stunning. I love how Owen is like a defiant little brother, Haluk still having issues with the Heart of Rage incident, Faye being into radio plays. I love how awkward Brin is all the time, how Yarrow is this fatherly figure you can look up to, how Neeson is this gaslighting soab, how Sayrna is basically Mabel Pines (even with her voice) and she keeps mailing me about wanting these monsters as pets. It's so great!
But... sure, the game isn't perfect. I'm playing on Ps4 and it can look quite crusty here and there. The load times are bad. When playing with others, sometimes it lags quite a lot. There isn't much variety in the enemies, environments and especially the objectives... You do the same stuff again and again with different voice lines. And apparently it was much worse when the game came out.
But I also read that article Jason Schreier published after the game came out. How the entire development was this gigantic, unorganized mess. How you, the team, went through hell and back, lost so many developers, how people were so overworked that they broke down with depression and burn-out. How it wasn't even clear what kind of game Anthem was supposed to be until the E3 trailer dropped. Considering how incredibly soul shattering this experience must've been, and how little time you had to develop the actual game.. it's still more than impressive. It's mind blowing, actually.
No, the game didn't launch as it was promised. And unfortunately, it'll never be in that state. But damn, if this direction had been clear from the start, can you imagine what Anthem could've been? This entire story is just sad, ridiculous and a shame. It's also sad that Anthem 2.0 was cut. Then again, I can see why and I can understand.
I just wanted to say that I appreciate the sacrifices that were made by the developers to bring this game to life. I don't know how much time I'll spend in the endgame. But up until that point, I absolutely loved the journey.
