Anna: Extended Edition (Xbox 360) Review

Like any good horror game, there is a heavy emphasis on the story in Anna: Extended Edition. The unnamed protagonist is haunted in his dreams by the same house without any clear indication of why. He suffers from some rare form of plot convenient amnesia that leaves him with no memories of why the house might be important or his connection to the mysterious titular Anna. After investigating the house, it becomes abundantly apparent that something is definitely off. Rooms sealed by blood curses tend to not only hurt the retail value but also chase away any amnesiacs trying to clear up clouded memories of their past. The lead character must search the house to find out exactly what role it played in his past, all the while dealing with jump scares and a weird carving of a tree woman straight out of nightmares.

The plot of Anna: Extended Edition is promising, but never really delivers on that initial intrigue. There are some scary moments and the story plays out as creepily as possible for what is here, but the actual meat of the story is surprisingly forgettable. The game offers multiple endings depending on the puzzles solved and items found, but it simply is not an enjoyable enough experience to go back and find out what was missed if it wasn't achieved the first time. A poor job is also done at integrating the story into the game itself, instead requiring reading of journal entries or books to even begin to piece together what is happening. Everything starts well, yet sadly not much is done to flesh this out in any real way to make the story worth following.

Anna: Extended Edition is a puzzle-based adventure game that at times devolves down to rubbing everything in the inventory together in hopes of finding that one magical combination that will finally progress the story. The quality of an adventure game is inevitably tied to the strength of the game's brainteasers and, unfortunately, Anna: Extended Edition only has a handful of memorable conundrums amidst a sea of poor ones. There are some smart ideas from time-to-time that are actually nicely integrated into the story and theme. The inventory ends up artificially bloated quickly, though, making it hard to navigate to exactly what is needed. Worse yet, multiple items seem capable of performing the same task at the same time, making it a bit of a guessing game of which to use when.

The puzzles in the game alternate between being entirely too obtuse or laughably easy, and it never really finds that sweet spot of challenging yet rewarding. They simply aren't enjoyable, and if the proper items are in the inventory, most sort of solve themselves. One involves combining a knife hilt with a knife blade to form…a knife, which really stretches the definition of what can be considered a puzzle. Others will instead leave gamers wandering back and forth through the same couple of rooms, trying to find that one little thing that hasn't been inspected yet or the one inventory item that hasn't been gathered. This sort of poor design ends up grinding the narrative to a complete halt and introduces an element of frustration and boredom, two things that can absolutely torpedo the mood in a proper horror game. At best, the puzzles are a forgettable element, at worst they haphazardly force their way front and centre, getting in the way of the actual enjoyable parts of the game.

Anna: Extended Edition also does an exceptionally shocking job of explaining exactly how to play it, and not just in terms of shoddily explained puzzles. A damage system has been added to this enhanced remake, which would work well as adding tension this time around if it had been executed even somewhat competently. This is a sort of remedial sanity system, and if it depletes to zero the main character is unceremoniously dumped outside the house, resulting in a bad ending. Frustratingly, it isn't always clear when he is sustaining damage, and once during the review process, a puff of black smoke hit him right in the face and he just sort of shrugged it off like a supernatural fart. Later, when moving around a tree woman, he suddenly received a hit to his sanity without much of an explanation from the game. It seems to be that moving too abruptly near the supernatural elements somehow depletes the sanity meter, yet the game never really explains this, so everything becomes somewhat of a trial-and-error process.

Despite the many disappointments, one thing Anna comes very close to nailing is a genuinely creepy atmosphere and setting. Sudden appearances and disappearances of odd mannequins, a low and continuous crying noise that is emanating from behind a locked door, and old books telling stories about children losing their mind and disappearing forever, are all things that can be found in the first couple of rooms, and things progressively get weirder from there. The overarching narrative might not be the most engaging and the puzzles are several steps away from even being mediocre, but at least someone on the staff clearly knows a thing or two about establishing a general sense of unease that permeates most of this game even when things get a bit dull. It is really the atmosphere and general mood that pushes the game through until the end and everything else is really just along for the ride.