Steam Community :: The Anchorman

69.1 hrs on record (55.7 hrs at review time)

The gameplay is good at its core but it has some issues that become apparent as time goes on. There are also technical problems that are initially minor but become increasingly more frustrating each time they crop up, especially in co-op.

Technical Issues
This list leaves out some of the smaller things that could be categorized here (inconsistency picking up resources or entering buildings in the world to name a couple). Most of these problems seem to be much more prevalent in co-op while singleplayer is more stable.

Consistent hitching during mini-game interactions. Mining, woodcutting, and bard quick-time events (at least) have what feels like a 90% chance to stutter at least once.
Co-op disconnects are somewhat common. They are usually caused by two players doing apparently incompatible actions. For example, the party rests then player A uses the workbench, while player B (host) clicks on a companion dialog post-rest popup. Player A then loses connection.
Soft locks also happen. These most often happen during interactions in a room/building where, after a conversation or UI event like looting, the exit button does not appear for either player. If only one player sees the button (which is more common) they can force exit, but if nobody sees the button there's no way to continue and the game must be reloaded.
Loading screens in co-op are simply too long. Not only does it take a bit to invite players and start the game (which would be much less problematic on its own), but even the combat loading screens take some time, and they get longer as you progress and grow your party. These definitely add up.
Remote clients in a co-op game occasionally cannot see combat areas of effect. For example, bee-bombs thrown by the host player are visible to the host player but completely invisible to a remote player. The same is true for mosquitoes emitted by defeated crocswine.
The UX in the game is a bit inconsistent: some actions require clicking, some require clicking and holding for a short duration, and few for a long duration. Pressing escape does not always close the highest-level window, and sometimes will close windows in the background that another co-op player may be interacting with, but not the one on top that is local to your client.
If multiple players attempt to interact with the same NPC (e.g. travelling vendors most commonly), both of those attempts to interact will be queued up, and after the first interaction ends the second will instantly begin. This happens very often in co-op and is simply a time waste for the players when it does.

Gameplay
The gameplay loop itself is fun and initially even addicting, but as the game progresses it becomes tedious.

Fight sizes get annoyingly large (at least on region-locked difficulty). Keeping up with a massive party and a huge group of enemies can be exhausting and only gets worse as the game progresses.
New "quirky" mechanics are temporarily introduced later into the game for one-off encounters. At best, these mechanics are jarring and seem out of place in the game (a football-esque game mode using the combat system); at worst, they require the party to be developed in a specific way to be effective but this information is not conveyed to the player until the encounter (scouting abandoned villages using willpower and noise level).
Despite the game reaching its 1.0 release, the "paths" portion of the game is missing content. Having not completed the game, I have reached the end of multiple paths with only "Coming Soon" options remaining. This isn't a huge deal, but gives me an impression that there may be other things that remain incomplete.

Suggestions
Obviously the technical issues should be addressed, but I'm not going to seriously put "fix the bugs lol" in here.

Large fights would be less frustrating if the initial placement phase was made quicker/easier. Locating and positioning each member of a large party on a large map takes more time than it needs to, and could be improved in two ways:
1. Allow the player to zoom farther out during combat, to the point where at least most of the map is visible and they can get an overview of the playing field. Holding alt with a far zoomed-out view would help rapidly familiarize the player with the combat layout, and dragging a companion across the map without having to pan the camera would be very nice.
2. Show a list of the player's companions somewhere on the screen where they can be selected. Searching the field for a specific companion gets annoying in a large party after so many combat sequences. This list can contain as much or as little companion information as desired, but even just having a clickable name would be a big improvement.
I think there should be an option to switch all current short-duration click-and-hold actions to be simple click actions instead. All actions that currently require a short hold could be clicks instead. The only sensible click-and-hold event is the long-duration hold required to force the party to move on without consensus from all players.
After interacting with an NPC in co-op, a player should be required to attempt interaction again rather than retaining the additional attempt from before the interaction.
Autosaving at the beginning of fights is nice, but it would be very nice to have additional rolling time-based autosaves every X minutes. Funny enough, this would not be as much of a pain point for me if I didn't have to reload saves to get out of soft locks as often as I have.

Overall the game has been great, but the issues and questionable gameplay design I've mentioned have been making it increasingly more difficult to enjoy.

Posted 28 April, 2023. Last edited 28 April, 2023.

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