A welcome sense of humor with an extremely likable hero makes for a great space adventure.
The story is a little slow getting started but it gets good quickly. It begins with a typical down on his luck detective in desperate need of work to pay down his debts. "Sly" Sylvester Boots has all the charm, charisma and slick one liners of some of the best video game protagonists out there which is really what made this game stand out for me. As the story progresses it eventually turns into a save the world space adventure involving many different NPC's and travelling to many different planets. I thought the story was great and the background information and detail about the various species and planets helped provide good depth to support the story. All in all it was a very memorable and enjoyable experience.
The best part of this game was the dialogue. If you appreciate sarcasm and humor you will love Sly Boots and his palls. There were so many funny moments in this game. Things like Pal (Sly's pint sized robot lackey) singing and dancing to pass the time while the team floated through space, Sly giving a guy named Eddie a disgusting puss-filled sock in exchange for information (don't ask), Sly Boots referring to himself as "Master of Time and Space" and then saying that he made that part up when explaining a conversation he had about Mystech. I could go on and on but, needless to say, this game had a lot of laughs from beginning to end, and by no means does this game's charm stop with its dialogue and humor.
The battle system was a simple turn based, console style system, where you can attack, move, use an item, or use a Mystech attack (powerful magical attacks based on ancient mysterious technology that is the actual focus of the game's plot). You can also use special attacks that are specific to the character (like Grumpos, for example, has a "Yammer" attack where he confuses a foe through a relentless assault of mind numbing quick-speak). If you figure out how to properly use Mystech, you will be ridiculously powerful by the end of this game, but figuring out how it works and finding it was a lot of fun.
The voice acting was very well done, especially Sly's (can you tell how much I love this guy yet!?), and the music was suitable and solidly done. The character graphics were average at best, not highly detailed and a little on the boxy side, but the landscapes and background scenery were definitely better than average, and were actually better than the games age would suggest. In no way did I feel that graphical inadequacies took away anything from this games overall appeal, for some it may, but the story and dialogue more than made up for any shortcomings in this area.
All in all, I consider Anachronox to be an underrated gem and a game that I have wished many times would be made into a sequel. It has the feel of a Final Fantasy game but with a distinctly America flavor which manifests itself in an incredible sense of humor and an extremely likable cast of characters. Anachronox is definitely a great game and a lot of fun.