Anima Meets Devil May Cry in Anima: Gate of Memories

Anima Meets Devil May Cry in Anima: Gate of Memories

By Julie Morley

Anima is located in the beautiful world of Gaia, a combination of a magical fantasy mixed with traditional medieval architecture.

Anima: Beyond Fantasy is a beautiful line of role-playing books, miniature wargame, and card games. The creators have taken it to the realm of games and now they’re back for a second round of crowdfunding.

Cipher Studios had funded Anima: Gate of Memories through Kickstarter back in January 2013. The campaign was very successful, raising more $110,664. Since then, Cipher Studios has been working endlessly to complete it but have found the financial backing received from the previous campaign just isn’t enough to give it the visual quality the studio had envisioned. If this Kickstarter campaign is successful, not only can we expect some outstanding visuals but some additional features, locations, the works to be added into it. With a small goal of £15,000, we can expect to see Anima turn into the game Cipher Studios has been dying to make. That being said, let’s take a look at Anima, shall we? Just what is Anima about?

The Messengers are mysterious beings who spend the majority of their time hanging around the Arcane.

Anima takes place in a world on the brink of warfare and chaos. This is not a bright, pretty fantasy world full of fairy tales and pleasantries. This world holds a dark and secretive past. Gaia is an anachronistic world merging together both medieval aspects and attractive magical elements to create this mysterious place. Anima is designed to give the feel of an open world experience though it is not quite a sandbox. A good portion of the story will be taking place in an unusual tower named Arcane, which is connected to The Messengers, who are considered the antagonists of the game.

The Bearer is the character we mainly control, who is the gateway for Ergo to visit the world of Gaia.

Some time ago, a prophetess had a horrible vision of the end of life as we know it. We had fallen to the power of twenty one creatures of with an unknown purpose. This vision, taken seriously, brought forth the existence of what we deem to be The Messengers. These beings are each the embodiment of the largest threats the world has ever known, each notably intelligent and containing great power to be reckoned with.

Combining both Ergo’s and The Bearer’s abilities, players can utilize different abilities from each character that delivers an interesting offense.

Players switch between a female and male protagonist, Ergo Mundus and his nameless companion, The Bearer. Some time ago, Ergo caused a potentially earth shattering conflict that lead to his physical being to destroyed and his soul forcibly placed in a book. The Bearer is a young girl responsible for forming a pact with Ergo, becoming inseparable from him. Together, these two switch between one body in combat on their journey in the ancient society of Nathaniel.

To me, the gameplay outright screams Devil May Cry, right away. It’s a third person RPG that is completely action oriented though the story remains important. Both Ergo and The Bearer have unique abilities that come in handy during combat. Working together with both personalities enabled some amazing offenses. Players have the option to customize their skill palette with a handy dandy skill tree to create combos.

Players will explore the world of Gaia to answer the mystery behind their summoning and the impending war.

Cipher is planning to release Anima: Gate of Memories through Steam on PC, Mac, and Linux; while next generation consoles are being considered. A release date hasn’t been mentioned yet but they are already giving backers from the previous campaign Alpha access. With the extended campaign’s success, we can expect Anima to be completed much sooner and to have improved visual and audio quality overall; hopefully making the delay worth the wait.

The Anima: Gate of Memories extended Kickstarter campaign runs until June 26th and has a £15,000 goal.

[facebook][tweet][Google][pinterest][follow id=”Cliqist” size=”large” count=”true” ] [author image=”http://cliqist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/julie.jpg” ]Julie Morley is a freelance writer and comic artist from Spring, Texas. She attended the Academy of Art University for two years, studying Animation and Illustration. Whilst here, she learned about writing comic scripts, storyboards, and general storytelling.  Since leaving college, she has been working on personal comic projects, stories, and illustrations. She aspires to release a self published comic within two years. For the majority of her life, sh e has been playing console games, typically being third-person shooters and sandboxes. Her favorite game of existence is Dark Cloud II (Dark Chronicle) and her favorite Indie game is Gone Home.[/author]