Sly Boots is a private investigator who is in a bit of trouble – money trouble that is. So his first priority is to earn some money; when a mysterious rich man unexpectedly turns up with a tempting offer, Sly begins to think that his troubles are a thing of the past. Naturally, he couldn’t have been more wrong, as he soon slides into something much, much bigger: he will discover a great mystery which may cause the destruction of the universe.
Anachronox is a sci-fi role-playing game that predominantly follows the Japanese template, though also incorporating elements from Western-style RPGs. Though its plot is serious in nature, the game features humorous dialogue and many bizarre situations.
The combat system has many similarities to the Final Fantasy series. It is turn-based in principle, but every character has an action bar. After every action it is depleted, and when it is filled again the next action can be started – no matter if the enemy has attacked or not. Important differences are the ability to move around on the battlefield in restricted ways and the non-random battles. Another similarity is the character development which automatically increases the character’s stats.
However, the game is less combat-oriented than most Japanese-style RPGs. Most of the time is spent exploring the hub areas, solving (side) quests and conversing with people.
At first Sly is alone, save for his electronic secretary Fatima, but during the course of the game he recruits six party members to help him out, some of which are rather eccentric. Every party member has a special ability, played out in action-based mini-games, which are needed to solve quests, e.g. Sly can lockpick doors. There are also other mini-games to be found, partly needed to solve quests and partly optional. Sometimes there are traditional logic puzzles to solve.
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