Daedalic Entertainment has done it again with Anna’s Quest and boldly waving the flag for the point and click adventure game. By now, we should have zero doubts that the genre is thriving with some quality titles.
Anna’s Quest is a Brothers Grimm variant, to some degree. Anna is a naive young girl who lives with her grandpa. As his health deteriorates, Anna ventures into the woods to find a cure for him. This is against his wishes, but he doesn’t have much choice.
She’s immediately captured and imprisoned by an old witch named Winfriede, who experiments on her. Nothing notably dark, just locked in a room with various stuffed animals, possibly poisoned soup, and a camera affixed on her at all times. Oh yeah, she repeatedly sits under a device that sends ominous energy to unlock her potential.
Anna has telekinesis powers, which is a surprise to her, but also Winfriede when Anna promptly uses them to her advantage and sets out on her journey, Anna’s Quest, to Wunderhorn and seek that cure that definitely exists.
Being so naive works against her, but as she’s so readable, she enlists some helpers, too. A fairly useless teddy bear named Ben and a ghost, Joringel, soon to be detached from his skeletal prison, join Anna in the second chapter.
In the early chapters, you’re imprisoned by the witch and have to find a way to escape. This involves all the traits that can be expected from a point and click adventure, as you pick up seemingly valuable items to be used in a later solution or helplessly combine everything in your inventory in the hope it works. We all do it, right?
Anna’s Quest resembled Day of the Tentacle, and Winfriede reminded me of Nurse Edna at first, but in reality, she’s not remotely mad and very switched on. There are comical moments throughout, but with Anna at the helm, it’s of a much more naive nature than snidey self-aware remarks.
The most appealing part of Anna’s Quest on PS4 was playing with the family. I always hope to coerce my eldest into playing these sorts of games with me as she did with Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town, and having this up on the big screen not only piqued her interest, but my youngest’s too.
That means a lot to play a game together that isn’t always going to be Gang Beasts, and while the youngest can’t read properly yet, we all took turns to solve the puzzles together, the reward in Anna’s Quest being the unravelling of the story.
There are six chapters to Anna’s Quest, aptly organised as a fairy tale in its presentation, with the menus for things like save games and bonus material displayed as if looking through a book.
When you get into the story, you realise it’s that, as well as the characters, that make Anna’s Quest a standout. Anna is very likeable. Her goody-two-shoes persona does grate in a few places, but for the most part, her kindness is infectious, and you want to see her journey through to the end.
While the voice talent was excellent, hearing every single piece of dialogue from the perspective of Anna was a little whiny at times, and the noise she made when using her telekinetic powers sounded like she was having a dump. Nnnnhh! Generally speaking, though, as can be expected in the presentation department from a Daedalic game, it was of a very high standard throughout.
The title and question posted was ‘Is Anna’s Quest worth it?’. Yes, absolutely. It’s a standout point and click that will appeal to fans of fairytales, fleshed-out characterisations and problem-solving. Though it has its moments, it’s not a laugh-out-loud experience, but one that can be that doorway into family-friendly adventuring.
