Game Review: Anodia 2 - The New Brick Breaker Will Mesmerise You

by Chrisanna Lazaridou on 19 May 2015 · 3141 views

When I downloaded Anodia 2 I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I mean, I watched the trailer and it reminded me of similar games such as “Peggle Blast” and “Wonderball Heroes”, and I didn’t know whether it could deliver more challenging and fun gameplay than the others. But when I got into it, well, one thing led to another and long story short, let’s just say I stopped writing this review multiple times in order to play "just one more round". It is way too addicting!

Its predecessor, Anodia, was released about 4 years ago and wasn't free, but now the developers are back with Anodia 2 and I’m more than happy to say that they speed up their game and gave us a beautifully crafted, modern, challenging, addicting and an amazing quick-fix game in general.

Gameplay

The goal is simple: we have the paddle, the ball, and all sorts of objects that you should hit and destroy in a plethora of unlockable levels. Every time you hit a brick it gets weaker, and hitting it again will break it completely. Many power ups fall when you destroy bricks, each one with a unique ability; they are quite a lot of them, and it all happens so fast that it will probably take time for you memorize and understand what they offer. There are power ups that increase the speed of the paddle or make it more controllable (with a trade-off in terms of speed), power ups that turn the ball into a “comet” of sorts or make it stick to the paddle instead of jumping back up, as well as power ups that turn one ball into three and inflict more damage, even though this way it's harder to move the paddle in a direction that will save them all before they fall to the ground. There are a lot more power ups and it’s probably the game’s strong point after the large number of levels.

Speaking of levels, they come in a variety of colors, shapes and difficulties. There are 80 levels waiting to be unlocked in the same way as Crossy Road characters are unlocked, i.e. by spending 100 coins in the lottery machine and picking the surprise ball, which includes a new level. I simply adore this feature from the moment I saw it on Crossy Road and I’m so glad more games are using it instead of forcing the player to unlock levels through IAP, which is unfair and altogether frustrating. When you unlock a level you can go to the levels menu and tap on it to play. If you tap on the levels that appear locked show you a glimpse of what they look like, but there are also locked levels that only display a question mark and I’m guessing they’re special levels. I haven’t unlocked any of these yet.

There is a small trick to controlling where the ball goes or to slow it down when it starts coming down and you can’t follow its movements. The trick is to double tap on the ball and you’ll see star-like white circles appear around it and it will start moving in a different direction like being blew by the wind. I found this trick by accident and it has been very useful.

In-App Purchases

Anodia 2 is a freemium done right. As mentioned above levels are unlockable through lottery and 100 coins are not much considering you collect enough coins from every round and by watching game ads. But if you want to unlock everything all at once, you can do that with a $30 purchase. There's no reason to do that though because the fun lies in unlocking levels slowly and enjoying them after putting a lot of effort.

Graphics & Sounds

The minimalistic look works great and the crystal-clear colors together with the beautiful designs bring out the game’s true essence. Compared to the 1^st game’s graphics (which were not bad but let’s not forget it came out 4 years ago) they are far more polished and modernized.

As far as the sounds go I’m addicted to the sound of the ball hitting on the objects. It’s such a pleasant sound effect and I can’t get enough of it. The BG music is not always the same and every tune is soft and calming.

Conclusion

Anodia 2 rightfully deserves a place in in your arcade games list, as long as you enjoy these types of games of course. You don’t have to pay to enjoy it to its fullest, it is challenging without being too frustrating or too difficult, and it is extremely well made. There’s hardly anything to not like about it objectively so I recommend it to all. Let us know your thoughts about it in the comments below!