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On November 7, 2025, Anima Project released a remaster of Anima: Gate of Memories and its companion piece Anima: The Nameless Chronicles. These Action-RPGs had middle-of-the-road reviews back when they first released, but have grown a dedicated following of fans from both gamers and fans of the Anima TTRPG. These remasters feature updated resolution and visuals in order to introduce new players to this duology. Although I never played these games when they were originally released, I shall be reviewing this remaster as its own title. So let’s break this title down piece by piece and decide for ourselves if Anima: Gate of Memories is worth playing in 2025.
Simple Character-Action Combat
The main combat in Anima Gate of Memories can best be described as character-action with some RPG elements. Encounters primarily consist of performing light attacks with one button, heavy attacks with another, and launching enemies into the air to attack them without risking being harmed by surrounding foes.
One special feature in Anima that helps make it stand out from other Character-Action games is the stamina and magic meters the game has. Whenever the player uses a physical attack or runs, their stamina will decrease, while casting spells will decrease their magic.
Because different attacks and spells will consume a varying amount of their respective meters, the game does a good job at making sure players spice up their combos and perform a variety of attacks during each encounter.
In addition to that, the game also features a style meter that grows based on the variety of moves the player uses, with their rank decreasing if they get hit or spam the same attack repeatedly. This, in combination with the previously mentioned stamina and magic meters, means the player is almost always encouraged to spice up how they handle combat encounters.
There are two playable characters in Anima that the player can switch between at any time with the press of a button: The Bearer and Ergo. Despite the two characters looking very different, they play almost identically to each other. The choice of who to play as primarily comes down to either encountering an enemy that only one of the duo can damage or switching to whoever has higher health, as the two don’t share a health bar.
While the combat in this title doesn’t have the deepest system in the world, it is more than passable and can be quite enjoyable at times. Unfortunately, it does take a long time for it to peak as it is held back by the game’s RPG mechanics, primarily its skill tree.
Flawed RPG Mechanics, Perfect RPG World
Being based on a TTRPG, Anima: Gate of Memories wisely includes RPG mechanics such as stats, which are increased via equipment and leveling up. The game’s skill tree is actually quite clever in that it simultaneously increases stats along with learning skills instead of padding itself out with nodes that exist only to give incremental stat increases like other games.
The issue with this skill tree comes in the form of the skills it actually gives. For the first third of the game, anything learned from the skill tree will feel like it should have been part of your moveset from the start. Abilities like the ability to kick enemies in the air feel like a necessary part of your moveset, so having to go through at least a full area without them makes the combat feel stiffer than it is.
This becomes less of a problem as the game progresses and the player has full access to their basic moveset, but it can be quite a bother early on and has the potential to turn players off of this title.
Aside from the combat, there is one element of Anima’s gameplay which must be mentioned: platforming. One of the worst aspects of Anima is the inclusion of platforming segments where the player must jump over bottomless pits, which take away a chunk of their health upon failure. Because the two protagonists jumps were designed for combat instead of movement, these segments feel awkward at best and annoying at worst.
There will even be times where the player is being attacked by an enemy while they jump, which wouldn’t be an issue if not for the fact that attacking in mid-air removes all momentum from your protagonist and makes them plummet to their death. While there aren’t many of these segments, they are easily the most frustrating parts of the Anima experience.
One area where the RPG elements of this game do shine, though, is how the game is structured. Instead of being stage-based like many other action games, Anima Gate of Memories has a non-linear world, which encourages the player to tackle areas in any order they want.
The first time the player encounters a boss in this game, they will almost certainly be intimidated by an extremely hard encounter. However, that isn’t an issue as there is nothing stopping you from going to another area, progressing as much as you can there as your level increases, and then returning stronger later.
This is the real magic of Anima’s game design and what makes it a truly engaging game. Finding a key in one area, bringing it back to the mansion area to get a sidequest, and along the way beating the boss in the mansion now that you’re strong enough is the type of moment that really makes the game’s pieces click into place.
Visual Improvements and Presentation Flaws
The biggest change between the original Anima Gate of Memories and this current remaster is easily the visuals, which have been completely reworked to look more vibrant with brighter colors that pop to the viewer.
While I have never played the original version of the game, as stated in the intro to this review, just looking at comparison images to the original game shows that this was more than just a simple resolution upgrade, as each aspect of the game, from character models to the areas you run around in, has been improved.
It’s a shame that the game primarily takes place in dark and drab areas like the mansion and tower because the reworked visuals of the title shine at their brightest in outdoor areas like the Great Plains. Of course, this wasn’t true for the original release, which looked worse outdoors, but it’s just a shame that the prettiest parts of the Remaster are also the briefest.
On the topic of visuals, cutscene presentation in Anima Gate of Memories is quite awkward-looking at times due to none of the character models moving while the background and other elements continue to move around them. This seems to be in equal parts a stylistic choice in addition to a budgetary one, so it’s hard to fault the development team here. Despite that, it can be quite off-putting at times.
These presentation issues became more apparent when combined with the game’s voice acting, which is often very flat. Most characters come off as emotionless in a way that rarely feels intended. One exception to this is Ergo, whose delivery comes off as playful and humorous, as a breath of fresh air from the rest of the cast.
While Anima: Gate of Memories I&II Remastered is a good game with great moments once you have given it time to show its hand in terms of how its world is structured, it is also a title marred by issues with its skill tree and presentation that may turn players away. However, it is still a well put together title and more than deserved to be remastered like this.
This shall not be the end of the Anima series either, as last year, Anima Project was able to successfully crowdfund another title in this series: Anima Song From the Abyss. While this title’s release is still far off, one has to hope that it’ll build off of the previous game’s gameplay and provide a thrilling experience for fans.
Anima: Gate of Memories 1&2 Remastered
Bottom Line
Anima: Gate of Memories is a fantastic remaster of a good game. While the combat is simple and the RPG mechanics can come across as undercooked at times, the overall gameplay loop and experience is sure to engage gamers looking for a short and simple action-RPG which clearly had a good idea and a lot of heart put behind it during development.
