Anomaly President - Early Access Review

Anomaly President was provided by the publisher. Thank you! It's worth noting that this is in early access. Our thoughts may change once the game has released into 1.0.

I'm primarily an AAA gamer who doesn't have a ton of experience with indie games. I'm a huge Slay the Spire addict and have dabbled in roguelikes like Hades for a bit, but overall, I'm very picky and quite uncultured when it comes to the genre.

There was one big exception, though: Anomaly Agent.

I was initially interested in the game because I already followed one of its developers, fellow Turkish content creator and gamer Enis Kirazoğlu. That's what convinced me to give it a shot a couple of years ago, and I ended up falling in love with it. Even though it was a relatively simple action platformer at its core, its incredibly funny and unique writing, fantastic music, and distinct artistic direction gave it so much personality. It was addictive, and I enjoyed pretty much every moment I spent with it.

So, when I heard that a sequel was on the way, I was immediately excited. I've now spent over 15 hours with Anomaly President in Early Access, so let's see whether this sequel has what it takes to capture my heart all over again.

I called Anomaly President a sequel, and while technically it is, it's almost the exact opposite of the first game. Anomaly Agent was a linear, campaign-based action platformer with some minor roguelike elements sprinkled on top. This time, the developers have taken a complete 180-degree turn, making Anomaly President a full-on roguelite with some platforming elements sprinkled into the mix instead. I get it; at a time when you want your game to succeed and keep players coming back, a highly replayable and addictive RNG/run-based formula is certainly one way to go.

I'm extremely happy to say that the characters, sarcastic tone, and incredibly well-written dialogue from the first game haven't lost any of their charm in Anomaly President. The same goes for its catchy soundtrack, which was one of the things I fell in love with in the original. So, even though the game is drastically different, it still carries the same personality and charm that made me love Anomaly Agent in the first place.

The gameplay, on the other hand, has actually been a massive disappointment for me.

Anomaly President brings a unique presidential campaign spin to the roguelite genre. The world is suffering under the dictatorship of the current president, Roxford, while the main character Venty's father, Mr. Sev, is running against him to bring down his regime. The problem is that this world is absurdly corrupt. The media, law enforcement, and even schools are controlled by Roxford's tyranny, meaning there's an obstacle waiting around practically every corner as you slowly but surely try to increase your share of the votes.

One of the game's most unique ideas is its "base of operations," which takes the form of a presidential campaign bus. The bus starts out small, but using the resources you gather throughout your runs, you can expand it with new rooms, elevators, magnets, kitchens, beds, and plenty of other facilities. You can also recruit Fluffies, the game's primary worker and voter population, to work inside it. The bus is where you improve Venty's powers, health, resource management, unlock mini-games, and various other permanent attributes, making its constant expansion and improvement one of the main selling points of the game.

The actual gameplay loop is fairly straightforward. There's a semi-open world map divided into unique chapters, each culminating in a boss fight. You enter a chapter, fight through hordes of enemies, upgrade your weapons, gain the support of Fluffies, collect resources for your bus, acquire passive and active abilities, stack elemental buffs, and gradually become stronger through a series of RNG-based choices. Defeat the boss of that territory, and the chapter is completed, opening the way to the next one.

Of course, this is a roguelite, so the game is designed around you inevitably dying. Once that happens, you lose your levels and temporary upgrades and are sent back to the campaign bus, where your next attempt begins from the first chapter again. However, the money and resources gathered during your previous run come back with you, allowing you to invest in bus upgrades and permanent buffs that make Venty stronger for every subsequent attempt.

For the first couple of runs, I was having a blast. Every time I died, even the same chapters started to develop a unique identity thanks to constantly changing dialogue and mini-stories. It did a great job of masking the genre's repetitive nature and, more importantly, gave me a reason to keep going. Unfortunately, that novelty eventually wore off, and after about four or five hours, everything began to feel like a chore.

The variety of enemies and bosses is extremely limited. You quickly get used to the attack patterns of every enemy you encounter, and usually won't see anything meaningfully new until you finally reach a chapter you were previously stuck on. If the repetitive bus management wasn't enough, I now had to spend close to an hour spamming my X button through the same enemies I've already fought countless times, only to die to the boss I was stuck on and... bam. Back to the bus. Rinse and repeat.

I know, I know. That's what roguelites fundamentally are. But in most of the best games in the genre, this repetitive loop becomes fun because of the sheer build variety, crazy synergies, and upgrades that can completely change your playstyle from one run to another. That's where Anomaly President falls short for me. The core combat and its upgrades feel far too minor and uninteresting to compensate for the repetition.

You get an elemental weapon and start zapping, burning, or freezing enemies, but you're still engaging with the same old spammy combat underneath it all. You unlock Anomaly Powers and recruit support Fluffies that occasionally pop onto the screen to shoot, fart, or do whatever else they do, but at its core, very little actually changes. I rarely got that satisfying "oomph" from discovering a unique power-up or synergy that suddenly transforms a run into something completely different.

As I progressed from chapter to chapter, the repetitive bus management and increasingly monotonous combat slowly killed my desire to launch the game again. And considering that the addictive "one more run" feeling is arguably one of the most important parts of a roguelite, that's a catastrophic failure in my opinion.

The sad part is that I really like the narrative, the style, and the entire concept surrounding it. I want to know what happens when I finally overthrow the government. I want to see where Venty's campaign goes and how this ridiculous presidential race ultimately ends. I genuinely dig the idea behind all of it.

The jewel is clearly there. Unfortunately, reaching it has started to feel like a chore, and I've reached the point where I simply don't want to click that Play button anymore.

Anomaly President - Steam Deck Performance

Of course, a 2D artistic roguelike would run at a stable 90 FPS on the Steam Deck. That's a no-brainer, right?...

Well, in Anomaly President's case, they somehow managed to accomplish the impossible and make the Deck struggle. In most areas, the game can't even maintain 60 FPS. Half the time, you're looking at a constantly fluctuating 50–55 FPS experience, while the other half sees the game randomly lock itself to 45 FPS, suddenly unlock again, and then repeat this bizarre performance loop.

At first, I wondered whether some kind of manual TDP limit had been implemented while optimizing the game for the Deck, perhaps sacrificing performance to improve battery life. But nope. Anomaly President can draw a whopping 17–18W from the battery as if it were some kind of AAA title.

Stability is all over the place, and considering what's actually being rendered on screen, these performance issues indicate that something is seriously wrong with the game's optimization. This becomes even harder to justify when Anomaly Agent ran at a perfect 60 FPS while drawing around 10W from the battery. There simply isn't enough of a visual leap here to justify how poorly its sequel currently performs on the Deck.

And considering that Anomaly President is built around fast reactions, swordplay, and combos, inconsistent performance like this isn't just an issue on a performance graph. It directly affects how the game feels to play, and in its current state, it's definitely not a pleasant experience on the Steam Deck.

結論

Anomaly President almost made me fall in love with it during its opening hours, but strangely, every hour I spent with it made me want to play it less. The charm, humor, music, and fantastic concept of Anomaly Agent are still here, but repetitive combat, shallow upgrades, and tedious bus management slowly bury them underneath an unrewarding roguelite loop. There is a jewel underneath all that rust, and thankfully, this is exactly what Early Access is for. I hope Phew Phew Games isn't afraid to make drastic changes, because Anomaly President still has everything it needs to become something special.

The Steam Deck experience is much harder to recommend right now. Constant 50–55 FPS fluctuations, bizarre 45 FPS locks, and a massive 17–18W battery draw are difficult to justify for a game like this, especially when Anomaly Agent ran at a near-perfect 60 FPS while drawing around 10W. For a game built around fast reactions and swordplay, Anomaly President simply needs much more optimization before I can recommend playing it on Deck.