Anomaly President Early Access - Impressions
Anomaly President is a political movement I can get behind.
2026 may be the best year yet for indie games. As time has gone on, they just keep getting better. If it seems I'm handing out an unusual number of high review scores, I promise that was not my intent. I have enjoyed almost every video game that has come my way in the past eight months. Even the Early Access stuff is a promising sign of what's to come. While this has been a dark time in multiple ways, especially in the gaming sphere with the constant news of layoffs, the staggering amount of well-made and fun games still coming out show there's still good in the world.
This is one of them. Anomaly President is the follow-up to Anomaly Agent, made by the Turkish game development team Phew Phew Games. This game took me by surprise in the sheer volume of zaniness and creativity shoved into the early access package.
The game opens with the protagonist's father. He's currently on the campaign trail running against President Rexford, the man in charge of this cyberpunk dystopian nightmare. Protag's father's platform is to establish equal rights for Fluffies. This is controversial statement in this universe. It’s especially upsetting to Rexford as he exploits the species for cheap labor. Therefore he has every reason to hate protag’s father.
When the president-to-be stops at an equal rights rally he ends up captured by the villain's thugs. He doesn't stay kidnapped long though. The main character immediately sets out to rescue him. Things escalate and one short tutorial later, the campaign manager runs over the security minister with the campaign bus, saving both father and son. The good news is the two are saved. The bad news is now they're labelled as terrorists. And so begins the quest to win the election against the powerful and quite evil Rexford.
Anomaly President is split into two different parts. During the day time is a base management section reminiscent of SimTower, except with the campaign bus. At night is the side scrolling action segment where our main character goes on missions to eliminate problematic targets. Both of these are incredibly fun, and have that "Just one more attempt" energy. The entire cycle usually took 10-15 minutes, just the perfect length to squeeze in a couple days during my lunch.
One of the things I quite enjoy is the narrative flexibility with the plot. I was allowed to choose dialogue responses that allowed to me to shape the personality of the main character. The story is overall silly with a sense of black humor. Not all of it is like this though and more somber moments do occur. For example, one of the side quests I experienced in the first area ended surprisingly very sadly. I have every intention to go back and see if I can change the outcome at some point.
Fighting includes various options at the start, with a dodge, a parry, and two weapons to attack enemies. The combat itself feels wonderful. It uses a huge toolkit that includes weapons, elemental powers, limit breaks know as anomalys, and support fluffies to add a lot of variety to the many builds possible to take out enemies. As more things get unlocked via the Campaign Bus, the protag gets stronger and better options. I thought the combat feels pretty good — it's challenging but not too hard. It's possible this will change as as Phew Phew Games is still working on tweaks and balances.
The game development team thought hard how to keep an action roguelike feeling fresh and have executed it well. From my best understanding, there's only about 3-4 hours of content, though there's a lot of replay value. This is a very good start, which I think it already worth the purchase price. I'm very excited to see where Anomoly President goes from here.
