RPGs on consoles and RPGs on the PC have always been very different, to tell you the truth I am not all that big a fan of PC RPGs. For me they are a bit nerdy. Anyways Anachronox has a distinctly console based RPG feeling about it. 
From character development to settings, Anachronox has an epic feel about it, but the game never takes itself seriously. The script is extremely well written. Some of the cutscenes especially the splitting of the planet Sunder and the post sunder-split movies are really really well done and are some of the best I have ever seen in any form of gaming. Not because they had earth-shattering graphics or something (which they didn't) but because they were extremely well directed and written. Aside from that character interaction has been nicely handled.  It's clever and filled with all the things you'd never find in your conventional PC Role Playing Game. Sometimes it actually feels like you are playing a movie.

Interface design and controls are the make-or-break factor in a RPG (aside from the story). Luckily, the interface design in Anachronox is very smartly done and is pretty out-there if you will, Sly Boots - the game's hero- has a FDA - Flying Digital Assistant. The ever present cursor in RPGs is explained in the game's storyline, answering the age old question - what the f&%k is that cursor doing in the game (except pointing-and-clicking). In Anachronox, the cursor is Boot's FDA which in turn is his secretary Fatima who he had had digitized after she died. Fatima keeps track of your quests, your saves and logs while providing background info about your quests. The control scheme in the game is the lovechild of the third person controls coupled with  the classic point and click controls. Makes for pretty effective controlling of you r characters through the immersive worlds.

Talking of worlds, the worlds in the Anachronox universe are pretty believable starting form the dark, beautiful and gothic monasteries of Hephaestus to the open ended twenty-fifth century metallic structure of the Sender Station, the worlds are very immersive. Locales are very different from what you would expect. One moment you are running though sterilized long metallic corridors in  Democratus, the next moment you are doing a sexy turn-on-all-the -women-out-there man dance in the Red light district in the Sender Station. 

Inventory management is a breeze in this game. Instead of rummaging though all your stuff to see which stuff fits where, the games just uses what needs to be used when and where. Almost all puzzles work on this principle, so item management isn't at all a problem. Item gathering on the other is a bitch, most of the time you are gonna miss a few things lying around here and there, like I once found a annulet of Beefiness in a small porch in Hephaestus hidden in the bushes. Apart from that, the game manages to hide "item gathering" under a veil called "Detective Work", whatever you call it it's a drag sometimes. The game is basically based on errands. Talk to one guy, he will ask you to talk some other guy all the way accross town who will ask you to pick up his wife's bra from the cleaners...wait or was that a stinky sock from a limp.

The gameplay is tweaked up nicely in the characters having special world skills. Like Boots' would be "Lockpicking" or PAL-18 the robot's would be hacking computers or "Computalk". These special skills are little minigames, i.e. like to use Boots' skill to unlock doors, you have to guess a series of numbers before time runs out. There is an indicator that tells you how close or wide of the mark you are.

There aren't any random battles. Enemies are set in pre-scripted locations and battles happen right then and there. No longer are you whisked away in a flourish of screen transitions to some faraway battlefield.

Just because the fights are no longer random doesn't mean they are avoidable. A fixed number of preordained fights take away from the leveling-up and character strength development. Sure, you can exit some areas and let enemies reset back into place, but the fighting and leveling simply lack a little something and feel almost arbitrary.

There's also a Materia-esque magic system (dubbed 'Mystech') that isn't very interesting. Using little elementor bugs, you can create all sorts of nifty spells. It's got depth, certainly, but feels derivative.

As a whole, the battles play conventionally to a fault. Still, some strategy has been added in the ability to move your character to set points, and your FDA replaces traditional menu wading nicely.

The game is built on the Quake II engine. It's not bad, per se, but certainly dated; you need look no further than the blocky, overly pointed character models. The environmental design makes the most of the situation - beautiful gothic cathedrals and spaceship terminals that feel like airports really add some immersion.

The sounds and music in the game are absolutely well done. Ranging from the cool serene plinking of a sad piano in the monasteries to the raging techno beats in the Redlight district. Voice overs are used in the game's more important events. Highlighting the character's attitudes, the voice overs are well chosen, I still haven't totally figured out why Sly Boot's robot, the Pal-18, has the voice of Eric Cartman (South Park). Hmm...fat little boy, fat little robot - sure, why not?

It's ironic that bug collection is one of the in-game tasks, since the game itself is a locust infestation of bugs - programming bugs, that is. Prior to the patch, there was a doozy of a bug that gave you unlimited money. I wouldn't mind one of those bugs in my ATM, but it's a bit much in a game. The most recent patch released fixes a long list of problems, but still not all of them.

I just finished fighting a major boss in the Mystech tunnels. A small cutscene ensues, and then....Windows desktop! Maybe your computer will never run into a crash, but with the infinite number of PC combinations, I'll doubt anyone will be completely free of the dreaded bugs. 

For some inexplicable reason, the two graphic modes are Low-Res: 640 x 480, and Hi-Res: 1280 x 960. What about everything in between? There's a way to decrease the upper limit of the resolution, but it involves muddling through configuration files. Not for the uninitiated.

I loved the game, but there are pretty minor flaws that doesn't really hamper gameplay. But look at it this way AMERICANS made an RPG. It's a pretty good game, despite the stupid puzzle Rho Bowman has to face in the temples. The writing and the design is fresh and innovative. I would recommend this game to every console RPG fan out there.