Anime Games on PC: Get ready for epic adventures and iconic characters

There should be a lot more crossover between anime and video games. Many people in both fields simultaneously work as voice actors, authors, and character designers. Additionally, many game designers drew inspiration from childhood favourites like Pokémon or Ghost in the Shell when creating video games.

Choose from enormous JRPGs, ridiculously extravagant fighters, or crime-solving graphic novels. Read on for our favourites if you’re searching for an interactive anime fix. Everyone will find something to enjoy.

Best Anime Fighting Games

• Dragon Ball Fighter Z

Nothing resembles an Arc System Works game visually. The firm has mastered the use of both 3D and 2D animation in dazzling fighting games like Blazblue and Guilty Gear, but Dragon Ball FighterZ is the best example. It transforms altercations into legitimate anime battles by guaranteeing that you always see the greatest viewpoint whenever you execute a stupid manoeuvre. And for that reason, it is the best anime fighting game ever made. 

Due to the anime influence, DBFZ not only appeals to beginners but also gives you a sense of strength unmatched by any other fighting game. For example, in Dragon Ball, opponents are frequently launched into space or hit so hard that the majority of the surrounding environment is destroyed. 

• Tekken 7

Although Tekken 7 offers auto combos and assistance, using them disables the buttons you need for other moves. It doesn’t really cater to beginners. You must study punishments, standard combinations, and frame data if you want to succeed in Tekken 7. However, it is upfront about how difficult it is, treating story mode like a tutorial as it is aware that the majority of players utilise narrative mode to get a feel for the game. Additionally, you can enjoy the extravagant cutscenes in which Heihachi kicks missiles back at the persons who fired them.

Tekken 7 is a fighting game worth investing countless hours of your life in. It was created for the PC and has a boisterously active online community that is committed to the software. 

Best Anime JRPGs

• Tales of Vesperia- Definitive Edition

Since 1995’s Tales of Phantasia, Bandai Namco’s Tales series has exposed us to many planets that need saving, but Tales of Vesperia, which debuted in 2008 as an Xbox 360 exclusive, stands out because of the way it hits that classic JRPG sweet spot. There is a conventional kaleidoscopic fantasy world to explore, endearing misfits as its heroes who mostly simply happen to run across each other, a turn-based and real-time battle system, and more.

Tales of Vesperia also has pretty traditional 2D graphics, with sequences created by well-known animation studio Production I.G. and characters created by manga artist Kousuke Fujishima. More than just the graphics, though, what makes Tales of Vesperia such a fantastic JRPG is the sense of a huge adventure in distant realms, packed with everything from dragons to pirates and enigmatic magical forces.

• Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Finally, a video game managed to replicate Studio Ghibli’s signature appeal with Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. The creators of the classic films My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away contributed to the creation of Ni No Kuni and created its animated cutscenes. Akihiro Hino, who worked on games like Dark Cloud, Dragon Quest 8 and 9, and the Professor Layton series, managed to hit the same sentimental notes even though Ni No Kuni wasn’t created by anyone at Ghibli.

Ni No Kuni tells fairy tales in which young heroes acquire the ability to save numerous worlds—mostly by stuffing a lot of food into their stomachs, catching strange animals, and then dashing off into danger—in the same manner that many Studio Ghibli films work for both children and adults.

You can play Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom after finishing Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. The sequel still uses the distinctive animation style even if Studio Ghibli wasn’t involved in its creation.

• Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade

Yes, remakes have buried us in recent years. But don’t let that turn you off from the Final Fantasy 7 Remake. It may appear to be a retelling of disc one’s cyberpunk fable of a stratified city with a more action-oriented combat system and some Akira-style motorcycle chases thrown in, but the game is cleverer than you might realise in the way it manipulates your expectations and bends the plot it knows you’re expecting. The conflict is not as straightforward as it appears. Combos are merely something you do to fill up bars needed to execute spells and abilities, slowing down time as you search menus for attacks that deal damage beyond chip damage.

In FF7R, the Shinra Corporation attempts to push Midgar into a war they can benefit from while the slum-protecting ecoterrorists of Avalanche fight to end their reliance on the planet’s lifestream for electricity. Another force, meantime, is working to rewrite the well-known story that is taking place in this setting. Man, it has layers. similar to the city.

Don’t look past Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age when you’re considering final fantasy. Its gambit system makes for some of the finest combat the franchise has ever seen, and the PC remaster includes upgrades like a fast-forward button to speed things up two or four times.

Best Open World Anime Games

• Nier Automata

The main character in Nier Automata might be mistaken for one of the gorgeous body-pillow girls who give anime and its fans a terrible rap (sometimes rightly, but that’s another topic). However, how many anime girls do you know that can fly like jets? How many of them can effectively hack and slash their way through armies of foes? Okay, quite a few, but how many of those are also struggling with the fact that they were created as weapons for an endless conflict?

It’s not just a hack-and-slash game, Nier Automata. It also delves deeply into the concept of free choice, what war is, and whether or not ignorance can keep us sane. It’s serious stuff that expertly portrays anime’s darker side. Not everything is bright colours and adorable women. The hardships of war are occasionally discussed, along with gorgeous girls. 

• Code Vein

Code Vein, a souls-like video game from Bandai Namco, is a fantastic illustration of the saying “more is sometimes more.” Its world has been overrun by vampire-like creatures that can release a lethal miasma, and you’re one of a handful of young, fashionable, superpowered individuals attempting to control the monster population with enormously huge weapons. The events of the game are difficult to explain simply, as is frequently the case with anime games. That is a feature of Code Vein’s appeal.

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy

As Phoenix Wright, it is your responsibility to establish your client’s innocence in court. To do this, you will need to question witnesses in-depth and look for evidence at crime scenes. Like a typical lawyer would, of course.

Although there is murder and drama, Ace Attorney is rarely gloomy. In these games, anything is conceivable, and outcomes are never what you anticipate. You need to be prepared to question the witness’s pet parrot when you put on your flashy blue suit, just in case. 

The renowned Ace Attorney Chronicles includes two prequels set in the Victorian era and featuring an ancestor of Phoenix Wright who partners up with the renowned detective “Herlock Sholmes,” while Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy contains the first three games in the series.

• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc takes the Phoenix Wright games’ psychics, ghosts, and attractive clowns and amps up the silliness if you find them too ombre and sombre. The story takes place in a school for gifted pupils where the most recent class of young people wake up to find themselves confined in the academy with a talking robot bear. 

They are all participating in what sounds like a sociological experiment, the bear ads, and they will only be permitted to escape if they kill each other and get away with it. If a student kills another, there is an investigation before trial; if the murderer is not found, the murderer is let off while everyone else is put to death. The killer is executed and the other pupils are kept in hiding if they are found out. Until the next murder, at which point the entire cycle will repeat.

The puzzles vary in quality, but they are all suspenseful because of a method that turns the “truth bullets”—clues you discover during the investigation phase—into bullets you can fire at claims those clues refute. The trials also include other minigames, some of which, like the mysteries, are superior to others. (If you don’t get along with them, you can always adjust the difficulty.) Danganronpa’s exaggerated, vibrant, and bizarre atmosphere elevates its characters and setting.

• Zero Escape: The Nonary Games

The Zero Escape series is another alternative for amusing viewers to witness crazy characters engage in combat and outwit one another in order to survive. Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, and Virtue’s Last Reward, the first two games in the series that were originally handheld puzzlers, were combined into Zero Escape: The Nonary Games and were ultimately released on PC in 2017 with a graphical upgrade over the DS original and several other new features.

The Nonary Games mix challenging escape room puzzles with a plot that viciously pits protagonists against one another to create two of the best anime thrillers available. You won’t see what’s coming in this first-person puzzle and visual novel hybrid, so you should actually play it to find out.

Best Free Anime Games

• Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links

It’s entertaining to think back on the days you played card games with pals and spent a lot of money on expensive cards. Yu-Gi-Oh! The anime was essentially just a thrilling 30-minute advertisement for a pricey card game, but fear not—this time it won’t set you back quite as much. 

There are many tournaments and seasons in the large, competitive Duel Links community. This game is complete because it has a story mode as well. Although there are microtransactions, you may still earn a lot of incentives without spending any money. More importantly, the presentation is excellent, featuring the original voice actors and straightforward but powerful animations.

• Crush Crush

Dating simulators are transformed into idle games by Crush Crush and Hush Hush, its equivalent on the masculine side. (Several of the devs had previously worked on the wildly popular AdVenture Capitalist before switching to smut.) You manage a certain amount of time blocks to perform several professions and hone your abilities while meeting a cast of cuties and winning their hearts with moonlit strolls, gift showers, and excessive flirting. A mecha pilot, a time traveller, a holographic vocaloid, and a bear dubbed “Bearverly” are among those cute characters.