10 Video Games That Feel Like Playing An Anime
Ever find yourself wishing you could escape the grind of modern life and be whisked away into a fantasy world where your biggest problem is slaying monsters with an oversized sword? You’re not alone. Every isekai anime is built on this same fantasy – usually beginning with a fatal encounter between the protagonist and a passing semi truck. While that’s one way to get transported to a fantasy world, there’s a less fatal alternative: video games. These ten games capture the high drama, flashy style, and heightened storytelling of anime—letting you live out your isekai dreams without risking life and limb.
Persona 5
Part anime Inception, part level-grinding JRPG, part life simulator, Persona 5 is everything you want in a video game and more. You take control of Joker, a young man who was framed for assault and put on probation. The new kid in school, you quickly form lasting friendships with your equally angst-ridden classmates, bonding over your psychospiritual power to break into people’s mindscapes, steal their malevolent desires, and change their hearts for the better. A complex combat system, a lovable cast, and a cerebral story combine into what is perhaps the greatest (and longest) RPG ever made. Seriously, you could spend 50 hours on this game and barely get through half of it. And the cutscenes? They’re literally anime!
Okami
One of the most underrated games of all time, Okami is a play-through of the greatest Studio Ghibli movie that never was. Set in mythological Japan, you take control of Amaterasu – the reincarnation of a sun goddess stripped of her power. Taking the form of a white wolf, you travel the land slaying demons alongside figures of Japanese folklore. Maiden-devouring snake monsters, drunken swordsmen, restless ghosts – the game is truly the stuff of legend. Okami also features one of the most unique combat systems ever created, allowing you to perform divine attacks by drawing on the screen with a celestial brush. Despite its sweeping scope, the game’s narrative is surprisingly intimate. It’s a story of faith in something greater than oneself, and how, with enough support, even an underdog (underwolf?) can move mountains.
Nier: Automata
Nier: Automata is post-apocalyptic Final Fantasy, but so much better. Set millennia in the future, the plot follows a proxy war between human-made androids and alien machines of extraterrestrial origins. On orders from her superiors, the android warrior named 2B slashes through enemies with slick anime protagonist style. While warring with the machine menace, she begins to question if the synthetic minds of her foes aren’t so different from her own. A deeply philosophical game, the narrative explores all sorts of thorny existential questions: how do you make meaning in a meaningless universe? What gives a person the right to take a life? Why is everyone wearing a blindfold? These questions don’t have clear answers in a troubled world like this—you’ll have to come up with them yourself.
Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
Like Okami before it, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the Witch feels like another Studio Ghibli movie that never was. Set in a sprawling storybook world, the plot follows a young boy named Oliver, who is left in shambles after the death of his mother. After crying his eyes out, he realizes that his tears have fallen on a doll his mother gave him, causing it to come to life. Oliver is told that he’s actually a denizen of a parallel world ruled by an evil wizard—a world where his mother’s parallel self may still be alive. With its sweeping narrative and real-time meets turn-based combat system, Wrath of the White Witch plays like a tactical Legend of Zelda title – delivering a similar coming-of-age adventure punch. If Chihiro from Spirited Away fought Yubaba by commanding an army of ghostly yokai, you’d have this game.
The Metal Gear Solid Series
Don’t be fooled by its focus on world politics and post-modern warfare, The Metal Gear Solid series is an anime to its very core. Created by video-game luminary Hideo Kojima, the series is an alternate military history of the world—tracing its narrative back to the mid 20th century. Each game feels like a slightly different film genre—Metal Gear Solid is cerebral 90’s espionage action. Metal Gear Solid 3 is a Cold War thriller with its own James Bond-style theme song. Metal Gear Solid 4 is a dystopian sci-fi epic. So where’s the anime influence? Imagine if world politics were decided by Gundam-esque mechs capable of nuclear destruction, and cyborg ninja samurai fought proxy wars against super soldier clones. It’s Ghost In The Shell meets HBO war dramas, making for one of the greatest game series ever made.
The Kingdom Hearts Series
Kingdom Hearts shouldn’t have worked. On paper, it sounds ludicrous: Final Fantasy meets Walt Disney? How could these two tonal opposites possibly be reconciled? With the help of a clown-shoed protagonist swinging a sword-sized key, a groundbreaking new series was given life. I’d need to write a separate article to explain the infamously confusing plot, but the game is essentially about teenagers fighting alongside Disney characters to rescue the multiverse from darkness. The anime-ness comes from the “this narrative shouldn’t work but totally does” story and physics-defying combat sequences – slicing buildings in half is a standard boss-fight occurrence.
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Arguably the greatest installment of the greatest JRPG series ever made, Final Fantasy VII was given a makeover for the modern era—and it looks GOOD. The plot follows the spiky-haired Cloud Strife on his quest to stick it to an evil corporation with the business end of his oversized sword. The plot is pure anime: a team of youthful freedom fighters taking on a corrupt system, along with one of the most charismatic villains in gaming history: Sephiroth. The game has already been adapted into an anime, a full-length feature called Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. While the details of the plot are a little unclear (a trademark of the franchise), Final Fantasy makes up for its somewhat confusing substance with impeccable style.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Have you ever found yourself gazing upon a stunning, soul-stirring, Ghibli-esque landscape, wishing “if only I could just disappear into that“? With The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, now you can! 100 years after Ganon destroyed the Kingdom of Hyrule, silent protagonist Link awakens in a world ripe for exploring. The narrative is pretty standard “defeat the ancient evil” stuff, but you won’t mind. You’ll be too busy leaping off cliffs and paragliding into beautiful vistas to worry about the plot. Breath of the Wild feels like playing a Studio Ghibli nature documentary, a perfect journey into a living, breathing, awe-inspiring world.
Sekiro
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is pure seinen anime, set in a grimdark fantasy world that feels like a mix between Berserk and Ninja Scroll. A one-of-a-kind entry in FromSoftware’s groundbreaking oeuvre, Sekiro is a high-octane horror/adventure focused on precision combat against brutally difficult foes. A fantastical interpretation of the bloodstained Warring States Period of Japanese history, the plot follows a shinobi named Wolf, who has been tasked with protecting the heir of a dying clan. You navigate a haunted world of giant serpents, undead ape warriors, and dragon gods. The game features some of the most cinematic boss fights in video game history—beautiful and deadly as any climactic anime showdown.
Armored Core 6: Fires Of Rubicon
Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is a mecha anime masquerading as a video game. The action takes place in a distant future, where mega-corporations and interplanetary governments wage war for control of the stars. The backbone of their militaries is composed of Armored Cores – towering mechs operated by skilled pilots. A reboot of the franchise, Armored Core 6 is set on the faraway planet of Rubicon 3, where the discovery of a valuable substance called Coral has caused an interstellar scramble for resources. You play as C4-621, aka “Raven,” a cybernetically enhanced pilot hired to obtain Coral for profit. The ultimate sci-fi dystopia, the series is set in a never-ending technological wasteland similar to the world of Blame!—with some Knights of Sidonia and classic Gundam thrown into the mix, of course.
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