ANTHEM#9 is a stylish match-3 roguelite that lives for combos, not context.
Match-3 mechanics have quietly been having a second wind, especially since indie developers keep changing the system in unusual, more strategic ways. It was just a matter of time before someone took the notion of matching colored tiles and turned it into a roguelite deckbuilder game after games like Spirit Swap showed that it doesn’t have to be casual or shallow.
That’s when ANTHEM#9 comes in. This PC roguelite, published by Shueisha Games and made by the new developer Koeda, combines gem matching, card-based combat, and anime-style graphics in a way that feels both familiar and strangely new.
You play as a secret agent for the enigmatic ANTHEM#9 organization, a clandestine outfit that fights threats to world peace in strange “spirit worlds.” It sounds like the beginning of a complicated Persona-based story. ANTHEM#9 is more focused on how many hits you can get in a single turn than on explaining why any of this is happening.
That focus makes for some really exciting mechanical highs, even if the world surrounding them feels frustratingly empty.
ANTHEM#9 has a tale, although it’s more correct to call it a premise. You learn early on that the game is a secret agency and that you are one of its top agents. Your job is to stop dangerous people who endanger peace through radical ideas or cutting-edge technologies.
These fights don’t happen in the real world; they happen in the spirit world, where foes are faced and obliterated. And that’s about it. After that first setup, there isn’t much of a story growth.
You never get any real information about who your targets are, what they’ve done, or what might happen if you succeed or fail. Agents don’t get backstories, reasons for doing things, or personal arcs. You never see the organization’s main office, meet its officials, or find out how the agency came to be.
There is no explanation for the spiritual worlds themselves; they just exist.
It’s interesting that this lack doesn’t hurt the gameplay from one moment to the next. In fact, it might help keep runs going without stopping. There aren’t any long cutscenes or long conversations that slow things down.
Still, the lack of story glue makes it feel like something you can throw away. Once a run is over, the only thing that makes you want to start another one is the mechanical thrill. ANTHEM#9 often feels more like a collection of elegant systems than a real universe because it doesn’t have stakes, characters, or a living world.
At its heart, ANTHEM#9 is a roguelite deckbuilder with combat that works like a puzzle where you have to match gems.
Every combat starts with a board full of colorful gems and one of the decks that you can use. There can be up to three cards in each deck, and each card needs a certain order of gem colors to work. In ANTHEM#9, you don’t merely clear tiles as in other match-3 games. Instead, you design sequences on purpose to start attacks, buffs, and effects.
The best part of this approach is how overlapping gem sequences work together. If one card needs blue-red, another needs red-green, and a third needs blue-red-green, putting the longest sequence together can turn on all three at once. This means that with careful planning, you can set off a chain reaction with just one step.
ANTHEM#9 only worries about how many times a required sequence shows up in your chain.
You can upgrade, replace, or change the gem requirements for your three attacks as you go. Placement is really important, and when everything is in the right place, the damage is huge and highly satisfying. It rewards people who can see things coming, spot patterns, and think on their feet when the board doesn’t work.
ANTHEM#9 really comes into its own in combat. The more combinations you make, the more damage you do. You can even stop enemies from doing anything by chaining blows together. You can also change the order of enemy moves, putting their strongest assault at the top and trying to get rid of it completely by using a lot of combos.
This mechanic can feel like a lifeline when things get tough, especially against bosses. Skills make each turn more interesting. They look like cards and have effects that are similar to attack boosts or health boosts, although some are more interesting.
You can pick one skill each round, and you can get additional ones by buying them in stores or by completing map events. They aren’t game-changing, but they provide you enough freedom to change your plan during a run. The three playable characters keep things interesting. Rubin can modify the hue of some gems, Phannie adds double gems, and Beni turns gems you don’t want into boosts.
Each agent also has their own unique skill cards, which change the way you build your deck in small ways. ANTHEM#9 certainly wants you to play through runs more than once because each agent has four missions, and new features are added to each mission.
That being said, battle isn’t perfect. There is always a timer that counts down, and even though you typically have enough time, it frequently feels like it isn’t needed. Most optimal decks use the same gem chains over and over again, so the timing doesn’t matter until enemies start messing with things.
Some enemies change the colors of gems or the criteria for cards, which makes you have to respond quickly instead of planning carefully. In certain moments, the timeframe makes ANTHEM#9 frantic in a way that doesn’t fit with ANTHEM#9‘s usual tactical style.
The level of difficulty is a big part of how you move forward in ANTHEM#9. You start on Normal, which provides you with two decks of three moves each that you switch between every turn. Players who want something easier can choose Easy mode, which takes away one deck.
Hard mode, on the other hand, makes ANTHEM#9 much harder. As you get better at ANTHEM#9, each agent’s full arsenal becomes available, which keeps you from using the most broken combos too soon.
This method makes sense, but it might also make early runs feel limited. Healing and shielding are quite limited; staying alive often depends entirely on stopping the enemy’s actions instead of taking damage. Elite enemies and bosses are exceptionally hard to beat since they often have tricks that mess up your carefully crafted deck.
To beat the last boss, you usually need to be lucky, have a backup plan, and do everything almost perfectly.
Runs themselves are also rather brief, and there aren’t many chances to improve your deck. It can take a lot of upgrades and changes to turn one card into a powerful combo, but ANTHEM#9 doesn’t provide you enough events to do that with all six cards very often. A lot of runs end just as your deck starts to seem exciting.
ANTHEM#9 has a colorful anime style that goes well with its over-the-top fighting. Even if you don’t see the characters as often as you’d want, their designs are vibrant, expressive, and full of personality. Sharp, text-heavy effects that explode across the screen during long combo chains show attacks. Watching dozens of hits land in quick succession is really satisfying.
But ANTHEM#9 doesn’t employ its best graphic elements enough. The character and enemy models are very accurate and move around carefully, yet they are typically only shown in small windows or short cut-ins. The big UI takes up most of the screen, which makes the experience feel strange and old-fashioned, even though the art is good.
It’s a squandered chance to show off what Koeda certainly worked hard to make. The sound design isn’t all that great. Some reviews commend the almost full voice acting and the upbeat sound effects that get louder as you build combos, while others say the background music is mostly forgettable. Most of the songs fit the lively, anime-inspired mood, but not many of them stick with you.
Japanese voice callouts during combat are interesting at first, but they can get annoying after a while. When combinations start to chain into the triple digits, the sound effects do a great job of adding to the feeling of power and speed. Still, the sound doesn’t add much to the experience beyond what the sights and mechanics already do.
ANTHEM#9 is a game full of smart ideas and mechanical goals.
Its gem-matching deckbuilder battle is really fun, especially when everything comes together and you drown your enemies in ridiculously extended combo chains. It gives you fast spurts of excitement for short, focused PC sessions without making you commit to a long-term plan.
At the same time, its flaws are hard to miss. It doesn’t reach its full potential because it doesn’t have much of a story, runs are too slow, the turn timer is controversial, and its visual assets aren’t used enough. It’s amusing, stylish, and sometimes exciting, but it often feels like a proof of concept turned into a complete release.
