Dust: An Elysian Tail

[b] Propeller Simulator [/b] Cute game with nice aesthetics and a journey full of emotions. It is clear that this game is aimed for children. The story and dialogues are childish. But the game does a good job in delivering messages about core values, dealing with consequences, and overcoming inner battles. The combat has some basic combos which are enough to keep the fights diverse. Later in the game the basic combos may be barely used because of the Propeller attack which is pretty much the ability that defines Dust. But it is a fun ability, which even feels broken, but it is always satisfying to use it. The developers even understood how broken it is and implemented different secrets in the levels that require using this ability in a broken way. Overall it was a nice experience propelling around and hearing silly jokes from time to time.

[h1]Que jogo lindo!!![/h1] Pra quem curte RPG e metroidvania, é um "must have". Vamos para a análise: [h3]Gráficos: 10/10[/h3] Cara, é muito lindo! Tudo muito bem desenhado, os efeitos de luz são incríveis! Alguns cenários vão ficar na memória pra sempre! Sério, esse é um destaque do game. [h3]Trilha Sonora: 10/10[/h3] Uma obra a parte! A ambientação, os detalhes, a orquestração... É de apaixonar. O design de som também é excelente! Os efeitos, a localização muito bem definida no espaço stereo. Existem algumas dicas sonoras muito interessantes, como o som das correntes dos prisioneiros que te atrai para descobrir áreas secretas! Eu achei especialmente cativante a trilha do mapa e do final, tanto da batalha quanto dos créditos. [h3]História - Roteiro: 8/10[/h3] A história é bem interessante, mas bem simples. Gera uma certa curiosidade mas chama mais a atenção a partir da metade. A batalha final é muito divertida!!! Foi a parte mais divertida do jogo inteiro! Achei que a história é bem coerente com essa atmosfera anime. Roteiro bem simples, mas divertido. [h3]Jogabilidade: 7/10[/h3] Os controles são bem responsivos e foi tudo muito bem calibrado. Eu só achei que o campo de visão ficou muito pequeno mesmo na resolução 2560x1080, impedindo de enxergar o cenário de forma mais ampla! Ás vezes chega a ser irritante não poder ver um pouquinho mais pra saber onde ir. O combate é muito simples, hack & slash. [h3]Evolução: 6/10[/h3] Acho que a evolução poderia ter sido mais controlada. Define muito bem o estilo "metroidvania", deixando algumas áreas inalcançáveis, para que você volte depois de adquirir mais habilidades para poder acessar. O problema: a dificuldade. Não há quase nenhum desafio mesmo no nível mais difícil. Logo no início você já adquire itens que deixam o Dust muito poderoso, tornando o combate quase irrelevante. [h3]Design: 8/10[/h3] O design dos níveis e personagens é muito lindo! Os cenários e a evolução deles é ótima! Todas as áreas são interessantes de explorar, cada uma cria um ambiente bem característico, tornando até mais fácil de lembrar de cada parte do jogo. Eu só achei meio "bagunçado" o fato de encontrarmos inimigos sempre em grupos iguais, as batalhas muito repetitivas. Talvez fosse muito mais interessante deixar grupos menores ou até apenas 1, mas com mais variedade de habilidades e dificuldade para cada inimigo. [h3]Conclusão[/h3] Recomendadíssimo! Apesar de alguns detalhes que poderiam melhorar, o jogo é divertido e um final emocionante! Compra sem medo de ser feliz!

A GEM of a game! Highly recommended if you enjoy story-rich metroidvanias! Nicely animated characters, great voice acting immersive play and rich handpainted backgrounds and amazing soundtrack make this a lovely experience!

In other words Dust, you will need to...

tl;dr- From the visual presentation, story, and world, it feels like you're playing a 2d-hack and slash game made by "the mouse," but it's [i]fully original[/i] and doesn't skip the darkest parts. When people started gushing about Hollow Knight, I immediately thought "huh, that looks like Dust." -- [b]Story[/b] They pull the amnesiac hero card. There's a twist on it, because of course there has to be for that to be interesting, and admittedly it's a decent one- especially for in-universe. The way it plays out [i]in practice[/i] is you essentially are the wandering warrior with a magical sword, just kind of doing errands to get bearings, but end up fighting to protect innocent civilians in a war that is destroying their lives by proxy. It's affecting everyone in the area you see in some some way, even the dead, and Dust's wanderings allow him to witness and "correct the damage" first hand across multiple environments. The writing is good, especially for a video game, and even the act of fetching laundry has a level of emotional engagement to it. The note it ends on is bittersweet in a way you really do not expect from a game this colorful involving "cartoon animal people," and leaves it open enough -at least as far as the character of Dust is concerned- to have some sort of sequel. [b]Presentation[/b] Everything is hand done 2d here. It is absolutely better for it, bringing some surreal backgrounds straight out of a story book. This is also by [i]scale[/i], where things are a lot bigger than you'd ever expect (take note for fall damage...). From statues the size of sky scrapers to massive underground caves that could hold modern cities, it covers numerous environs in fantastical ways and each place has its own denizens. I hesitate to use the word whimsical here, as once you find out bits of lore, things take on a different bend in most cases that is decidedly [i]not whimsy[/i]. Such as the blacksmith- once the lore is genially delivered from the local bunny girl, that giant moss covered statue you scaled to reach her takes on a different meaning entirely, as well as her bizarre mountaintop location. It has a sort of "show first, tell later to those still listening" aspect to it, and everything you see is either "lived in" or related to old glories of the kingdom. Music sounds straight of something from the mouse, orchestral and unique for each place and fitting each one so well you can't imagine it [i]without[/i] that specific music. Generally, the moment it starts, is the moment that song is attached to that level or biome. If you know I mean by "that mellow minecraft piano bit", then you will be able to make the same connections here. [b]Gameplay[/b] Usual 2d hack and slash, definitely built for a controller. The combo system isn't super robust; you won't be using different weapons, there's only a few combo's, there's dodge-iframes, etc. You will be leveling, finding gear, and building stuff to jack up your stats otherwise. The good news is the gear isn't random, once you have it, you have it. You will swap out obsolete stuff. You will tilt toward a build as you fill out some stats faster than others. A vendor will slowly get better wares as you progress, and crafting materials you sell he will start to stock- you have to find the items for him to sell them, so there's a catalogue to fill out if such a thing interests you. Every so often you'll find skills that let you roll back to different areas and find new things, like a low slide move for thin crawlspaces. There's also some puzzler elements, such as a floating bomb fruit being required for opening certain paths; you can pluck it off the tree where it spawns and "pull it" by using a vacuum attack move. The bomblets are effected by airflow and hover without input, so you have to direct them from outside using said vacuum move. Somehow, the devs made this intuitive, and while it's easier than it sounds it's still just tricky and common enough to warrant mention. There are also upgrade runs to look for, which are hidden challenges that grant XP or skills. Finally, the game is also longer than you'd think it is. The later levels can get especially grueling, which is how last levels should be anyway. The big problem? [i]Poison.[/i] It doesn't wear off and it's easy to get in certain places. You MUST buy poison cures. [b]Other Stuff[/b] Unlike a lot of games of the time period, it doesn't do the memes of the era thing. It does meme on itself a little, like the sidekick Fidget telling you to mash the buttons during the tutorial, but it's never only period relevant. The jokes will still hit, but they're dad jokes. Other than that, there's stuff like finding ducks related to the sound team. What it DOES do is "mechanics of the era." Things like short QTE's to unlock treasure chests, RPG stats on a metroidvania instead of just finding gear and skills. The more of it you play the more you'll notice it feels like an "unfinished version" of something else, when in reality it's simply Dust's version that worked best for [i]it[/i], not something else. It keeps its identity because of it. -- Trivia: For those not in the know, a short history snippet: Microsoft, during the 360 era, basically when the gaming division had just started to realize it was hitting stride, it had a small game making initiative for the XBLA to pad out the library and get people comfortable in building on the platform. It released development tools for it, for free, from which much shovelware was made. Before Godot, before Unity, it was literally this and the dev environment was not nearly as robust. Dust is one of the few non-shovelware games from that particular element of the "gaming wild west", sort of the first frontier of it, where shockingly small teams could make games of this quality simply because they'd been given the tools to do it and the team had enough passion to work around the limitations. One of the things about these tools is certain levels of presentation are very similar between games, such as camera panning, zooming, 2d character rigs, the "how to play" option... check out stuff like vampire smile to compare.

Good battle mechanics, Top tier OST, great lore, most achivements are easy to get, ending felt kinda rushed.