Final Thoughts 32
Dust: An Elysian Tail
Note: This is not a review, but merely my musings after having recently completed a game as part of my Rogue's Adventures playthrough of my backlog.Follow @RoguesAdventure to keep up with my playthroughs and check out my live streams at twitch.tv/gorbash722.
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Developer: Humble Hearts LLC
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Release Date: September 24, 2013 (PC), August 5, 2012 (XBLA)
Video games are extremely difficult to make, in cost, time and skill. The concept of the auteur has been around in film for decades - that a single filmmaker's work on a film was as complete and total as an author of a book, but in games it's exceedingly rare due to the amount of work involved. Thus I was pleasantly surprised to find that Dust: An Elysian Tail was created (designed, drawn and programmed) by one man - Dean Dodrill.
Originally crafted to be an old-school Castlevania-style platformer, Dodrill won the 2009 Dream.Build.Play Microsoft Challenge, resulting in a contract to provide a full-fledged release on Xbox Live Arcade, which eventually released as part of the Summer of Arcade promotion in 2012.
I mention all this as a testament to how well crafted the story and themes of Dust are, and though every indie studio can't secure a big contract from Microsoft it's an absolute joy to see the auteur surface in gaming.
Watch my 4 part playthrough from my recorded live streams of Dust: An Elysian tail here!
Dust: An Elysian Tail seemingly starts with a tiresome JRPG trope - the amnesiac hero known only as Dust. Thankfully he's not a silent protagonist, and is soon joined by the small cat-dragon Fidget and the talking sword Ahrah.
Props to the writing that Fidget is the very first comic relief character in within an anime setting that I didn't find completely aggravating. In fact, she was legitimately funny and enjoyable to have around - not to mention useful projectile attacks you can combine with Dust's signature Dust Storm move.
The action controls like a 2D brawler-platformer with a few simple but fun combos and one strong area attack called Dust Storm. It draws heavily from the metroidvania genre with ability progression and a map filled with secrets as well as equippable loot and health items.
I'm already on board with a hand-drawn metroidvania, and Dust's real treat is its incredibly rich, anthropomorphic world filled with rich characters and lovely voice acting.
I'm not a fan of anime, never have been and never will be. But that doesn't mean I swear off most Japanese games or games that utilize that art style - most of the time I can enjoy a game and sometimes even appreciate the artwork if it's not too exaggerated. I really appreciate when a lot of recent 3DS games use minimalist animations by popping up characters on the screen during dialogue exchanges, such as Fire Emblem: Awakening and Bravely Default, allowing me to enjoy the artwork rather than cringe at the rapid animations. It also helps when the English voice acting is top-notch, and Dust has some of the best I've ever heard (it's super refreshing having a protagonist that's not silent nor a gravelly Michael Madsen).
Most metroidvanias tend to be lonely affairs, taking place in giant dungeons with the occasional info dump character popping up. Dust's world immediately comes alive with multiple villages filled with friendly characters you can talk to and help, and the story goes through an emotional rollercoaster of identity, loss, regret and transcendence.
A minor character's death mid-way through the game is treated with a touching amount of gravitas and seriousness that makes our hero reflect on his own actions, while an intriguing revelation of who Dust really is gets a proper build-up and rewarding release toward the end (though I totally called the reveal a few minutes beforehand, see this moment in my live stream).
As much as I enjoyed the story and world, the actual combat and exploration remained sub-par throughout. The segmented map for each zone is a genre staple (including the helpful indicators that point to any missed secrets) and although the backgrounds and art style is colorful and fun, there's really only five different 'tilesets' for each chapter - forest, caves, swampy graveyard, snow and the short volcano level in the finale.
Each 'screen' is quite large but most of the secrets and gated progression from abilities (another genre staple) is incredibly easy. Thankfully Dust moves very swiftly, and combined with his dash and aerial Dust Storm abilities he can traverse most levels rapidly when searching for more secrets, but I still longed for a save point-teleportation system.
Dust is also one of the few metroidvanias that I actively decided not to go for 100%, mostly because I was absolutely wrecking everything on Normal mode with minimum effort, never had any money issues and was always able to craft the best weapons and armor.
As a general rule I play every game for the first time on Normal to get the baseline experience the developer was looking for, but in this case Dust is just way too easy and the combat far too simplistic. It's biggest strength becomes its short run time (about 10hrs).
The combat's visual flair is rewarding - particularly when combining Fidget's fire and lightning abilities with Dust Storm. Dust's fluid controls allow for some spectacular aerial battles - juggling opponents skyward with a lightning Dust Storm before plummeting to the ground with a sword slam is super fun, but loses some appeal when you end up doing that for nearly every single fight. Even the boss fights aren't super varied as most involve a Dust-sized figure with a few fancy projectiles or parries.
I wasn't necessarily expecting a deep combat system but combined with the overly easy difficulty and enemies that mostly do nothing, the action came off as more of a simple button-mashing Beam 'Em Up than an Action-RPG.
Thus my experience with Dust: An Elysian Tail is quite mixed. I wish I enjoyed the combat and exploration a bit more but it's a testament to how wonderful the story, art, music and characters were that I still came away with a very positive experience. It helped that the finale and ending were absolutely top notch. The climactic ongoing battles along the volcano culminating in an emotional and multi-stage battle with the final boss (who is nicely humanized and never monstrous) were pitch-perfect, and I even choked up a little bit during the ending.
On the one hand I wished I'd played on a harder difficulty to make combat a bit more interesting, but on the other I was satisfied that the combat never felt like a slog with the limited tools at my disposal.
Pros
Beautiful hand-drawn artwork and animations
Intriguing setting and story
Focused, well-paced action and length
Combat is visually fun and Dust's controls are fluid and swift
Cons
Simplistic combat with minimal combos and abilities
Few enemy types, and even fewer that require different tactics
Crafting is nice but unfulfilling; ingredients are more easier purchased from the shop
Final Say: While the actual story-telling overshadows the gameplay, the well-paced runtime helps focus the entire experience into an enjoyable and worthy entry into one of my favorite genres.