Dust: An Elysian Tail Review (ceawse)
6.8/10. I remember seeing this in the App Store in 2015/2016-ish (after its release in 2012!!), and I've wondered about it since then whether it was actually worthwhile. These days it's just okay, but if I had played it when I was younger I definitely would have loved it. It's a fun action platformer that's a bit on the short side, and even shorter without the plot, but it makes up for it. Average combat, simple combos, quite a few secrets, and who doesn't love Fidget?
Plays fine, there are like three combos total, so sometimes it feels like all I can do is mash the attack button. I did like the Dust Storm attacks, although they're similarly limited. Basically, your little flying companion can throw ineffective projectiles that don't do much on their own, but if you use the special "spin your sword like a propeller" attack, it amplifies it a ton. Unfortunately, there's only three types that do more or less the same thing, save for different methods (homing projectile, pillar, chain attack) that don't make up for it. It's also best suited for distraction more than anything. Aerial dust storm gives you a ton of upward momentum if you're beneath enemies, which was fun to exploit.
The average enemy is a complete pushover, they never give you much trouble. They're only a problem when they can actively dodge, and that's easy enough to deal with. The bosses are meh, they're not outstanding. They all have a tiny moveset and aren't that imposing overall. The final boss has way too many phases, and kinda comes out of nowhere. It's also very silly to watch him run into position and kneel to wait for you to hit him once so he can go flying dramatically.
I was surprised to see so many little secrets hidden around the world, and they were fun to hunt around for. They weren't amazingly hard to find (at least, everything I found wasn't), and they count towards total completion so you can exceed 100%, which was very satisfying, especially when you reach them when you're not supposed to by launching enemies and flinging yourself at them before you get the ability specifically to do all that on command.
This game is SO Xbox-ey. Like, the sound design is that chimey gem-like Xbox 360 sound, it's so good. Straight out of some puzzle game demo on the Arcade, or an early 10's mobile jewel game. It does have a bit of crust in the art style, though. The anime eyes on Western cartoon look didn't age too well, I don't think. While it did it decently well and avoided some clunkyness, the characters have that "assembled" look to them, like they have separate parts for their head, body, and limbs that just get rotated around instead of full animation (I'm not complaining!).
It is fully voice acted, which was a bit surprising when it easily could have had none, or a weird mix of the two where only main character speak in important cutscenes. Fidget has that cutesy squeaky slightly exaggerated voice that might get on some people's nerves really quick, but probably not as much as Dust. I always wanted to skip the protagonist's lines, right? I don't know how to describe it but it's everything about him, I just don't want to listen to him.
VERY cheesy anime feel to it, a little too much for me, complete with that specific kind of protagonist voice acting that makes me want to skip everything he's saying, the sword that only talks to move the plot along, quests that don't develop anything since they conclude instantly for a character you'll never see again, very unconvincing internal struggle, two-dimensional "villain" that's just a character with a name to be the bad guy, rapidly escalating stakes from seemingly out of nowhere, et cetera etc you get it right?
As for story, it started out kinda boring, but eventually started taking things seriously, maybe a little too seriously, right? Like, that's cool, it's dramatic and profound but. This didn't come from anywhere substantial. At the very least, there weren't any super completely out-there twists, so at least I wasn't totally driven away.