Dustborn

[Maryokutai]

Guess I might as well, even if ultimately nobody else is going to play this. A bit of backstory, this is the third game from Red Thread Games, Ragnar Tørnquist's studio, which he founded to conclude his Dreamfall saga (with Chapters) roughly a decade ago. Their previous game, Draugen, is IMO an overlooked gem in the 'walking simulator' genre, easily on par with the likes of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and What remains of Edith Finch, so I might as well use these lines to recommed it. Dustborn started development shortly after Draugen's release five years ago, so for a double-A title that's quite a bit of a ride. I remember posting its first screenshots in a forum that got closed down in 2020, which feels like an eternity ago and predates all the Sweet Baby backlash internet assholes have been throwing at it.

 

It takes place in a near future in the USA, or rather the SA, because united they are no more after the assassination attempt on Kennedy failed and took his wife's life instead, turning him into a cynical and bitter person who proclaimed half of the country a police state and left the other half to do as they please. The game is build around the idea of a road trip and you and your fellow travellers ride a bus from the west to the east coast, looking for some sort of safe haven where they plan on selling some valuable cargo.

 

Fundamentally this is some kind of Life is Strange esque narrative adventure, in which you run around blocked-off areas to explore a bit and talk to people. It doesn't have 'person X will remember this', nor are your choices black and white. There's also no morality bar or something like that. Instead, your choices affect which one of three main personality traits of your companions will end up being the most pronounced. So if I keep using the brutish Sai to knock down walls and afterwards compliment her for doing so, she will slowly turn into a 'punch first, ask questions later' type. It's not a high-level examination of psychology, but an interesting take on this whole morality aspect I think. What it doesn't do well is the mise-en-scène of all these dialogues, because frankly there isn't any. It's people either standing or sitting around, looking at each other and talking, while you can spin the camera around a bit. This is most likely a budgetary constraint but it does drag it down - maybe it's a personal preference, but even very static over-shoulder dialogue sequence à la Dragon Age Origins would have been better than what they used here.

 

Unfortunately the writing can be very hit and miss as well. There's one moment where you have to cleanse Echoes from people, which are remnants of misinformation-spreading propaganda thought bubbles influencing people in their line of thinking. At some point I noticed this must be some commentary on social media and then, not two minutes later, one of the characters just literally spelled it out. But there are some good moments as well and your crew, while not particularly likeable, is at least an interesting bunch.

 

Oddly for a game in this style, Dustborn also has combat segments. It's super clunky and unpolished, but I can't deny that it can be some fun and is a nice diversion, especially as it amounts to, at best, 5 minutes every hour of playtime. There's basic attacks, dodges, parries, some special moves, team-up attacks. It's simple, but cute, though the lack of lock-on means you miss quite a few of your bat swings. Both in combat and during some dialogue scenes, you can also use the main character's Vox abilities, which is kind of this universe's X-gene and gives certain mutants Anomals special powers. In your case, that means controlling people with your voice, which can influence dialogue branches and, among other things, stop opponents in their tracks during combat. During the latter it's a pure gameplay system, but using it during dialogue sequences does have repercussions on your standing with teammates or how the story progresses.

 

There's also a (surprisingly fun) rhythm minigame in there, as the cover under which the group travels is that of a band. And a sort-of ghost-hunting minigame (for the aforementioned Echoes) that unlocks new Vox powers. And maybe more, I don't know – I'm only about four hours in but the game just seems to throw random stuff at the wall in regular intervals. I've not fully formed an opinion on it yet. I think the first 90 minutes to two hours are almost excruciatingly boring as it just drops you into the narrative without much introduction (for that, you need to read a prologue comic from the main menu) in regards to what you've been doing prior to the title screen and why you should care. At a certain point it introduces a couple new characters from the protagonist's past, and then goes on a tangent with a bit of mystery stuff and I started enjoying it a lot more. Guess we'll see where it goes from here. On last note but I like the visual style. It's a clean, comic-style look somewhere between Borderlands and Sable, and chapters are introduced with fake comic book covers and such. Gives it a lot of personality the in-engine stuff not always manages to fully pull off in motion.

 

 

[Craymen Edge]

I played the demo during one of the Steam next fest events, it didn't really grab me. I did like the way it looked though.

 

I've heard very little about it since it came out.

[Maryokutai]

Yeah, this isn't really a demo game, you kind of have to accept its sluggish tempo and go looking for the stuff that pulls you in. Which is faint praise I suppose, but it's just not a game that jumps at you, pulls you in and convinces you to go post a 10 metacritic userscore or something.

 

I'm 8 hours in and I'd say 2 of those were really good and the other 6 were okay-ish. Might end up being Tørnquist's weakest project, but I've still a lot to see.

[DANGERMAN]

I have Draugen on my wishlist but have never bitten on it. I will at some point. 

 

Thanks for the long write up, I don't think this game is what I expected it to be 

[Maryokutai]

Speaking of Draugen:

 

 

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Anyway, I completed this yesterday. The reason it took me so long wasn't because it's massive (even though it is long for this genre at around 18 hours) but rather that it's a game that demands your attention and I simply couldn't give it that at any random day of the week.

 

I really ended up liking this quite a lot. The first third is very heavy on the world building and rather political, with some more or less subtle commentary, as mentioned in my first post. But around the halfway point it really turns into the kind of fantastical experience you'd expect form the mind behind The Longest Journey. It never leaves the grounded baseline of this being a road trip to freedom, but it introduces a lot of very intriguing concepts and ideas along the way that push it beyond the initial premise which seems rather simple at first glance.

 

Not all of it is resolved, some of it by choice but in other cases I got the feeling they planned to do more in this universe, which I unfortunately can't see happening considering how poorly this has done. Which is a shame, because there are some legitimately cool ideas here that I would love to see explored more. I realise I'm being super vague but I think in the very unlikely scenario someone here picks it up, it's important that they find out about it in the rhythm the game wants you to. One thing I can point out though is how they develop those Vox powers of the crew. A favourite of mine was the guy who can heal with his powers, but only by reciting poetry, which obviously makes it super unreliable in situations where you'd actually need it the most. Another one can conjure images through his storytelling, which I thought was a simple but cool visual representation of having a strong rethoric. Though generally speaking how everything is build around the theme of language and how it's used both literally and metaphorically is pretty neat and for the most part well executed.

 

It also starts to more actively use its soundtrack later on, especially its very powerful leitmotiv* in different shapes and forms, to great effect. Its low production values unfortunately remain an issue throughout, as a lot of scenes feel stiff and undercooked in their cinematography. There's a running gag about one late-game party member's abilities that they are so horrible nobody wants to speak about them, but as you also never see them as a player (the screen always fades away) it made me wonder if this was a compromise rather than an idea. On the plus side, they did a really good job with the character writing. I initially remarked that they were unlikeable, but at the end I did end up feeling some emotional attachment to them, despite their flaws and issues – which is kind of how this stuff works in real life as well. Nobody's there to just be the good guy and farm karma.

 

This is still not a game I could ever broadly recommend, but I think its premise and ideas are super interesting and I think it's worth checking out if you enjoy some more wacky concepts and narrative adventures. It's hard to really compare it to anything, but I think the closest I can get to the truth is saying it's like Suda51 making a game with the Life is Strange team. Wasn't expecting this after my initial thoughts but this is absolutely going on my goty list.

 

*

Spoiler

 

Love how it develops from this electronic style into a full-blown orchestra.