There is a certain charm to a game that's ultimately a culmination of Newgrounds flash games and beginning internet overlap with sections of the furry fandom, but that charm itself is far from cushioning a game that has certainly not aged well.

You can really pick and choose which parts of Dust to analyze and you'll see cracks if not the entire foundation fall apart. The hack and slash combat turns into mashing after about an hour, a moveset that seems fun to utilize the first few times but eventually turns into your most optimal move, slashing through enemies with such relative ease that boss fights don't do much at all to alleviate. They do throw a curveball near the end of the game with armored enemies but those also have endemic problems, because parrying before followup is just as easy to do and if anything adds more annoyance to the equation.

The metroidvania structure is barebones, with not a single bit of interesting level design or backtracking that doesn't just feel like outright padding. Exploring mostly leads to more of the same boring combat, which ultimately means more wasted time spent. This extends to the gameplay of the sidequests too, which honestly I'd recommend outright skipping.

The aesthetic is.... well there's a lot to unpack there. The music is probably one of the better components here but the art style doesn't really work for very long before it becomes very tiring and not really that interesting. The best things you'll see on offer here in terms of a feast for the eyes is in the first couple hours.

The most damning thing however, is the story. It's a self-insert narrative tied around weak characters with a VA production far below even a 80s cartoon affair. It doesn't work, if anything it can lead to some jokes at the game's expense but I don't think a single hour passed where a few lines whether by writing or voice acting took me completely out of the game and into high orbit wincing all the way.

Dust: An Elysian Tail is, other than its timely charm, basically a subpar metroidvania and hack and slash that ultimately is better left forgotten about. (3/10)

I swear, I feel like I've been saying I should check this game out for as long as I can remember. It's always been just enough on my radar that I'm like "Y'know, maybe I'll get around to that soon" and then forgot about. Glad I finally did, cuz this is one impressive game.

Obviously, a big selling point of this game is the art direction. And with good reason, because it feels like you're playing one of those old 90s animated kids movies. Finding out it was all basically done by one guy was completely mind-blowing. Gameplay is also pretty solid, a good beat-em-up Metroidvania that's as complex as it needs to be. Story might not be everyone's thing, but personally, I really enjoyed it.

If you're like me and have been putting this one off for ages, definitely give it a shot.

i should never have picked this game back up after the 7-8 year gap from when i first played it. absolutely putrid, reaching the impressive height of "mid" several times and falling to its absolute worst right at the end with one of the worst endgame areas and final bosses i've ever been through in a video game. you can't skip fights unless you get lucky with enemy ai so the game wants you to fight a million enemies over a million screens with its shitty shadow-the-hedgehog-in-sonic-06-ass slow and dull battle system in a section where any enemy can kill you in a range of 1-4 hits and can hit you with 2 hit combos to effectively only need to hit you twice to kill you at most. fuck that shit. fucking 4 stage boss battle too where the only way they knew how to make him 'difficult' was to give him constant i-frames and a bunch of sometimes unkillable lackeys who can still 3-shot you. speaking about this game makes me hate it even more.

there's nothing to redeem it in the writing department and the art style for the characters is one of the ugliest furry styles i have seen in my entire life. the background art is pretty and the animation's nice, though. the music's not half bad either but nothing special.

i wonder what kind of life i'd be leading if i played this shit all the way through almost a decade ago. maybe it'd be better than this one cause at least i might have dropped it back then

(PS4)

Very fun platformer / fighting game I played on PSN+ many year ago (not my current account). Would love to replay, as it had great artwork and the gameplay was engaging and kept me playing until the end.

I only wish the game was longer and story and world explored more. Otherwise this "hidden gem" would be one of my favourite games of all time.

Incredibly solid metroidvania style game with a unique, satisfying, and challenging combat system. Moving between different enemies and racking up your combo is great, all while using moves to evade attacks and magic attacks to clear the screen and keep your combo going. Every level is unique while still feeling like a part of the setting the game creates, each having great background art.
This game's aesthetic is very much mid-2000s furry webcomic/flash series, but the game itself manages to make it bearable to me, someone who's usually very averse to that kind of art.

Dust é um metroidvania bem competente em suas mecânicas. O combate é satisfatório e ele usa as habilidades adquiridas no decorrer do jogo de maneiras interessantes tanto para navegar pelos cenários quanto para resolver puzzles.

É um jogo fácil, do tipo que dá pra desligar o cérebro e fazer 100%. Confesso que foi um pouco difícil levar a história dele tão a sério quanto o próprio jogo leva, visto que o design dos personagens parece ter saído de alguma versão bootleg de filme de animação qualquer. Felizmente os cenários e as animações do combate são bonitas, então no geral é um jogo bem agradável, mesmo que pouco memorável.

Around 2010 Xbox brought about a huge change in the games market with the push for smaller indie games. This push brought about games such as Braid, Super Meat boy, and the Bastion. All of these games have been critiqued and dissected to no end as they were major innovators in their respective genres. One game that is not brought nearly as much is Dust: An Elysian Tail. There are many qualities of Dust that I feel should have made it more relevant even 10 years later. That being said it's definitely not a perfect game as it shows how often simple early indie games were.

The main pull of the game is its presentation with an art style that reminds of really good deviant art drawings. Seeing how most of this game was made by one person definitely makes me appreciate how much work was put into making this look like a fantasy cartoon. That being said I feel some of the character designs are either not very inspired or clash with other characters. There is one bunny girl character in the game which is odd to me as every other animal character is either a fox or dog-looking character.

The story is nothing too amazing but I feel it is strong enough to keep you interested even if it is a bit standard. The amount of voice acting in this game is incredible and definitely helps flesh out the story and world a lot more. The writing accompanying this acting is a bit too cute in parts for me as well parts where I felt it was overacted. There are parts where I felt it was really strong, however, mainly the final confrontation between Dust and the big bad of the game, I'm still thinking about that final sequence.

Finally, the gameplay is something of a Metroidvania with hack-and-slash combat which is a combination you do not normally see even now. It is really satisfying to mow down dozens of enemies at a time by using a mixture of physical and magical attacks. A problem arises though where these combinations make button mashing the most viable option in a lot of scenarios which kinda kills the game's combo system. I also feel it fails in being a Metroidvania somewhat as the main thing you go back and search for is chests which mainly contain money and nothing else really that interesting. I didn’t feel the drive like other Metroidvanias to discover every part of the map as I know whatever I do find will not really change what I know about the world or make me that stronger.

This game has been left in the dust heh by its contemporary indie darlings but I feel it's still a game worth going back to. It has ideas that have been fleshed out in more interesting ways in the last 10 years but what is there is still fun. The game has long since left its Xbox exclusivity and is pretty much on everything. With hints of a sequel in the future this game still has a chance to rise from the ashes once again.

Dust: An Elysian Tail is one of those games that's good, but you're especially interested in what the future could hold for it as a franchise. It's got a lot of good things going for it, but they're all not worked out well enough that you can call it a really great game, but you see all the potential there to make something actually special.

The story is one of the first examples of this. The game stars Dust, an amnesiac warrior with a talking sword and Fidget, a Nimbat who is your sidekick. The plot meanders for the most part, with Dust just looking for clues to who he is and saving people on the way. Most of the plot and the twists happen near the end of the game; at their core, there are some cliches but I felt the game does enough to put its own spin on it to make it not a complete rip-off. The characters (and especially the side characters) are pretty emotive. Dust is a pretty stoic character for most of the game (with room to be awkward or joking at times) while Fidget is more of a comic relief sidekick, but I found the voice acting for both somewhat grating at times which made it difficult to really get attached to them. The main problems are incomplete attempts to tell the story; there's some dialogue options later on that feel like the game wanted to do split paths, but nothing happens there. The big bad of the game, General Gaius, is someone who is described throughout the game as a ruthless monster, but every actual scene that features him, casts him in a more positive light. It feels like the game is missing a chapter to really highlight the character of Gaius and his relation to Dust, but maybe the indie development cycle didn't allow for that.

Gameplay-wise, Dust: An Elysian Tail has been named a metroidvania. While the naming is understandable, there's not that much backtracking to be done, and the vast majority of it is purely to pick up some chests if you want those. There's one level with a significant amount of backtracking throughout and it's also the biggest chore. This is mostly due to the fact that the screens are pretty big (where in Metroid or Castlevania the actual screen can generally be traversed pretty quickly) and horizontal. Enemies respawn every time you leave the screen and love getting in the way, which makes it almost obligatory to fight them.

The combat is a mixed bag. It feels good and it looks really cool and great. The shame is that your arsenal is very limited. You have a normal attack, and early on the game teaches you two combos. Later on, you don't get any more combos. Very quickly you will learn that the Dust Storm attack is the way to go. This means you let Fidget throw a projectile, and then spin your sword so you can send out an attack that is powered up by her projectiles. Fidget will unlock different kinds of projectiles after each boss you beat, but the electricity one really makes all the other ones obsolete. Especially the aerial variant of the Dust Storm is a great weapon, as it offers invulnerability to the vast majority of enemies. So combat will always look a cool force of chaos on your screen, but it is quite unfortunate that the combat will feel like a chore later on, as it'll just feel a lot like button mashing. There's also a parry you can do, but there's very few enemies that will really offer the opportunity to do it, as all the smaller enemies will generally crowd you to the point that you won't be able to see when you have to do your parry.

Graphically, the game is very pretty. The backgrounds are lovely and detailed, the enemies have nice variety in their design even if they are variations of each other, and the characters are easy to keep apart. The actual character sprites when they are having a conversation feel lower quality, but not to the extent of being bothersome or ugly.

On the audio, the music was enjoyable without being extremely memorable. In a game where there's a lot of traveling around, not having any grating music is definitely a good point, but I also doubt I will look up any of the tracks of this game on YouTube later.

Overall, Dust: An Elysian Tail is a fine, solid game, without being anything more. The ending leaves room open for a sequel, but I can't find anything about it potentially happening online, which is a shame, as all the systems are there to be improved upon and perfected to create a truly awesome title.

"Lots Of Effort, Low Quality"

Now I know this game was almost entirely made by one guy (besides the voice acting and a few other supplementary pieces), but I had my doubts upon starting it up. The art was solid but looked a bit blurry at times. The combat felt fine at first but quickly deviated into a mindless button mashing action fiesta. The upgrade/inventory system seemed somewhat deep, but again boiled down to something that didn't really matter at the end of the day. The story already didn't sound very promising, but a combination of incredibly weak writing and weird voice acting made it an unenjoyable slog. Pretty much every component of this game failed in a major way, and it resulted in a dud of a game in my opinion.

You play as Dust, a warrior who wakes up with amnesia in a forest and is found by Fidget, a guardian of the Blade of Ahrah which Dust happens to be in possession of. Fidget was a quirky and fun sidekick character at times in the story but was also very annoying throughout the experience. On the other hand, Dust and the Blade of Ahrah (yes, the sword can talk) are incredibly dull and cookie-cutter protagonists. The story follows a very generic combination of fetch-quests, killing some bad guys, and liberating an oppressed group known as the Moonbloods. On your journey you encounter an assortment of awkwardly placed characters, many of which don't even match thematically in the world.

The characters are really weird either in art design or voice acting. Many are some weird anthropomorphic styles that border on Tumblr furry art I've happened to come across before (not a furry, but no problem with it if that's your thing). They also have out of place accents, some being Australian or Spanish while others have tinges of country, old-timer, or "mysterious" (think the shop vendor in "Resident Evil 4").

All of this combined to feel like a child's idea of a fantasy world yet lacked a lot of charm that the best children's stories contain. There are very simple explorations of morality, warfare, and destiny, but nothing here is anything you haven't seen before in other mediums.

The presentation is fine but lacks polish. The visuals look detailed, but assets feel repeated and washed out in appearance. The music is also not memorable, just typical fantasy music you could find on YouTube.

The gameplay system revolves around a very simple combination of two-button attack patterns, magical abilities, and dodging/parrying. It's surface level and doesn't really combine to feel incredibly engaging, but it's passable enough. Unfortunately, the upgrade system feels tacked on just like the inventory system. There isn't a whole lot of loot to diversify your loadout, so you'll easily find the best items and roll with it. The game is also insanely easy even on the second highest difficulty, and there are actually many revive gems that will straight up save you from death constantly. It also would have been nice to combine the story and gameplay in an interactive sense, say through a choice-based system. There is a SINGLE mission that had this as an option at the very end of it, and it was one of the better missions in the game. This didn't have to apply to the main plot but could have spice up the side content had it been expanded upon more than a simple one-off mission.

The game just felt like it went nowhere throughout the 6-ish hours I played through it, and I honestly got bored of the drab story, mindless side-questing, and lack of gameplay evolution. The game remained the same experience for those six hours, and it likely would have remained the same for the next six hours (I assume I stopped playing at around the halfway mark of the narrative). Exploring felt tedious since there wasn't a reliable fast travel method besides going to the edge of each area, and it was annoying to have to try and remember which secret items were in locations so that I could return for them in the future. The characters just weren't enjoyable enough, and the world was basic and uninteresting. I expected a bit more from an indie game that was promoted as a PS Plus free monthly game, though this was back when the service hit a bad slump (around 2014-2015). I would Not Recommend it even if it's on a deep sale, as it's just not something that differentiates itself from other high-quality titles that offer very similar systems. I guess if you like anthropomorphic characters, then sure, go for it? It just wouldn't end up surprising you in any other way besides that...

Final Verdict: 4/10 (Below Average)