"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)
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)