Dustborn

It's a politically charged action adventure game with a focus on quick time events and dialogue choices in the vein of David Cage games like Detroit become Human(Quantic Dream is involved in the publishing of this game).

Dustborn also reminds me of Beyond good And Evil through its characters and melee focused combat(basically BGE with less player movement freedom and more branching narrative. Judging it as a game I appreciate that there are no microtransactions or DRM. The art style is absolutely stunning. I also encountered very few bugs and glitches. Overall I think the game is harmless fun if you are not put off by progressive politics. I never had so many moments where I burst out laughing while playing a video game.

The main character is basically an antihero who has psychological manipulation abilities and uses them against her enemies, neutral characters and occasionally her own crew who also have different abilities that they use during conversations, combat and exploration. On a roadtrip across the United States she meets and recruits new crew members as the story goes on who also have different powers that are collectively called "Vox" in the world of the game.

I genuinely see an X-men game being made in this same way and being well received. With much more subtle political overtones of course(New Mutants perhaps). If not that then maybe Ubisoft will hire this studio to finish their Beyond Good and Evil sequel for them.

The price is also not that bad though I recommend to get it on a sale if you like the interactive story games of Quantic Dream and David Cage.

The game is fine, I like the characters for the most part, just some situations, when the game forces me to do a thing I really don't want to... Forcing me to use Pax's power to bully people..
The story is fine, nothing groundbreaking and I suck at the rythm game so much and would love to have an option to skip those, same as it let's me skip combat, if I don't want it.
Personally I don't mind the combat, yea it's rather barebones, but this is not a FIghting Game, I am not expecting an Soulslike Combat System or anything, for what it is, it is perfectly fine.

Worst part about this game, by far, is the Anti-Woke mob it attracts to review bomb the game; and that is clearly not the games fault, now is it.

Wholesome story driven game but with a bit more to give in the gameplay section than a telltale or walking simulator style game, Excellent characters and underlying political themes tie everything together for me.

Story wasn't that interesting

This game is incredible! Where do I even start? Amazing story, dynamic characters, and significant choices that deeply affect the game. The soundtrack is great and all parts of gameplay feel amazing. Seriously, if you like games with good story and character development, this one is for you. Not only that, there's rhythm mechanics and combat as well! Cannot recommend enough. Absolutely loved it.

It's not that bad.

Now please disregard the next several paragraphs. If you just wanted my opinion, you got it. So move on to the next review, otherwise you're gonna be stuck with reading some bizarre fan fiction, where I try and justify why "It's not that bad."

Oh, you're actually considering reading the rest of this? Well alright, if you insist. I'm gonna count down from 3 though, just to give you another chance to back out. Ready?...

3

Let's begin!
So it all started when Concord... you know, kicked the bucket. The discourse surrounding this game's discussion forum was hilarious. I mean, you had people from all over the world, unified, just to clown on this game. Barely anyone played it, and people still don't even know what it is, despite it making headlines all over the place. Huge shoutout to the main defender's at the time, $CRWD.... and that's about it. There were others, but none made as much of an impact as he did. Eventually, solely reading the comments started to make me curious about the game itself. Like, Dustborn can't seriously be this bad, can it? Either way, I caved in, and decided to get it... along with the DLC. (Yes, I got the DLC. No, it's not worth it. I'll explain why later.)

Going into the game, I wanted to keep an open mind. Yes, I did read a lot of... 'spicy' comments in regards to it, but I still wanted to judge the game on it's own merits. Not what some biased Youtuber told me. In the beginning, things were... ok. The writing made it feel like the 'adults' were just teenagers in disguise, not a total game killer for me, but certainly a point that kept coming up during the 'meaningful' moments. However, some of the lines are just terribly delivered, in a 'so bad they're good' kinda way. A few early examples of this are: The scene I got with Sai in the bathroom, "Yeah, I was spiraling!" The scene where Pax talks to 'the robot' in the first campgrounds, "The problem isn't you specifically. The problem is you're a robot." As well as my personal favorite line in the 2009 flashback, "Is that my meme, you thief!" I really like that last one, makes for good clip material.

Now, after slowly crawling my way through, I reached chapter 4... This is where the fun things happened. This is also where I think the open mindedness started to break away and I was beginning to form an... 'opinion'. So the main problem isn't really this chapter specifically, but I think everything leading up to this point pushed me over the edge. Sai says some very... interesting things in this chapter, as well as the other characters having very interesting comments about religion later on. Now it's worth mentioning, a lot of the political things this game offers just goes right over head. I have barely any knowledge on politics so I'm not immediately put off by the characters appearances and the overall 'wokeness' of the game. However, I do take an issue with religion, specifically in regards to something I have a background in thanks to my parents. After chapter 4, I was like "This is the most insane [Redacted] I've ever heard, surely this wasn't the dev's intention." I was a little tilted, and thanks to someone I met here on the Dustborn Discussion forums, he set me up with a thread to talk about it, (thanks Xacova). Which led to the Devs/Dev account directly getting involved. It resulted in possibly one of the best threads I've ever been apart of. If you wish to read the events of what transpired, then check this out: https://steamcommunity.com/app/721180/discussions/0/4702413158524966782/

After that whole thing went down, I learned a few things. So, the devs did actually take a lot of things into consideration when making Dustborn. (Yes, I'm going to take them at their word as I have no reason to distrust them, even if it is a PR guy, they clearly know a lot about the development, so it's a safe bet that the responses in that thread were genuine.) The main thing that got me thinking was the potential for 'cut content'. The dev account made it seem like Red Thread was under time constraints to finish the game quickly. Doesn't that sound odd? A lot of the things I've read before jumping into the game, was that Red Thread had as much time/money that they needed in order to produce Dustborn, so why make cuts? Also, more specifically, cuts to the character interaction/dialogue as an effort to focus on the main story? Were they given a deadline? If so, I wonder why. The game itself is also more than enough evidence to support this theory. The first half of the game has pretty long chapters, like easily 2-4 hours per chapter. But then after the halfway point, the chapters start becoming an hour or less, with the comic summary only being 1 page. It's very interesting to think about. Not to mention the last chapter basically rushing the entire finale. Oh, also there was the 'ME-EM' issue too. Like how the wave runner minigame got totally forgotten about. (Special shoutout to the Dev who fixed that and re-implemented the UI, I really appreciate it.) I'm guessing the UI was originally meant to be black and white, like the 'Pong' minigame on there, but was changed to a gameboy colour scheme at the last minute. While the Pong minigame remains in the old colour style.

Time constraints aside. It was divulged to me, that some of my other issues with Dustborn would be answered if I just kept playing the game. Now I'm not a fan of this kind of story telling. Where an issue gets raised but doesn't get answered for many... many hours later. "Like trust me bro, it gets good after the 14th season... Just play for another 40 hours... I swear bro, I swear it gets good." Meanwhile chuffing copium like Thomas the tank engine. This is mainly in regards to Noam. So you've probably heard about the 'gaslighting' character, yeah? Everyone has. If you haven't heard of them, well now you have. A good case can be made towards them for being extremely toxic and manipulative, as their Vox is basically just 'brainwashing'/'mind control'. It makes Noam out the be the least trustworthy member of the entire group, and no one says anything about it, or even questions it.... until...

Spoilers (Avoid this section if you don't want to hear my issue with Noam) I was told in another thread by the dev account, that Noam's questionable behavior does get addressed. Which it does.... on the second last chapter of the game! That's pretty freaking close to the end of the game. But it does happen. Pax is able to confront Noam about their use of Vox and how it's manipulative. My only wish for this scene... (Aside from it happening earlier in the game) was that is lasted longer. This is a pretty huge issue and you only get a few lines and then it's time to escape the bar. Which isn't really enough to let this point sink in. Something I found interesting about this though. Remember how I talked about those time constraints? As well as the cut content? There's no campsite scene at the end of this chapter, which is odd. Seems like the perfect time to give a good scolding for everyone's immature behavior, and also talk to Noam more about their Vox. But there's no resolution, it's straight off to Chapter 9, then straight from 9 into 10. Kinda got a bit blue balled from that chapter 8 ending.

While talking about Vox, let me talk about Pax's Vox, as this is another huge issue I see get talked about a lot, and I myself don't like either. People keep saying: "Oh you have the choice to be bad." or "You don't have to use Vox." or "Using Vox gives you the bad ending." This is all [Redacted] by the way. There's a handful of scenes where you are forced to use Vox, no choice at all. What the game fails to do is explain 'why' you are forced to use Vox. Thankfully the Dev account cleared this up for me, because I got pretty tilted at this stuff too.

Oh, it seems like I'll need to continue this in the comment section. Didn't know there was a limit on long winded fan fiction writing...

Beat this game maybe two weeks ago and forgot to write my review. The story was enjoyable, a bit over the top in some of its dialogue and Vox names, but hey you're litteraly creating a comic book about your adventure so it works. For me I loved the dialogue and character interactions. My only real gripes would be I want more lore and some questions answered and I wish that how you chose to play Pax affected how her Vox worked in combat. Overall money well spent. Hopefully they'll give us a sequel or cross media content, I'd buy a comic or compendium.

Too much unpolished and cringy stuff, and the ending is too unfinished I think. And why the hell would they do that to Theo. But overall I like the crew, and the setting. Bring Theo back!

I really loved this game. It was exactly what I needed now, when everything else around is so depressing and uncertain. I think characters were greatly made with personalities, that fit to them and were relatable. Also being flawed.
I love political play in this game and how libraries are the big change for the world.
Maybe the most annoying part for me was protagonist's storyline (iykyk).
I cried in the end and now feel so empty, because loved how long I could spend in this game and collect fun stuff and make choices and play mini puzzles. Graphics were smooth and pretty. Love the art style. I got attach to characters and their own stories.
Big crush on Noam <3

I love this game and don't have much to add to the previous positive reviews that emphasize the story, the characters, the dialog, and the music. I originally played it on a different platform and bought it on Steam after I noticed the ongoing review bombing (not meaning negative reviews in general, but those that consist of a single word or a single corny joke).

One thing worth pointing out is that the game has a great feeling for small, precious moments. In one of them, we have a sincere conversation with our sister while sitting on the swings of an underground playground within a creepy subterranean building complex. In another, we are taking a scenic drive over a bridge close to the ocean, allowing us to observe the massiveness of the landscape that is sprinkled with buildings from a near-future, yet in-decay civilization.

Le robot est non binaire. * Mind Blowing *

many feature in this game that I would had love to see in every interractive movie game, I've played...

Kinda feels like an interactive Marvel tv-show, balancing the line of serious and goofy.

Dustborn is a whole mix of games - a little bit visual novel, a bit adventure - a little bit point and click - a bunch of mechanics that for the most part never get in the way of the story - which is most definitely the best part of the game.

Really loved the core decision making system, already making me want to play the game from the start but doing A instead of B..

I will not play this game because I identify as 'non-BUY-nary.

Great elements:

* The story is engaging, with a road trip through a dystopian US that gradually unveils new layers of its world.
* Characters are complex, with conflicts and past challenges that add depth.
* Dialogue balances humor with thoughtful moments. Great voice acting.

Good elements:

* Gameplay focuses on dialogue and puzzles, keeping the story flowing. Puzzles can feel forced but are fair. Music mini-games are fun and fit well within the narrative.

Mediocre elements:

* Combat elements are not a strong point; they are fun, but some combat scenes are overly long. A recent patch allows skipping combat, which seems a good idea.

Closing remarks:

* Don't listen to the online bullying of this game. The game does *not* try to be "woke" or push an agenda. It does include characters that are not white, male, and straight, which seems enough to make some people upset.

I enjoyed Dustborn, especially the middle chapters, where the characters come to life. The voice acting is fantastic. Loved the road trip vibe. I struggled a bit with the band-music interface, but I improved and enjoyed it by the end. Combat still feels off, sometimes swinging at nothing, even after recent patches. I played on normal difficulty with keyboard and mouse. Recommended.

Is this a fucking joke?

As someone who appreciates roadtrip movies, a good mix of fun and serious dialog, and complex characters that go through a process of personal development, I loved this game.

Avoid this game if:

- The idea of playing a character with flaws and a complex personality that evolves throughout the game is off-putting to you.

- You feel offended by the idea of having a diverse cast in a computer game.

- You expect that a game with diverse characters needs to explicitly bring up diversity issues in its story.

- You can enjoy computer games, specifically, their combat elements, only if they are challenging.

Play this game if you:

- Can appreciate a mix of different gameplay elements, including Telltale-style puzzles, extended interactive dialogs, combat, and Guitar-Hero-style music games

- Enjoy the idea of deeply exploring a setting in an alternative universe with nods to our current digitalized world and its challenges

- Find comic aesthetics appealing

- Are a linguistics nerd

- Enjoy a tongue-in-cheek kind of humor

It's actually not too bad of a game. It is full of propaganda but the game play itself is fine. There's also plenty of things so woke it's just hilarious

Great character writing, mediocre plot writing, bad gameplay. Pretty good romp all around.

Review at 2hrs

Gameplay

Combat

Character Interaction

Exploration

Setting & Story

Tourists hate this game.

Its pretty neat as far as I'm into it right now. I'll finish writing this after I'm done playing it

The combat system was very clearly an afterthought, but also this game seems like it was made for people who consider games small entertainment mediums rather than things you spend hours and hours grinding on. It clearly wasn't meant to be compared to dark souls, but if you did make that comparison then yeah sure the game is a bad melee game. Considering that this is supposed to be a cutscene game though, I still enjoyed it and it does require you to at least pay attention to it if you play it on hard difficulty.

I enjoyed the writing. Its very clearly not intended for the "I hate it when people are happy" crowd and it does a very good job keeping it kind of modern but not so modern that it says skibidi toilet. I liked how the game did its character personality system. I haven't had any super noticeable moments where a character acted entirely out of left field and it does seem to have a good impact on how the characters interact with each other.

I do think that the dialogue UI should've used it's the box that appears on the top of the screen to tell you exactly what you were going to say. I do think it's interesting that it gives you the characters thoughts on the dialogue options, but it's much more practical to just let me know what I'm going to say.

Once again, I haven't finished the game so I'll finish writing this review when that happens. Unless I forget.

I thought to give benefit of the doubt to one my favourite studios, but alas. I can perhaps note the art direction and its crisp implementation, but I cannot forgive such a shallow, awkward, self-congratulatory and preachy ideological sermon where a story and its characters should be.

Runs well on Steam Deck and looks really sweet, can't deny that. Many cool artistic and narrative findings, but I can't stomach to finish this. I hope to see such good quality of execution and tech applied to new Red Thread's endeavours.

A much better paced narrative game than Life is Strange, but with an ensamble case of completely unlikable and totally broken people who you cannot relate to. The ending is utter misery and completely unsatisfying. The main villains are a joke and at no point appear to pose any threat. Heavy handed political commentary that is beyond parody. A true slog. Play to a live audience of people throwing popcorn, or do not play at all. Achievements reveal fewer than 1.6% of people finish this game that start it.

Amazingly fun and cute game

Played on a computer with xbox controller.

This game features a colourful group of characters on a "hide-in-plain-sight" roadtrip with a bunch of personal issues you can work on or exploit. In addition it has:

1. A bus which is presented the same way as the characters and a robot with an apron that says "Kiss the cook".

2. Dynamic conversations and drama similar to Life is Strange with great voice acting.

3. Fun band moments and rhythm game mechanics similar to Night in the Woods.

4. Hunting down ghost-like echoes from a mysterious past event with your old Wii U game console. Which is the most complex mechanics in the game as you must (on controller) hold down two buttons while navigating with the right stick.

5. A fighting system with Skyrim-like shouts which feels good and fun, but out of tune with the rest of the gameplay and overall story. It takes away much of the dramatic tension and switches it out with comic relief.


I'd say this is a very typical Red Thread' game with all the compromises that entails. All of the mechanics are easy to learn and jump between because there are too many to go in depth given the time you spend with each one. You can choose to get hung up on all the things the game doesn't do well, for me it was having a fighting system (but which is a ton better than what they did in Dreamfall), or you can focus on the things you liked about the game and tell Red Thread Games what you'd like to see more of.

I'd like to see a new story told in this universe without fighting and where the rhythm mini-games gets to shine next to the dynamic dialogue scenes. Despite how much I enjoyed hunting echoes, it would have given the game a more cohesive feel if this mechanic also features a type of rhythm game.

My favourite moment of the game was the concert in Chicago where practicing with the band truly paid off.

My biggest letdown was the Norwegian translations which are lazy at its best. I would still recommend norwegians playing the game to play with Norwegian translations if you want a good laugh.

(My second letdown was that I didn't get an achievement or even a comment from the other characters on that Pax always did the dishes. What an ungrateful bunch! x) )

All in all, this game can be a colourful and fun experience, and made me want to explore rhythm games more.

It's a comic book flavored adventure game. Interesting story and if you like rhythm games, there is something here for you too.

The story needs a few hours to reach a good pacing. But at the end of act 2 the story and characters are interesting and add bit of mystery. I needed a few hours to get into the game, but i had a good time and will play it again in a few month or years to see how i can mess up with people. In my first playthrough i was a friend of everyone, now i want to see if the opposite behaviour changes the story.

Graphic, combat and action is comicstyle and fits the humor. Lovely characters with good voice acting. A bit cringy sometimes, but that fits well in the story.

A wonderful and moving story with some really memorable characters and moving moments.

Recommended for those who love a good roadtrip.

Wonderful game and story. I was drawn to it originally from the character design and was amazed on how I actually found a hidden gem. if you played any Taletale game before and want something more then I think this game is an even better choice.

Mechanically it works just fine but the writing in this NARRATIVE-HEAVY game is worse than bad. Politics exist in all forms of media but tact is required, subtlety also. Entertain me first then slip in the agenda so i don't notice and my unconscious mind takes it on board.

Really fun so far! Runs great on the Ally. Really enjoying the visuals and the soundtrack, and so far it's definitely worth the price!

Highly recommend if you're into visual novel style games!

I loved it. The acting and dialogue were sensational. I loved that you could just wander up and listen to characters having deep conversations.
I don’t love combat so I really appreciated the opportunity to lessen it.
I’ve heard a bit of negative reaction to ‘wokeness’ which I don’t understand from anyone who has actually played the game.
It’s current, interesting and captivating.
I enjoyed the graphic novel aesthetic fun but it did distance me slightly emotionally from the characters.
All in all a very satisfying play.

Don't listen to the incels having a meltdown, this is actually quite a good Telltale style adventure. The allegory is a little hamhanded sure, but it was actually pretty interesting world building and the storyline kept me coming back. Very Ragnar Tornquist for sure, but rest assured the vast majority of these bad reviews are not in good faith.

BEST game I’ve played in a long time. And I’ve played a LOT of games. Amazing mix of combat and narrative; if you love games by Telltale, this is a must.

From what I've played so far it's pretty funny, not in a good way. It's bad and deserves all the shit it's been getting. But I have been playing it with a friend and we've had fun just laughing at all the dumb shit in the game. Definitely would not recommend seriously, but as a "so bad it's good" game, I would. Just get it on sale or through other means.

"We're the dust-born
This bug is airbornе
We're the nеw porn
Our kind is newborn"

No one in the room suggested NOT to rhyme "porn" with "newborn"???

This game is very impressive in spots. For starters, the cinematic camera controls during dialogue is such a fantastic idea that I wish it were in every game like this. The art style is really great. I don't typically love cell shaded/comic book art styles in games but this was so well done that I just really liked looking at the characters in motion. Speaking of which, the animations are pretty great, especially the expressive characters during dialogue. I genuinely really like how this game plays, however, thats not what kills this game...

The writing is not to a standard that I would like. The lyrics written for the in game band is especially difficult to stomach. I don't want to be mean but I don't know how to say it any other way, whoever wrote this stuff needed an editor.. or a ghost writer.

It's not just that the lyrical content and dialogue feels like its written by a high school student, but it creeps all the way into the root events of the story. Get this: You've just performed a high stakes, super dangerous heist and when you finally get to a temporary safe spot to inconspicuously change vehicles to avoid the authorities, one of your crew mates has a mental breakdown and refuses to come out of the bathroom... and the game means for you to coddle their emotions in some way to get them out. I understand that this maybe is a more light hearted adventure (even though its rated M), but in an actual heist, that crew member would be a liability; not to mention that if they were to get caught by authorities, that character definitely wouldn't have it in them not speak to the police. This moment made me stop to think about who could have written this. There are moments like this were the script forces you out of it... to wonder about it.

I just had to put it down after not that long, I may try again though some day. I liked a lot of what I played and when I saw the screen where you could see what other players had done compared to my choices I got really excited to play more. Unfortunately, though, I saw the writing on the wall (no pun intended). If the writing standards were this low for the dialogue and lyrics AND it's limited perspective makes the story's events feel ill-thought out, I didn't really want to find out how potentially bad it could have been further into the game, sadly. I do hope this dev team makes more games though! Everything is so so great... just... just... you know.

You know.. I'll play anything Red Thread releases. They make story games, and they make them well.
That said, getting into this game took me a little while, but, once my journey was well underway I was fully engaged with all of it. I love the world building they've done and the voice acting (especially Pax and Sai) was just the best.
As for the story, I think they did a great job with the choices you get to make. I never felt like the game was vague about a consequence or presenting important things at inopportune times or anything of the sort. And It's fun to see how all the characters move into different directions depending on how interactions take place over the course of the game.
I also love that the game doesn't just have a thing like "Vox" and expects you to accept it and move on, but rather, starts delving into that: What is it? Why is it? Some of the bigger pieces fall into place a bit late in the game, but on the other hand, that does allow for reflection- understanding the journey and its meaning better when looking back. Reflections, by the way, are also a great part of the game- Pax reflecting is like reading April's diary in The Longest Journey.
All in all, I enjoyed my roadtrip very much and hopefully get to see the next game from Red Thread Games soon(tm)

Horrible experience. Insufferable characters. Why did I buy this? I thought it would be funny, but I was wrong. So wrong. Well it is really funny in a sad way. But also unbearable because the characters talk so much and have nothing interesting to say. Uninstalling.

On a positive note: the game actually works and is bug free. Also, thankfully, it is a brand new IP, so it's not like it's ruining anything that is actually good. So that is respectable, kinda.

By the way some people are talking about this game, you'd think it came into their house and killed their goldfish or something.
I liked it. Didn't set my world on fire, but the characters are likeable. (Sai is like me FR. Down to the size and the fact I'm the 'Can you do this heavy lifting?' gal of my friend group. Wish I had her superpowers), I really enjoyed the way dialogue is handled. (More like pushing people to certain places, rather then a 'Likes you/doesn't like you toggle.) and I like the overall vibe. It's unique in this market. Solid 7, maybe 8 outta ten. The only real complaint I have is that Pax, the main character starts out unlikeable and while I get that's the intention and I'm glad she gets called out on her behavior, her interactions, especially with her sister, that you're kinda rail-roaded into, left a sour taste in my mouth. Though I am willing to see where this is going. Again, it feels very purposeful.

Overall, I'm enjoying my time with the game and looking forward to where things are going.

its extremely 7/10. possibly the most 7/10 game a 7/10 game has ever been. it mostly sits at a good baseline and never attempts to reach up.

the music in the rhythm game sections is pretty weak. there's an obscene level of padding at times (see the entire breaking into the mall sequence, seriously why did i need to talk to and wait for everyone to walk to the door at their molasses pace TWICE to open it up, its so dumb. this is only one example of like 30+ similar moments throughout).

but the story is pretty engaging, and at times the combat does feel fun. there are plenty of cool moments and set pieces to make this game worth your time (but not the turn based pacifica fight. that felt horribly out of place and just kinda bad in general)

another thing to note; a decent chunk of the things you hear about this game online is straight up incorrect. you discover that quickly by, get this, playing the game! wow!

overall, its fine. 7/10 fine, which just falls into the recommended basket for me.

"I used my words as weapons. Every conversation a confrontation.
Before this trip, I didn't know how to listen. So how could I know what to say?"

Dustborn, to me, was less a game about different factions fighting for control in an alternate universe where people have superpowers that are neither fully understood nor seen as a good thing, not even by the people who have access to them.
It certainly is that, too, but what really spoke to me was the feeling of accompanying these people on their journey of self-discovery, of trying to find personal meaning in an - at times - out of control situation. None of the characters in the game is in a particularly good spot when the game begins. That is understandable, even if it is unpleasant at times.
Even though they are friends, and in this mess of a situation together, they are very isolated and don't necessarily know how to connect with each other. It was really rewarding to me to see them learn how to listen and empathise, even if they disagree. All of this happened slowly over the entire runtime (~20 hours) of the game, so it never felt aprupt or forced.
The conversation system and the other ways of interacting with the cast of characters really shone for me.
Dustborn lets you play your main character with a wide range. Are you going to use your Vox powers at the first possible moment or are you trying to minimize its use? Are you going to only look out for yourself or make room for others needs?
Are you going to be abrasive in conversations or take the time to listen?
Depending of how you play your cards, situations will be different, and so will the relationships in the game - for better of for worse.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game and am looking forward to playing a second run after I've let the thoughts swirling around in my mind settle for a bit.

The "anti-woke crowd" are it again and it's getting old. Nothing sets them off more than characters being introduced with pronouns, so I say add that to more games. Stay mad, basement dwellers. As for me, thoroughly enjoying the game, including the "cringe" characters and dialogue. It's a video game. If a video game gets you hopping mad, go touch the entire lawn.

It's a genuinly human experience. A visual novel with some action elements. TBD if I get bored of it before the end, but so far it is nice

The game is fun, competently made and written, and offers commentary on society and the banality of evil. If you think making fun of California's Tech Bro culture is Far Left, I don't know what to tell you.

Honestly the only real criticism I have is the lack of a skip button.

The game is drowned in completely, 100% misleading steam tags, but in reality has quite a few good things about it. Like seriously, there is nothing here that deserves LGBTQ and Political tags more than literally any other AAA game released in the last 5 years.

The story quickly picks up pace and builds a curious and somewhat light-headed setting (which isn't bad, as it fits well with the comic book style visuals). Later on the story focuses more on the relationships inside your band - and that is where the game really shines. The whole dialog and character systems are really well made and end up feeling very natural and immersive with each character well written and unique.

The worldbuilding side of the story could use an expansion though. Even after completing the game all I can say about fractions are that one are some totalitarian bad guys, second are a good opposing force and the last one is... idk, flying robots? The intrigue of the main mystery is very well built to, but left to be too open-ended. I feel like the game would be an order of magnitude better with another 10h of playtime devoted exclusively to worldbuilding and the mystery of the Broadcast

Ah, and there is also combat and song minigames. Both fit very well into the story, but when I chose "more combat" option I expected to see actually hard bosses and enemies, but they were all pushovers which is a little bit sad because the basic mechanics of the combat are good.

In the end, the game turned out to be not what I expected, but still very solid.

This Review is Thoughtcrime and Backseat Devving

Story

• The American Republic is a capitalist police state, but Justice cops support diversity for non-Anomals while hypocritically discriminating against Anomals. This means the American Republic could represent cop-loving liberals like Eric Adams or Democrats who sided with Republicans in post-9/11 surveillance policies. True libfash representation. The mainstream and far-right doesn't care for diversity optics as much as Justice, so Justice doesn't map to them.
  
• Justice officers are treated as mostly well-intentioned and humanized people in a bad system, who aren't aware of their leaders' intentions, making this a nuanced example of cops.
  
• That said, Justice cares more about sounding politically correct than applying anti-bigotry consistently, and they still persecute the homeless and protestors.
  
• Justice's higher ups in particular want to capture and use Anomals as tools of control.
  
• It's possible the JFK alt timeline nerfed the Southern Strategy, lol. Plus, it looks like some parts of the south seceded anyways.
  
• Misinfo is represented as Echoes and misuse of Protolanguage, which can bend reality. The idea is that propaganda warps people's perception of reality, like convincing them liberals and leftists are the same. I find this a bad plot device because it takes away agency from humanity unlike real propaganda and I would prefer a proper examination of real propaganda techniques, including how misinfo can be produced quicker than real info. It's the Curse of Erebonia 2.0.
  
• The far-right isn't represented in any major faction, but traces of their ideology are found in Echo infectees. Again, my problem with this is the lack of agency and the overemphasis of Echoes' paranoia inducement. Also, I don't think paranoia is the sole motivation of far-right ideology.
  
• Since Echoes are caused by the Republic's experiments, this means the writers could be blaming the rise of the far-right on liberals.
  
• The Puritans seem to be a mishmash of capitalist techbros, religious zealotry, and overcensorship in the name of fighting misinfo. I'm not sure what these guys map to. I guess some kind of hypothetical technofascism? They're treated with less sympathy than individual Justice officers, but they also don't seem to be as bigoted as certain factions IRL.
  
• The Henry and Betty quest is meant to be a criticism of capitalism because the robots are given sentience and family-friendly lore, but are still treated as disposable tools by their creators. It's such a sad predicament that the robophobic protag feels class solidarity with these robots.
  
[*]In Issue 2, the game criticizes anarcho-primitivism for some reason and believes that leftism can and should exist alongside technology.

Gameplay

Other

Verdict

This game is about a group of friends, on a roadtrip to safety trying to survive and pass through territory that is unfriendly to them. It's notable as a game features many queer people of colour as part of its main and its supporting cast. Often when we think of queer games, the ones that come to mind tend to be visual novels or dating sims. But a black and brown queer cast in an adventure game with combat? That's got to be a first!

It feels rare that you start of an adventure game where the engine is already running and your player character have pre-existing relationships with the other protagonists in the game but here it is.

Combat exists in the game and while it is pretty core to the game and has depth. It is ultimately secondary to the story, working to inform the audience that you live in a fantastical alt-history world and it's a little violent in territories of the Divided States of America.

It does sometimes feel like it could be more but that's okay, because unlike the Action Adventure genre, its main focus is to support the core mechanic of the game which are the relationships you have with your friends/crew/family. It is not the goal in and of itself.

Even the powers these heroes have which are used in combat and in narrative choices have a purpose. Some of the characters feel ashamed about their powers because they only seem to harm others for short term gains, it all has a cost when you use it.

This applies to all the various minigames, (some of them being one off) because all those minigames you play exist to support the experience of what it's like to be on a roadtrip. They'll be moments where you're writing songs performing songs, doing a pull puzzle... They're not all as polished as they could, but they do serve the story and the characters.

As a game it has great and lovable characters (Love Sai!) who are all too human in their flaws, prejudices and their ability to grow. It's saddening to see the amount of harassment these devs have received from others who don't appreciate the heritage of adventure games Red Thread Games comes from.

for they're missing a real gem of adventure narrative story telling. Don't sleep on this!
I enjoyed my time and can't wait to finish this game!

Before I start this review, I want to give a couple of disclaimers before anyone decides whether or not to purchase this game:

1. Yes, there are plagiarism accusations towards this game. Whether that is true or not, that is unclear, but if that is something taken seriously, then you should probably stay clear of this game.

2. The way that the game was marketed was rather misleading to a degree that trailers were potentially changed, altered, or re-updated and uploaded. Me personally, I'm surprised that literally no one has mentioned this anywhere, but I can understand if some consider that a serious matter. I'm not a fan of that personally, especially from someone who was genuinely excited and interested in this game at some point.

Now for starters...

Is this game as bad as people say it is? In my personal, subjective, opinion, no.

But, does that mean that the game is good then? No.

Let's start with some of the positives first:
When the game is not focusing on too many themes at once, too many ideas, too many plot points, etc... When the game decides to take a back seat, this is where this game actually shines. The times between stops on the road when you are sitting by a campfire, at a party, in a house, etc... these parts of the game stand out as being generally good. The game really gives that time to just get invested in characters, the world, music, and so on. Speaking of which, the music parts of this game are fairly enjoyable to play through, whether for the right or wrong reasons. Even during these parts of the game, there is an admittedly clever item system in which you can influence characters this way, which gives some good incentives to explore levels, as well as becoming a factor of the game that is admittedly pretty interesting. Speaking of which on a final note, despite the language used in this game, which don't worry we'll get too, the theology aspect of the game is admittedly an aspect of the game that was somewhat enjoyable, even though I think the game could go way more into this aspect.

Now for all of the bad, and there is quite a lot of bad here:

Let's start back to the premise of the game. This is a horrible way to make the characters likable. Not only is it a rather weak hook into the main narrative, but to top it off it makes me not like the characters from the start. Seeing the characters not like each other, arguing over nonsense, saying and doing whatever is on their minds, and then getting a cop accidentally killed on the road, ain't a good start to a story in which you are going to be with these characters, for the entire runtime of this game. And don't worry, for the most part, for the entire time, these characters ain't likable, except for the robot of all things.

Then you get to the overall level design. It's very basic, cheap feeling, open but thin, and empty. Even when exploring for items, they seem quite out of place in relation to the setting, and that goes for the world building as well.

Why are there even robots in this world? Why does this game look the way that it looks with its art style, which just gets in the way of the UI and copies other games if anything? You have this seemingly dark serious treacherous world yet everything is bright, colorful, clean and tidy...What is even going on with the climate during the road trip? The way that the world is built up is not only confusing, but it goes against itself, it simply doesn't feel like a real world. Nothing feels organically made in this game, and it really took me out of the experience, and that is included with its inclusion of its themes as well as the way that other items and props are placed in the world. It's distracting honestly. And don't you forget, about the echoes, meme devices, powers, etc... It's so out of place that it honestly comes off as funny more than serious.

Speaking of which, this game tries way too hard to have too many ideas. There are great games out there, that handle similar themes to this game, but the difference is that they have a really large focus on very few ideas, and not focusing on everything to where you lose sense of the artistic vision that the game wants to convey. This feels like when a toddler has a lot of toys in a toy box, and they just dump the entire toy box on the floor, and they're like "hey look at this look at that"and that's it, in comparison to say having a few Lego sets, but you can do a whole lot with them, you can change what you build, you can experiment, you can push the boundaries of your imagination, you can make those Lego sets interact with each other differently, craft wholly unique stories, and the list goes on. Some of its themes are so poorly explored that its some of the worst writing in a game that is out there, and combined with what was previously mentioned earlier, and you have a compound effect of now having the aesthetic of a group of people posing as a band, but with its awful music, makes for an even more unlikable experience.

Then there is the choice system. It's certainly unclear. Sometimes you're just forced to make choices that you don't like, or the choices in relation to the outcome doesn't make sense, feel too narrow, or are just moving the plot. It's just a bad choice system overall, in a game whereby it is super important.

I'm not going to conclude any spoilers in this review, so I'm just going to skip over quite a few issues with the plot and go straight to the technical side of things. It's bad. The game doesn't run well for what it looks like, the way that the audio is mixed is terrible and the fact that you have to look at characters to hear them correctly is incredibly annoying, the overall UI is actually a nuisance, there are misspellings within the subtitles, the combat is buggy, glitchy, clunky, stuttering like crazy, even though the boss fights are actually pretty okay, and the voice acting is sometimes so bad that it's as if I'm hearing a straight up studio session.

I didn't, besides within the combat, run into technical issues per say, but this game is more so on a bad technical level when it comes to its production more than anything.

Overall, I don't think this game is as bad as other people say it is, but it certainly isn't good, and I still think it's a bad game. I am going to give this game a 3/10.

Dustborn is a dialog heavy game with some simple combat on the side. The story is surprisingly slow at times for such a dialogue heavy game, instead focussing more on the character interactions. As such, whether you will enjoy this game depends on whether you like you the cast of the game or not.
The cast of the game is the playable character, Pax, and her 3 companions, Sai, Noam, and Theo. As you play further, the Dustborn crew growths, adding a wide variety of characters. You also influence the characters with your decisions, even being able to push the initial cast of characters towards three different directions (like buddy, dad, and boss in Theo's case).
The dialogue is very slice of life style a lot of time, having the characters talk about whatever topics that come up or situation they find themself in, while also sharing stuff about their privat life. I enjoyed listening to the banter between the characters, finding their jokes and comments regularly amusing.
The story of the game feels slow, putting the focus more on the roadtrip with friend aspect, but it has its moment. I do have to say that after finishing it, while it has interesting elements in its story, it feels like they never fully realised them in the end. The last chapters of the game feels like they had to either cut their initial plans short or like they were rushing to create an end for all the things they sat up.
Overall i found the game an enjoyable experience and recommend it, even if it has its flaws.

I wanted to give the game a fair shake. This isn't me blindly jumping on a hate train. I've never left a review for a game before, but I'm dropping by to air my complaints so far. I will likely edit this later, as I only have 3 hours of playtime.

In those 3 hours, the game has crashed twice. My laptop is brand new, and no other game I've tried has just spontaneously shut down like this. I don't think I should be having a crash almost every hour. The fact that you can't skip cut scenes or dialogue means I was having to sit through conversation that I had just listen to a few minutes ago. The crashing wouldn't have been as much of an issue if I could skip what I had already seen.

I've done 3 of the rhythm mini-games so far. The mechanics are fine, nothing new. I don't like the first song, which definitely isn't a great first impression. The lyrics are lackluster, and the vocals aren't very appealing.

The character designs are... okay. Pax's tattoos are a little too busy, and don't always play nice with her t-shirts. A tank top would've kept her arm tattoos from looking like part of her sleeve. I like Noam's look, but even so, I can admit that their clothes don't look appropriate for a heist. At least, not a cross-country one where everyone is living out of a bus. I get that it's because they're well-off compared to the others, but it's a little impractical. No notes for Theo, he's good. I like his stupid glasses. Sai, however, is not good. It's NOT because she's overweight, that has nothing to do with it. Her hairstyle is a poor choice, aesthetically and with the game's models. Her braids are often floating a few inches away from her shoulders like they're suspended pieces of plastic. Her vitiligo is tinted purple for some reason, which makes it look more like paint splatters than the actual condition. The knee-high socks are not flattering, and that wouldn't change even if Sai were skinny. A different hairstyle, no tall socks, and more realistic coloring for her vitiligo would have been enough to improve her design immensely.

The banter is very Marvel-esque, and I'm very burnt out on that style of comedy. There were one or two jokes that made me laugh, but most of it was just very bland. The voice acting isn't stellar, and the characters come off as quite mean to each other a lot of the time. If I'm playing a game that focuses on relationships, I don't want to feel like my supposed friends are constantly bickering around me. Sai is a volatile, emotional wreck that has stated at least once that she hates Pax. Noam comes off as a sarcastic and petty person. Pax has multiple dialogue choices that are blatantly labeled as "interruptions." Theo, despite being older, is a spineless punching bag for the entire introduction as he's being yelled at by everyone. I'd pay money to see him bite back at one of the crew for being immature. God, there's even a scene of Sai mocking Noam like a child.

(Slight spoilers ahead, if you care.) And, even with the names of the abilities aside, I really don't like that everyone seems so comfortable using their powers against each other. Noam gaslights Pax, once with permission but once without so far. Pax can use her voice to silence everyone more than once, and also uses it to force Sai to come out of an anxiety spiral. Sai might not be using her powers to get what she wants, bit some of her tantrums feel a little manipulative. Right now it seems like they're all comfortable trying to play each other... except for Theo. Guy's just trying to wrangle three characters that feel like angst-riddled and emotionally unstable teens. You can even make choices that nudge him into a more fatherly role in the crew, despite the fact that everyone is 30+. Not sure yet why he even chose to team up with the other three when he could've probably done this much easier by himself. Sai has been a bit of a burden, while Pax is aggressive and hijacking the plans to suit her own needs. Honestly, if Theo needed an Anomal so badly he could've just brought the gaslighter Noam along without the others to help confuse any guards that might stop them.

Continual Crash Update: 5 crashes in 4.5 hours

TLDR: The game has crashed twice in my ~3 hours of playtime, and I have way more negative things to say than good. Will edit if I can make it through the game without more issues. 3.5/10 stars.