Разработчик: Red Thread Games
Описание
«Dustborn» — это однопользовательская сюжетная приключенческая игра о надежде, любви, дружбе, роботах... и силе слова.
Вы играете за Пакс: изгнанницу, мошенницу, аномала, умеющую использовать язык в качестве оружия. В поисках новой жизни и выхода из сложившейся ситуации Пакс нанялась для перевозки важного груза из Пасифики в провинцию Новая Шотландия, через Американскую Республику, находящуюся под контролем фракции «Правосудие». Согласитесь, это похоже на завязку к путешествию?
Собирайте чемоданы, набирайте команду со своими особыми способностями и отправляйтесь в поездку по стране!
Откройте для себя потрясающие неозападные пейзажи Америки в ее альтернативной истории на гастрольном автобусе, управляемом роботом, и останавливайтесь в десятках мест по дороге, чтобы собирать команду, налаживать с ней отношения, выполнять задания и попутно решать все более сложные задачи. Не забудьте: те, у кого вы украли посылку, хотят ее вернуть, а авторитарная фракция «Правосудие» идет по пятам — стоит прихватить с собой бейсбольную биту!
(И да, вы путешествуете под легендой панк-рок-группы, так что перед следующим выступлением вам обязательно нужно подтянуть свои музыкальные навыки.)
В конце пути вас ждет спасение... но чтобы добраться до него, вам придется пересечь целый континент.
ВЛАСТЬ СЛОВ
Слова обладают силой. Настоящей властью. Сражайтесь с помощью Криков и используйте в разговорах Звуки, чтобы манипулировать людьми и выкручиваться из неприятных ситуаций. Создавайте новые слова и учитесь использовать языковой арсенал против врагов... и друзей.
ПОЕЗДКА ПО РАЗОБЩЕННОМУ КОНТИНЕНТУ
В дороге по Америке в ее альтернативной истории вы будете останавливаться в знаковых местах, выполнять неожиданные задания, знакомиться с колоритными персонажами, набирать новых членов команды и уходить от преследователей (или сражаться с ними). По дороге вы увидите прекрасные достопримечательности, выполненные в красочном стиле графической новеллы, вдыхающим трехмерную жизнь в великолепные двухмерные иллюстрации.
ПЕСТРЫЙ СОСТАВ ПЕРСОНАЖЕЙ
Ваша команда — это, считайте, ваша семья. Соберите разношерстную толпу неудачников с необычными способностями, интересными жизненными историями и противоречивыми характерами. Разветвленные диалоги помогают формировать отношения членов команды к себе и другим.
ИГРОВОЙ ПРОЦЕСС ТАК ЖЕ РАЗНООБРАЗЕН, КАК И ЛАНДШАФТ
Вы будете исследовать каждую локацию, изучать встреченных людей и общаться с ними, полагаться на свою команду в трудных ситуациях, создавать новые Крики и Звуки, репетировать со своей группой. Вы также сможете бросать коктейли Молотова с мотоцикла, сбивать вертолеты бейсбольной битой... и так далее. В общем, ничего особенного.
Поддерживаемые языки: english, french, german, spanish - spain, russian, norwegian, simplified chinese, italian, portuguese - brazil, japanese, polish
Системные требования
Windows
- 64-разрядные процессор и операционная система
- ОС: Windows 10 (64-bit)
- Процессор: Intel Core i5 5th generation or equivalent
- Оперативная память: 8 GB ОЗУ
- Видеокарта: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 2GB or equivalent
- DirectX: версии 11
- Место на диске: 25 GB
- 64-разрядные процессор и операционная система
Mac
Linux
Отзывы пользователей
I really love this game! I was quite surprised to read Reviews that were basically saying the game is no good.
You can judge a game on different criteria and I understand that this genre might not be for everyone, but the least you can do is think about all the games aspects and acknowledge the parts such as Music (not necessarily My taste but grew onto me) and the cool Artstyle! (Something new and creative!)
And the idea to recap the story with comics! The diverse set of characters are a blessing! The complex story that teaches us that there is not only black and white in the world… it puts you in difficult situations… but if you don’t feel playing these games, and are not invested these are not your games.
You enjoy playing if you can empathise with the characters.
There were fun elements too and overall I liked the experience! I have recommended this game to many friends. It feels like a wholesome interesting thoughtful adventure heist Movie.
🍿
I genuinely can't tell if this game is a parody or not
(Seriously do not buy this game, even as a joke, even if it goes free to play, just avoid this thing at all costs)
I had the unfortunate displeasure of putting over 15 hours into this thing over the course of 3 playing sessions (10 hours of which were yesterday) and where do you even start with this game?
The character designs just feel like they spun a wheel or had a dart board with various quotas they needed filled and after landing on a couple of options that's how they decided to "diversify" their cast. With the obvious being "All white men evil and Black woman needs to be the lead because this is the most important minority"
I have no problem with a diverse cast or tackling social issues in a game when it feels organic. If you want an example of this done well, look towards a game like Night in the Woods, because this game does nothing but spoon feed you political talking points with writing that feels like its at a 3rd grade reading level where they occasionally pulled out a thesaurus to make the characters sound as smug and condescending towards the player as possible.
The biggest offender is Pax, the protagonist of the game. Pax is the most insufferable awful person I've had the misfortune of taking control of in a video game in my life. She's rude, a bully, does nothing to develop as a person throughout this game's painful 15 hour run time and everyone just makes excuses for her awful behavior. She hates robots, but not because they're robots, but because she can't use her superpowers to manipulate them. There's a whole segment about how she was an abusive older sister and the game just kind of brushes it off as, "Kids being kids am I right? LMAO"
The plot of the game revolves around a group of "quirky" friends and Theo (the most likable of the cast) travelling from California (I mean because come on, of course these characters are from California, where else would you find characters this good) which has become its own country after vague lore the game doesn't really go into so if the game doesn't feel its worth your time to explain it, I'll put about as much effort as the writers of this game did. But the TL;DR, JFK survived the assassination attempt and his wife dies instead making JFK evil (A democrat btw, if they really wanted to hammer home their "Republicans are evil" messaging Ronald Reagan is right there 2 decades later) and this game also has an awkward hate boner towards Marilyn Monroe because she became his new wife or something, but I guess it wouldn't be a Feminist game if we didn't spend half the run time bashing women we disagree with.
Besides the obvious expected mainstream far left unsubtle propaganda you'd expect from a game like this, Dustborn's gameplay really boils down to 3 things:
1. Telltale but bad
2. Combat that makes The Quiet Man look like a 10/10 game
3. Awful Rhythm minigame with some of the worst music you'll ever hear with songs you'll hear over and over again like playing Haruka's chapter in Yakuza 5, but instead of the constantly repeated song being good, you have a selection of 5 songs none of which you wanna hear once, let alone several times throughout the course of this game
The majority of the game's run time is spent being a watered down sad attempt at being a Telltale game. Much like the writing in other questionable games like The Last of Us 2, the writers assume you like these people (which besides not even a handful of characters in this game, 95% of the cast in this game sucks) they're vulgar, rude, manipulative, condescending, smug, every quality you can think of from an insufferable person you hate, that's the flavor of character you'll be getting in this game. This game also presents the story in a way like your choices matter, since whenever you interact with characters that matter, they'll go towards 1 of 3 possible paths based on what you say to them, but ultimately none of this matters and the game will end more or less the same whether you attempt to be kind to these people or if you're doing as the devs seem to want and make Pax the rudest person possible and talk down to literally everyone that isn't her. I'm gonna spoil it because let's face it, most of the people reading the reviews for this game didn't buy the game anyways, but basically if there's a character that's even remotely likable, they just die. The robot character (who ironically has more personality than most of the human characters) saves Pax from being run over by a train and has like 5 seconds before the train will hit them, but because even the robot couldn't stand being in Dustborn any longer, they just decide to give a thumbs up and end it all as they get demolished by a train. The other fortunate character that unfortunately had to be designed for this game, Theo, gets the most anti-climatic unavoidable death in the entire game when some small bald white kid just removes him from existence. Honestly my theory at this point is that they just wanted a "shocking" death at the end of the game, but the writers were like, "Oh no, which of these minorities is the most expendable? Well there's only 2 men and 1 of them is black so Theo, as the Hispanic man of the group, you're fired!" And then the final boss is a quick time event because that's how all the good games end :)
The combat in this game is so bad, literally any time a fight starts a screen wide box appears that says, "Hey, we couldn't be bothered, you should probably skip the combat" and this includes all bosses in the game as well. The only attack button is X (Xbox controller controls) then Y does a "Taunt" attack which to be honest usually just out right misses, B is a useless block, and A is your dodge button. You can also throw Pax's bat like Kratos's axe with LT and X, though locking on is really awkward and barely works, so I usually just throw at what ever the auto aim decides the target will be. You can also use your VOX (the superpowers the characters have) which effects combat in various ways, depending on who is in your party (this is random by the way, the game decides who joins you in combat in each section) you can do a combo by using one of your VOXs and then another character will do a follow up attack. Though as graphically undemanding as this game is, it tends to stutter frequently out of nowhere, just jumping from 144 FPS to 40 FPS and back for seemingly no reason. Honestly I'm probably putting more effort into discussing this game's combat than it's worth seeing as the devs literally just let you skip all of it, but final thoughts on it, the combat is really funny. Not because the characters constantly talking is funny, but because they constantly interrupt each other and constantly repeat themselves, while the physics engine has a stroke and ragdolls enemies all over the screen, it's genuinely hilarious how bad it is, and if you find yourself in the unfortunate circumstance of playing Dustborn, don't skip the combat because laughing at how bad it is is some of the only enjoyment you'll get from this game.
Now what this game is probably most known for, the music. It's dribble trash and calling it "Punk Rock" is an insult to Punk Rock, hard to take your anti government message seriously when this game was funded by tax dollars, hard to be punk when you're literally the establishment. The lyrics are awful and honestly inappropriate considering you spend half the game with a mute child the gang just decides to kidnap and they're all just kind of okay with it. Anyways, music. The rhythm minigame is about what you'd expect, it's just Yakuza Karaoke minus the good music; however, if you decide to not engage with it, Pax has some of the most unintentionally hilarious line delivery as she screws up the songs.
I'd add more but I've reached the character limit so final score: 1/10 this game is probably the worst thing I've had the misfortune of experiencing. DO NOT BUY.
If this game were long it would be in contention for my game of the year, and if I had a nickle for every time a queer woman in a beanie who's powers are yelling at people became one of my favourite protagonists of all time I would have 2 nickles but its weird that it happened twice.
while this game is good for a laugh for how insane the writing is (like calling two bar bouncers nazis for not letting you in) its also poorly optimized, boring combat that you can spam the basic attack to win most of the time, and extremely shallow characters make it a choir to play most of the time.
overall if it wasnt for the fact i only paid $10 and played this for a charity stream i would feel ripped off. glad im not European or i would be pissed my taxes helped fund this.
the story's pretty good once it gets going, combat not so great.
**THIS GAME IS NOT MADE FOR PEOPLE WITH LOW ATTENTION SPANS** (pls do try it tho 🙏)
Dustborn is great!! The tags don't lie one bit when it says this game is story-rich.
If you like interacting with NPCs, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you play Dustborn.
The story of this game lies within the interactions with its characters, so, it will feel A BIT bland if you skip through the dialogue.
The characters feel real af (pleasantly natural flow of conversation + characters all have their own silly little personalities, the combat system is unique and enjoyable, and did I mention the easter eggs??)
BUT THE LORE, OMG
As you play through the game, all these little details all of a sudden have SO MUCH meaning, and it literally feels like a spiderweb (of plot points - yk, like when detectives in movies attach red threads to different pieces of info on a board??) is ACTIVELY FORMING as you play.
Again, I HIGHLY recommend you play this game - especially my ladies in the crowd.
Authors of the Longest Journey made this.
Disappointment.
Looked cool, got it on sale, might as well.
This game is peak I swear to god. Sometimes the writing might be too over the top for some, but I believe that's part of the charm. Well worth it even at full price.
tried to give game a chance, i seriously cant keep going...
the lack of passion,
terrible writing,
awfully designed characters with unlikable personalities,
and worst of all, seeing just absolute hatred and even bigotry in the design and writing choices makes me wanna puke.
unless youre a 30 year old female twitter user, dont buy this game
I'll purchase any game from Red Thread Games. Best games ever: "The Longest Journey" and "Dreamfall"!
The first hour playing "Dustborn", I got triggered by the "wokeness": He/him, she/her, female mechanics, low testosterone of the only guy in the heros' team, you know the drill. But as always, Red Thread Games has created a magical gaming experience. I totally love the game now.
By the way, we Danes invented the Norwegians.
update:
I have now played the game half way. It is so amazing. I would have payed 10X for this EPIC game. Yes it is woke, but it's so cool.
One of the best games I have ever played.
Not for everyone. If you prefer 90% action with almost no dialog and story. This game will bore you to death.
Typically this is where I would put a spoiler warning. However if you know what this game is about and you aren't interested, you aren't going to care. If you know what this "game" is about and are still interested, you're probably going to ignore this review anyway. This review is for those who don't know about this "game" and a genuinely curious about it, for those individuals I have one word for you.
Run.
TL;DR - This game is hot dogshit.
I put 25 hours into this "game," got 2/3rds of the achievements on the first (and only) run. I gave this "game" every chance to wow me, and it failed miserably.
Now for a Pros and Cons section.
Pros:
There was a raccoon wearing a sweater in this "game."
Cons:
Story
I want to start off by saying that there are elements here that could make a good story. A scrappy band of rebels using their voices to activate superpowers that aid them in accomplishing their goal of escaping an authoritarian government. The problem is that this "game" drops the ball so hard that it embeds itself in the earth's mantle. This "game" made me want to immerse myself... in a vat of acid.
The overall story itself is about a group of individuals that steal data from one authoritarian government and have to travel through the territory of another authoritarian government to seek refuge in Canada (go figure) where they imagine themselves safe and secure while being lauded as heroes. Along the way, they have to visit secret libraries that stock literature that is banned by said authoritarian governments in order to deliver supplies. I think they're supposed to be delivering books, but the "game" doesn't really go into detail about... well, anything really. Along the way they are accosted by both governments, biker gangs, robots, and their own hypocrisy.
Let's talk about the "heroes" of this particular piece of media. They are in no way relatable, or should I say they weren't relatable to any sane person. A bunch of he/she/they/them/xirs who's morality was sketchy at best and downright reprehensible most of the time. They speak of the governments trying to control what people think and then turn around in the next sentence and and use their powers to control what people think.
The interactions between characters were trite and annoying, like the characters themselves, and every bit of dialogue made me want to hammer nails into my skull to relieve the pain. The characters act like whiny children most of the time, all acting on emotion while giving nothing any reasonable consideration. One of the scenes that I CAN remember (my brain has gone to great lengths to forget this "game" in it's entirety) is where Sai gets angry at Pax for wanting to keep another character with them. Rather than talking it out like reasonable adults, Sai throws a fit like a three year old and storms out of the house that they were staying in. This is just one example I can think of, but I remember having to pause the game on numerous occasions because the interplay between characters was giving me a headache.
Now let's talk about why I keep putting the word "game" in quotes. It's because this is not a "game," it's a state funded propaganda piece. Literally, your tax dollars went toward making this dumpster fire. This game is packed with wokeisms, DEI, and general leftist talking points. The world itself has been hit by "climate change" (fake) which has eaten away at the coastline and nearly wiped out Florida (again, go figure), all the characters have their stupid af preferred pronouns, and the characters introduced later in the "game" get more and more "intersectional" as it drags on.
There are these things in the "game" called echoes that infect people and make them have "bad thoughts." At some point in the game you get this thing called, I shit you not, a MEME that let's you capture these echoes and turn them into new powers. While you are capturing these echoes you can hear them say things and the things that are being said are exactly what a wokey would think a right wing conspiracy theorist would say. Shit about them trying to groom the kids and the like, becuase that's never happened. So, you're using a MEME to remove "right wing conspiracy theories" from people's minds. You are literally removing thoughts from people's heads to do what you want them to do. You are literally controlling what people think, the thing this "game" is constantly railing against. I'd also like to point out how you're using a MEME to fight "misinformation" when in reality the average woke meme is longer than this review.
Now the main cast is truly diverse, equitable, and inclusive. Not a white man in the lot. The main character Pax is a black female criminal (🤔) who uses her powers to control people and make them do what she wants, Noam the + in this alphabet mafia cast who also has mind control powers, Sai the Indian muslim with vitiligo because we need to check every box in the diversity checklist, and Theo who is probably the closest to being "normal" in the main cast. Other characters get introduced to the crew and they don't get any less diverse.
The story itself makes no sense whatsoever. There are points in the "game" that will leave you completely dumbfounded on what exactly is going on because it feels like there should be more context that you would need to understand things but the "game" never gives it to you. There is actually one point near the end where the crew is sitting in a diner and eating and then it cuts to a couple of the characters running through a forest trying to escape from something that is chasing them. It feels like an entire chunk of the "game" is just missing completely. There are details about the world that are never really explained and by the end of it all I was just sitting there going "what in the fuck just happened?" Echoes, Squids, "Axiom," all things that are apparently integral to the story but are just glossed over.
Gameplay
What gameplay?
Seriously, the gameplay in this "game" is game journo easy. The combat is basic and boring af. I was playing on easy for a bit then jacked it up to hard and there is almost no difference whatsoever, but hey that doesn't matter because if you die you instantly revive on the spot at full health (at least BEORE the first update). Buggy as hell too, I once beat a boss by knocking them out of bounds, then just threw my magic bat at them over and over until they went down. The rhythm sections are beyond dumb and completely useless, you can fail them intentionally and not have it effect the story in any meaningful way. The echo catching and wordsmithing is pointless. The minigame that I had the most fun with in this "game" was Pong. Fucking Pong.
Graphics and Animations
One of the people who watched me stream this "game" noticed a little something. It uses stock Unity animations. The devs were so lazy that they didn't bother animating a good chunk of this "game." Lip syncing was nonexistent, half the times a character would stop talking and their lips would still be moving or they would be talking and their lips wouldn't be moving. I'm actually streaming the writing of this review and one of my viewers said "This game is two steps short of an asset flip" and I honestly couldn't agree more. The graphics are crap, I'm absolutely convinced that they went with the comic book motif so they didn't have to work on the graphics themselves. The whole thing is just hard on the eyes.
Sound and Music Design
ChatGPT wrote the songs for this "game" and you cannot convince me otherwise and I'm pretty sure most of the sound effect are stock unity assets as well.
There are not enough words in the english language to properly describe my loathing for this "game," but I hope this review came close. If you treasure you sanity, do not play this lazily made garbage propaganda.
This isn't my usual type of game. I honestly don't touch many story driven games, but I liked the designs when Dustborn was announced and figured "Why not?" I treated it like streaming a tv series mixed with an interactive novel. Very punk rock, anti-establishment storytelling that you may or may not like in the way of choosing a book in the linrary. The story and world seem heavily inspired by things like Marvel Runaways, Book of Eli, Misfits and X-Men. Not joking when I say X-Men, you and your travel mates have their own set of powers, ranging from hypnotic suggestion to turning their limbs into stone and using them as weapons.
The characters are interesting and have their own secrets and allude to history they have with Pax, the main character. All of which are free to be explored and worth it to add some weight to an already heavy story. Choices matter and will effect the ending and how each individual member of your motley crew's life at the end of your journey.
The weakest part of the game is unfortunately the combat and the rhythm sections. Both feel like they were tacked on for the sake of adding more interaction to break up what may have been perceived as monotony of progressing through the story. I made the mistake and chose the option after I initial combat to experience more combat throughout the game. A bit of a mistake in hindsight. Turned into a monkey's paw moment when my PC went belly up and had to restart on console, but I made the right choice of picking less combat the second time around. Felt like the previous choice artificially padded out the game.
The combat isn't bad, it's just jank, in the way that you'd expect from a developer that specializes in one genre trying to incorporate game mechanics from another without the experience. The music sections aren't as bad, they just don't do anything to stand out from games built around rythm gameplay. You could carve out these sections and still have a good experience. They only exist but don't affect the overall experience of Dustborn.
Wish the game was marketed more. There's a lot of potential and the overall world is very interesting. If more story driven games are like this, I'll probably stop ignoring the genre.
7/10 - Ignore the game's forum.
Relatable characters, fun writing, interesting setting. Shoddy combat, fortunately it can be switched off completely.
I like it. Think of it as a visual novel that wears its politics on its sleeve. I like the worldbuilding.
Though the Demo felt a bit disjointed, I decided to give this game a chance, and I did not regret it. It's a road trip of discovery of friendship and mystery along with a wide range of characters that grow on you.
A fun chose your own adventure story in visual novel format. Tons of voice acting so a lot less reading but sometimes moments require the ability to read pretty quickly but maybe not fully understand the prompts. Really enjoyed my time with the game and the story progression pacing helped me overlook continuity issues I had with comprehension.
This is a satisfying narrative adventure with fleshed-out characters and a fleshed-out world that feels like a novel and keeps you thinking about it for a long time. As in almost every work ever written, the characters are SUPPOSED to be flawed for the viewer to make their own interpretations about. This does not mean that the writers endorse gaslighting your friends. In fact, it's not even a training sim to take up arms against the police (as cool as it would be to have such a game) as the mouth-frothing mob claims. It's just a story about a group of people trying to escape to a better life. I would actually encourage one to read some of the meth-fueled reviews or commentary to see how out of touch they are with the reality of this game (not saying there aren't genuine downvote reviews as well, because there are).
I particularly appreciated how in a lot of ways this game seems deliberately designed to be as triggering as possible to the crowd that would use the word "woke" or think it means anything at all. There is a lot of diversity in this game, as in our own world (written simply because they were the characters the writers wanted to include, not to check boxes for any imaginary organization), and they sing songs about how "we will eclipse you, your kind won't last." You get to beat enemies up while shouting things like "You've been cancelled" at them. You get to literally exorcise people who are possessed by echoes that sound like American conservative talk radio. Come on, all of that is hilarious. It's camp humor.
The comic book art style is really fun, and the soundtrack is great (I believe the composer won an award for Draugen). I would definitely recommend Dustborn to anyone.
great story and awesome and diverse characters
Pretty cute game, seeing the main tags makes it quite obvious where some of its bad reviews come by.
At some times it feels like they made a story-driven game and tried to mash in some guitar hero gameplay and yakuza-style fights, which may sound weird at first but works anstonishingly well.
Would recommend this if you like story-driven games with a bit more stuff to it than classic walking simulators.
I started with the Dustborn demo game, liked it and, completed it. So it's not hard to see why I ended up buying the full game. Must say the real game has many things in it that make it much better than the demo. I somewhat saddened 😞 at the fact that Dustborn has been singled out by some of the worst people this country has to offer for a great deal of racist and sexist harassment. If someone does NOT like the people in the game or the people making the game (Non-whites, Women and, LGBTQ+) , then find something else that you like. Life is simply way too short to spend it being miserable around something you don't like and, making the lives of people who do like it miserable too❗ Yes this game does have a message and, it does a very good job at making their point. It's NOT like there hasn't been a well established historical precedent of unpopular minority groups being singled out for some very violent oppression, with their artworks living on as a testimonial to their existence in enduring unjust suffering and eventual triumph in overcoming it. Dustborn is a work of this very nature.
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
I've only played this game for 2 hours as of writing this review, in addition to the Next Fest demo. I might update it when I get further into the game.
Gameplay
It's a mix of an adventure game, akin to the Telltale games, and a hack n' slash type fighting game.
Combat
I know there are special abilities and enemies with special defences and such, but for the first two hours any fighting is essentially hit it until it dies. Attacking feels robust and satisfying but I don't want to comment further on combat until I get the full picture.
Character Interaction
One thing that immediately stuck out to me was the ability to preview dialogue responses. This makes situations where you think a character will say one thing, but they actually say another, quite rare. 3 of the main characters also have a vocal ability called Vox you can use to sway dialogue in one direction or another, but they will also influence your relationship with each NPC.
These abilities are named after terms that emerged through online communities, which makes them a bit tricky to understand, even with the accompanying explanations. It's not always clear what sets them apart from each other. These are:
Block: prevents others from speaking
Push: I think this is enforcing your own idea, forcing your reply/perspective
Trigger: I think this is goading the NPC, amplifying their own emotions
Gaslight: makes NPCs believe whatever you say, at least for a moment
One character can also change the material of her skin with her Vox. I believe all of these may be used in combat after a certain point as well.
Exploration
There are items to find that aren't needed to progress but may help you in sticky situations, for instance as a bribe to get an NPC to do something or behave a certain way. However, these are not well hidden and tend to be on the path forward anyway. Whenever I went on my own path, there wasn't really anything to find, which is a shame because the environment itself does invite exploration.
+ Characters are shaped by earlier interactions with the player
+ The game encourages the player to try to understand the NPCs
+ Not responding is a valid interaction can may result in interesting situations
- Exploration doesn't feel rewarding
- You can't decide when the character should run or walk, it seems predetermined by the area or situation
- Lots of explanations for each response, but reading all of it under time pressure isn't very fun
- Abilities aren't well explained
Setting & Story
The game is set in a fractured USA. Parts of it is authoritarian, while others are free. We're told that few like the main characters due to their unnatural abilities, and experience it briefly with a police officer. The hook is that the main characters were hired to steal some kind of USB in a plushie due to their abilities, and they now have to smuggle it out of the country. They decide to pose as a band on tour, despite not being very good musicians, which does result in some funny moments.
While the "on-the-run from the evil empire" hook is fun, the game does a poor job making me care about the stolen item, and you get 3 predetermined dialogue options to decide for yourself why the playable character should care, which I find less inspiring than giving me a solid reason to care from the start. The main reason I will continue to play is interest in how the relationship between the characters develop, to see new environments, and learn whether exploration will reward me in later stages of the game.
+ Rich and detailed world
+ Intriguing hook
+ Characters that feel varied enough that their personalities can clash and create interesting situations
+ I feel invested in the characters, and their interactions feel genuine
- I do not feel invested in the plot
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.
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Red Thread Games |
| Платформы | Windows |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 15.01.2025 |
| Metacritic | 68 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 73% положительных (196) |