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Dust: An Elysian Tail (iOS)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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