Dust: An Elysian Tail (PC)

Today the 'D' titles continue with a game request: indie platformer Dust: An Elysian Tail. It comes with a subtitle attached because when you're not id software it can be hard to make a one-syllable common word title show up in search results (especially when games like Dustforce and From Dust are already out on virtual shelves). If you're wondering what the symbols mean by the way, they're Korean and they spell out... 'Dust'. I was as shocked as you are.

This was originally an Xbox 360 game, but I'll be playing the PC version as I still haven't found the screenshot key on my 360. I'll get the hang of this game capture thing some day though.

(Click the images to view them at 1280x800. Might not be all that impressive, but you'll get a better view of them than at 640x400 res at least.)

I love options and this game is packed full of them. I can toggle the weather effects, resize HUD elements, turn off auto-aim... there's even a Color Blind Mode, which is remarkably sensible. Plus despite its console origins the game has the courtesy to use the mouse properly even though I have a 360 controller plugged in, which I always appreciate. Sure I'm going to switch to the controller when the game starts, but it's nice of it to not presume I'd automatically want to use it.

This music's pretty nice too. Melancholy piano with the sound of rain and thunder in the background.

Alright, now this is how I like my games to start. Don't know who I am or what I'm doing, but I've got a single button to press and its sole function is to WAGE WAR. I'm sure the narrator will fill in the details as they become relevant.

"But despite his victories, his skills, his ruthlessness, the valiant soldier would perish on this day."

Oh c'mon, I was winning here! Can't believe I'm not even going to make it through the intro without the narrator killing my dude off.

Huh... he's looking pretty healthy for a dead guy, if a little shredded. Maybe the fateful day isn't quite over yet. Or maybe this is a flashback to a few days earlier.

Though considering that it's an Elysian Tail, my first guess would be that this is the afterlife. It certainly looks quite pretty.

Our peppermint flavoured cat samurai awakes to find that he's being harassed by an unfamiliar talking sword who has hovered over to have a chat with him.

Hang on, just gotta check something...

Yep, it's the same sword that he was waging war with during the intro, though that doesn't necessarily prove anything as our hero turns out to have amnesia!

So this is the first game to be developed by deviantART then?

Actually this was created by just a single guy (for the most part), animator Dean Dodrill, who decided one day that he was going to learn coding from scratch and become an unstoppable one-man engine of game production. Amazingly it seems like he actually managed it too, as everything about this feels incredibly slick and polished.

Fidget here is hovering around her side of the screen right now waiting for me to make a dialogue choice, her bat wings flapping a million times a second like some kind of hummingbird...fox. I'm surprised that all these characters have had giant-sized animated portraits and full voice acting so far, but fortunately the developer seems to have brought in some outside help for the voices at least and the cast seems up to the task. Sure Fidget's voice is a bit grating, but I'm finding it to be endearingly obnoxious.

Okay cool, I have a quest! Head east, find village, learn dark secret past.

I'm not sure why I'm taking advice from a sinister glowing sword emanating eerie blue smoke, but the blade seems to know what he's talking about. Plus if you can't trust a sharpened piece of metal designed and crafted purely for the purpose of murder, who can you trust?
 

Of course the first thing I did when I got control was head west, but it seems to have paid off as I've found a sparkly key. I'm a little suspicious about why no one else that's come this way has thought to grab it but hey, their loss my gain.

Despite the lack of anything to jump on so far, this basically controls like a platformer, with my character locked to the 2D plane. This ain't like Streets of Rage or Golden Axe, I can't walk up towards the background.

By the way the level art is all animated, with bushes, leaves and other such things gently swaying in the breeze. It all looks fantastic in my humble opinion, almost as impressive as the animation for the sprites. The artist has come a long way since his work on Jazz Jackrabbit 2's intro.

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (PC)

Not that I'm dissing Jazz's art, I'm just saying that the guy's obviously improved at his craft. Plus PC graphics have moved on a bit in the last 14 years or so. The 2D platformer genre may have been cast down from its throne and banished to handhelds during the mid 90s by those eager to stamp out any game without real-time 3D graphics, but it returned from exile refreshed, revitalised, and dressed to impress.

Well, sometimes anyway. They can't all be Rayman Legends.

Man, I totally melee combo'd that wall to pieces. I guess that giant chunk of rock above me is happy enough to stay put without its support pillar then, seeing as I haven't been crushed to death yet.

Hang on, is that... a roast chicken?

Mysterious wall chicken! D'ya think this might have been influenced by Castlevania just a little?

Seems I've got healing items and equipment slots to concern myself with. Stats too, though they're going to have to wait until I've earned my first 600 experience points.


SOON.

Haven't hit anyone yet, but I did find a box! Such a perfect match for that key I picked up earlier. Annoyingly I have to play this QTE minigame before I open it up though, despite the fact that I'm not even picking the lock!

Whatever. I got a crystal and some healing items out of it so it's all good.


EVENTUALLY.

Aww shit, it seems I've finally reached my first opponent.

Sorry, I saw them lined up like this so perfectly and I couldn't resist doing some editing. But where are all the enemies in this? I've got this ancient magic sword here but nothing to use it on but walls, and that can't be good for the blade.

No I can't kill deer, in case you were wondering.

Here we go, I've found some monsters spoiling for a bit of a rumble.

I have to admit, I cropped the image and played with the colours so you could get a good look of the things. I promise I'll stop enhancing the screenshots from now on though.

Now then, how do I deal with these things again?

Oh right, I remember now: "Press (X) to wage war." Also (X) then (Y) is a melee combo. There's a few combos for me to remember here, so I might have to make some quick notes to help me keep track of what does what.

I love Fidget's art by the way. She's a very expressive bat fox hummingbird thing and her panic is adorable. Don't you worry lady, mashing buttons is my speciality.

Man I can't see a damn thing that's going on here behind the shader effects, but it definitely seems that asses are getting whooped. I'm playing it semi-cautiously, keeping an eye out for enemies that look like they're about to take a swipe at me so I can hit the Castlevania-style dodge button and leap backwards a couple of meters to safety.

I'm not overly concerned about my survival here though as I passed a save point about 10 seconds ago.


10 SECONDS EARLIER...

Hey I've found a save point!


LATER.

Oh I'm liking this move: hold (Y) to create a vortex that throws enemies around in a cloud of 1s. The more hits I inflict like this, the more XP I get, provided I can finish the combo without being interrupted by a spiky enemy staff to the face. Hang on, is Dust supposed to be glowing red like that...

Okay, lesson learned: I shouldn't hold (Y) too long, unless I want to take a chunk of damage. There's no regenerating health in this and getting hurt is definitely not ideal. I mean I can just munch on some apples to recover, but broken combos are a tragic waste of some quality violence.


SOON.

Hey Fidget was right, I have just levelled up. Don't know what makes her think she can break the fourth wall all the time though. She's worse than a Metal Gear Solid character when it comes to describing game mechanics in conversation.

Okay, I think any one of these choices would be a good candidate to receive for my single upgrade point, but having 0 defence is worrying so I'll sort that out first.

Hey it's that bloke from Resident Evil 4! This merchant may look a bit creepy and he seems to have smoke coming out of his eyes, but he's friendly enough.

There's not much equipment on offer here just yet, but plenty of this junk. It seems that if I have any materials on me that the shopkeeper doesn't have in stock, I can sell them to him and he'll add them to the list of items he trades in, meaning he'll have more of them for me later.

Once you've sold me a new material type, I will be able to restock my store with it. As for your reward, I will pay you a bonus for the first new material you sell me.

Aaah, he'll buy them at a high price!

I... well, yes. Yes I will.

Aww, she even tries to do the Resident Evil 4 merchant voice.

These materials seem fairly useless on their own, but they can be used as crafting ingredients to forge mighty armour and accessories. I have a blueprint and materials for Light Chain Mail on me, so I could make that right now... if I knew where to find a blacksmith.

I found another sparkly key, but this time someone went a built a rock wall in front of it, reinforced with a powerful glowing alloy too strong for my magic glowing sword to cut through. So I'm switching to plan b instead: floating glowing exploding fruits.

I'm still working on getting the hang of moving it with my whirlwind move though, as it never quite seems to go where I... aha, I just figured out that I can drag towards me by using wind magic in front of it. Cool, now I just need to send it floating to the reinforced wall keeping me from my key, retreat to a safe distance, and...

HOLY SHIT!

Did I survive that? Do I still have a hat? Okay it's cool, I think I might be immune to fruit explosions. Sucks to be one of the unfortunate travellers who tried eating one of these things though. Me on the other hand, I get an explosion-roasted mysterious wall chicken to eat later.


SOON.

Oh c'mon that's just not fair! The guy is three times my height and has spiked maces for hands. I don't want to fight a guy with clubs where his arms should be! A creature like that is going to have a whole lot of pent-up frustration and only one way to express it.

Oh my bad, it turns that out that he can also express himself with kicks as well as with his mace-arms.

I actually managed to parry his first blow, which left him stunned and open to a counter attack. I guess I over estimated how long that'd last though, as he soon broke my combo chain and then moved on to breaking my neck.

Some scrolling beat 'em ups lock off the screen when enemies are around but Dust: AET usually just blocks off the exits to adjacent areas. The magic barriers are pretty close together for this fight though, which doesn't give me much room to move around, and it sure doesn't look pleasant to connect with one head-first.

Crap, I was doing okay until they sent another two boss enemies in. All the healing items in my pack couldn't keep me in the game long enough to master the timing on these parries.

Fortunately I had a resurrection crystal, so I can dive right back into the humiliating beatdown! Wow I only just noticed how this rain's starting to pick up now. It's turning into a full on thunderstorm.

YESSSSSSSS! Look at that! Just 6 hit points out of 180 left in the tank. 'Cutting it close' is right.

And the crowd goes wild. Wooo!

Wooo!

Oh cheer up, I just saved your lives from three monsters big enough to step on you and not notice. Speaking of things you can miss out on noticing, these levels are full of tiny well-animated butterflies and woodland creatures just roaming around minding their own business. It's like I'm cutting a bloody swathe through a classic Disney cartoon.


A WHOLE LOT OF DEAD ENEMIES LATER.

Hey I've reached a town, complete with a shop and NPCs and everything! The sword assures me that the answers to my identity lie somewhere in this village, but I'm not holding out hope that I'll find them any time soon. A clue would be nice though.

Characters with a feather over their head are Quest Givers, and I can speak to them to... oh right it says that on the screen. Well I might as well speak to everyone here and fill my journal up before heading back out.

Actually forget about my secret past and true identity, I'm going to see if anyone around here knows where the blacksmith is. I've got a bag full of blueprints and junk, and nothing I can do with them yet.


A WHOLE LOT OF CONVERSATIONS LATER.

Leaving the village brought me to this world map, which was a bit of a surprise. I was expecting the whole game to be interconnected like Metroid or La Mulana.

Actually that's a point, I should go backtracking through the first area and see if any of the skills or keys I've picked up along the way can be used to get me some hidden treasure.

It's just a shame that the level map only shows what's in an area and how they connect, rather than giving me an overview of the area itself. I mean each of those squares covers a reasonably big amount of space, and even if I can see that the path branches downwards, I'll still have to go exploring to find that exit myself. It's not a problem when it's my first time through and it's all new to me, but it's kind of annoying when I come back to an area and can't remember the layout.


LATER.

Whoa! That's a lot of 1s.

I can have Fidget throw a magic missile and then whip it up into a storm with my whirlwind move, but I haven't been bothering because it didn't seem massively effective. It somehow didn't click with me that each of those magic particles flying around is adding to my combo with every low damage collision, so I can build up massive chains with them.

I can also spin myself through the air with it, bouncing from enemy to enemy while showering them with burning white fireballs. Then, when I get a bit of height, I can slam down through the whole crowd and get this combo up to 700.

The secret to high combos is having a crap attack stat, so that it takes forever to kill anything. I can keep hitting these monsters all night! Seriously though I should probably do something about that or else I'll be hitting these monsters all night.


LATER.

Yes, the blacksmith at last! She works all the way up here on top of a cliff for reasons of tradition. There is actually a half-decent explanation for it, but right now all I care about is getting some gear crafted.

There we go, I just managed to boost my attack from 6 to 56. That ought to speed things up I reckon.

Okay, that's a big statue. Or maybe she's a giant warrior who was turned to stone; it's hard to know when you're in a fantasy game. There's also a decent sized drop here, as it'll likely put me all the way back down to the base of the cliff. Good place to check to see if there's falling damage I reckon.

Nope, no falling damage, it's all good. Plus I haven't seen any bottomless pits around either. I can continue my aerial manoeuvres without too much concern about where I'll be landing.

What am I meant to be doing next anyway? Oh right, journal says I need to go to Abadis Forest and kill the leader of the monsters attacking the village. Sounds like I've got a proper boss fight coming up.


A FEW HORDES OF MONSTERS LATER.

Aha, this must be the chapter one boss I presume. Well I guess I've seen enough of the game, time to turn it off!

I mean come on, this is only going to end one way, and already I used up all my one and only resurrection crystal back in that fight against those three giants. First I'll try to learn his patterns and time my parries precisely, chipping away at his massive health bar a tiny tiny bit at a time whenever he's stunned. Then I'll lose, get kicked back to the last save point, and have to do it all over and over and over again...
 

...or maybe I'll catch him in a whirlwind of pain right from the start and strip his health away with no effort. The poor guy managed to get a single hit in at the start and since then it's been utterly one sided. Guess I won't be eating all these roast chickens I brought after all.

Hey, pyromaniac assholes that burn down villages don't get to have moody death scenes lying in a bed of flowers!

This guy apparently knows something about Dust's past, but sadly he can't say any more about it on account of him being dead. Oh well. On the plus side Fidget has learned his super attack and now I can switch to using it in place of the magic missiles. Though, uh, I never gave him opportunity to use his attack on me so I don't know what it is.

Oh it blows up the screen huh? Well that's nice and all, but I think I'll switch back to the classic magic bullet swarm. Anyone can set a monster on fire, but stripping their health away with a firework storm that stings like seven hundred paper cuts, now that's got some class to it.

Alright, what to I have left to check out before I turn this off? Oh right, I need to find one of the challenge rooms and see what they're like.

Platforming and fire traps! How delightfully retro.

Of course they had to give me a time limit too, which always throws me off my game without fail. I screwed up the timing here entirely and left Dust walking around with an unhealthy glow for a while. I couldn't do much about the flames, but fortunately I was able to treat the burns afterwards with the application of a whole roast chicken. Then I went and accidentally jumped right into the next fire jet as well.

Oh, so that's why they call this a challenge level. I leaped sword-first into the cloud of bat monsters like usual, only to get my ass handed right back to me. I dealt out all the 31s I could, but in the end it was too little, too slow.

Maybe I'll come back after I've gained a few dozen levels and see if I can negotiate a better outcome next time. The enemies all respawn, so I can grind all I like if it ever comes to that. Right now though I'm turning it off.


CONCLUSION

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I'm not sure what I was expecting from Dust: An Elysian Tail, but I can't say that Cadash crossed with Devil May Cry was my first guess. It's pretty amazing just how well made and pretty this game is considering it was made by just the one guy, with no programming experience or other games under his belt. He managed all this on his first try. Sure it took him four years of constant work to get to this point, but it takes a while to paint a few hundred backgrounds and draw, ink, and colour a thousand or so frames of animation. I'd imagine anyway (I've never tried it myself).

When I first saw the characters I didn't have high hopes for them, but they seem likeable enough. I guess a player's tolerance for the cutscenes would likely be directly related to how much they can stand Fidget's voice, but hey I like her at least. She's got more character than Dust, that's for sure, though I'm still not entirely sure why she's the only character going around butt naked. The story does seem to lean towards a younger audience (the furry cast should have tipped me off really), but it's not grating on me. Family friendly I'd call it.

Man, I'm sounding harsher than I mean to be here. The game has been a whole lot of positives and very few negatives for me so far. It's not crap, that much I'm sure of, but I'm not entirely hooked just yet. Here, it can have a shiny star.

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