While its combat system leaves much to be desired, Dustborn is filled with a variety of fun elements focused on opening up to the people around you that truly helps the game blossom into a powerful experience. Once your trip is over you will definitely miss those you got to know, but you will be thankful you got on the bus in the first place.
Dustborn is a very strange game: in its narrative and graphic adventure component, the game is of unique beauty. Then every once in a while you get some fighting sessions that are really bad and you wonder why they included them.
Dustborn is an adventure game that offers a mix of genres, catering to a wide range of tastes. It seamlessly transitions from exploration phases in the style of classic graphic adventures with environmental puzzles, to more action-packed moments, and even includes many musical mini-games. The game features a cast of finely crafted characters that are impossible not to grow attached to. At the same time, it presents a wide variety of uniquely beautiful settings, all enhanced by the splendid comic book art style that defines the entire adventure.
Dustborn is a unique visual novel-style adventure that brings combat and even a rhythm game to its sometimes-intense choice-driven dystopian world, where your decisions matter. But it often gets in its own way, mechanically and otherwise.
Dustborn follows the Telltale Games studio's precepts: no-choice elections, minimal variation, and silly plot twists. The second part of the game looks like it was finished by another team of writers.
Dustborn has noble intentions, but intentions don’t matter as much as execution and it executes just about everything poorly. There are too many characters and gameplay styles to make any one of them shine, let alone enjoyable.
Dustborn’s rhythm mini-game is just another way the game demonstrates how underdeveloped it all is. Its terribly paced narrative is married to an elementary view of authoritarianism and stars an irritating crew that never stops talking. Combat is woefully simplistic and lacks the necessary smooth controls. None of its systems fit together coherently, either, because they’re all underbaked in one way or another and, in some cases, plagued by glitches. It’s hard for Dustborn to fight the power when it’s too busy fighting with itself at every turn.
(MY SCORE : 7 /10) Story-Driven, Action-Adventure, Point-and-Click Game spiced up by Rhythm Style when our Main Character plays music and Hack 'n' slash during Combat!In this Game we become a Female Anomaly named Pax, who has the ability "Vox" to manipulate sound, by absorbing Echoes energy with a gadget-like tool called "Me-em" and relying on 'Bat' during Combat. After committing a theft, she and several other Anomalies, namely Theo, Noam, and Sai, left Pacifica and headed to Nova Scotia, Canada. To deceive the Justice Officer, they disguised themselves as a Punk Rock Band called "The Dustborn" and used the excuse of being on a "Band Tour" during the trip. In addition to facing the Justice Officer, they also had to face the Biker Gang (Riders) and Puritans who wanted the 'Data Drive' they stole. In its progress, The Dustborn will meet CT, the Robot Driver, and other Anomalies, namely Ziggy (Pax's sister), Eli, Girl, (a mysterious girl who can't talk), Ophelia, Sol, and Nainai who will join them. And interestingly, although Pax was interested and had a homosexual relationship with Noam, at the end of the story it was discovered that she was pregnant. And the child was the fruit of a relationship with Jacob, her old friend. In addition, Sai, who seemed angry at Pax's decision to leave Dustborn, turned out to be a traitor, and secretly worked with Justice by giving a copy of the 'Data Drive' for the safety of herself and her family. Although in the end she admitted and regretted her actions and rejoined Dustborn. Losing CT who sacrificed himself to save the pregnant Pax is one of the touching scenes. And after that, we will be in the battle area between Justice and Puritans Facing both of them, until the leader of the Puritans, The Overseer, appears who we must defeat. And in fact after defeating The Overseer, we will face Axiom again who killed Theo! And we defeated Axiom with the 'Power of Rhythm' from Pax's body that was resurrected by **** total there are #10 Issues to complete this Game.
Dustborn is a mixed bag and how you feel about it will depend on your personality and, maybe, age.
I'm 42 and an avid lifelong comic reader. The first thing that jumped out at me about Dustborn is just how good it looks. It looks just like a comic book. And not just that, it looks like a GOOD comic book. The kind they don't make anymore. It looks like a Cliffhanger comic from the late 90s when the spared no expense on production and artists had proper inkers and lavish colorists. The art character designs heavily evoke Adrian Alphona's work on Runaways and Jamie McKelvie's gorgeous art on Phonogram. I would be shocked if those books weren't inspirations for Dustborn both in art and themes.
That being said, playing Dustborne also reminds me heavily of Kevin Smith's Clerks and Mallrats films. I remember seeing those films and being BLOWN AWAY by the representation of seeing nerds like me on a movie screen. But SO MUCH of Kevin Smith's avant garde appeal was him seeing an unrepresented people-group and putting it in media. If you don't identify with that people group... you're probably not going to like the movie.
...and that's the problem with Dustborn. The central cast, and the plot of the story, is largely unlikable to me as a 42 year old black man. I've seen people call the writing in the game bad. I completely disagree. I think it's great. It's just what it's writing ABOUT is unbearable. Yes, sure, the game starts by declaring that one of the characters is a "them". But if Chris Claremont was writing an Xmen comic in the 80s and one of the characters called themselves a genderless "them", nobody would bat an eyelash. That's not the problem. The problem is just how deftly and adroitly the writers sprinkle in ultra-leftwing philosophy and talking points. Like, for example, the characters boldly yet matter-of-factly stating how much they don't want to be alive. The game's narrative often reads like a literal Reddit thread. Or how one of the characters boldly and plainly, almost as recital, talks about how emotionally distant their parents were. It's not Cameron from Ferris Bueller dealing with the EFFECTS of emotionally distant parents, it's a cold recital of self-aware "trauma" that feels like the characters are used to competitive trauma-offs where they try to outdo one another with just how badly they have it.
In short, Dustborn feels like a very real capturing of the essence of people you have seen in real life, but don't hang around because... who would want to? They are awful. In the very beginning of the game they choose to run from police who they admit may-or-may-not be chasing them. By trying to outrun them in a car, they trigger a truck to lose control and crash into the police car, killing them both in an explosion. The driver begins to freak out but our lovely main-character assures her, "remember... it's not your fault."
Like... what?
I have absolutely no idea how old the people who made this game are, but I wonder if they will be embarrassed about it in 20 years. Like Clerks, it feels like it will age badly. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Capturing the spirit of a moment isn't entirely bad. I just wish this game worked harder to capture a genuine moment instead of just a singularly petulant point of view.
When you do the propaganda card, make it at least fun, playable and likeable. Not a criplled God of War clone, with a stiff fight, annoying main character and AWFUL voice acting. Then maybe someone will listen to you.
This game comes with an interesting aesthetic and several novel gameplay ideas. Unfortunately, the execution is severely lacking, and the game's incessant need to bash you over the head with what I can only describe as extremist political views, quickly wears thin. The latter is particularly unfortunate, as the topic itself is quite interesting, and would be well worth exploring if done so in a somewhat nuanced and intellectually astute manner. This game doesn't seem interested in that, and so here we are.
There are also several game breaking bugs, making the game seem rushed. This is particularly strange, seeing as how it spent nearly eight(!) years in development.
I cannot recommend buying this game, even if you support its strong political messaging. There are other games that do this better.
SummaryThe year is 2030, three decades after the Broadcast.
You play Pax: ex-con, outcast, con-artist, and Anomal with superhuman powers fuelled by disinformation. Your job: to transport a package across a divided America. But this is not a one-woman job. The fanatical Puritans are on your ass, the authoritarian Justice is in your way, and you...
