Deponia

A sparkly turd. The nice art lures you in, and then you are treated to inane puzzles, an extremely unpleasant and mean main character, and an idiot plot relying on keeping the main female character either unconscious or confused. What a mess. I'll be glad I'll never have to babysit stupid mean Rufus ever again. I am glad I got it on discount. Paying the full price would have been an utter disgrace, especially as you are clearly left hanging waiting for more. As to the reviewers saying that Rufus being a shitty unlikeable jerk is the point, I recommend you play Book of Unwritten Tales: Critter Chronicles. The main character Nate is also an unlikeable jerk, but his progression into less of a jerk actually makes sense and does not involve a shitty storyline where he wants to possess a girl he's just seen five seconds ago and is responsible for putting out cold in the first place. So, in the end you will actually feel for him. As for Rufus, all I felt was relief for finally not having to play with him anymore. Juvenile crap.

I don't do many reviews on GOG, but I had to do one for Deponia. Everyone has their own gaming opinions which I always respect, but it astonishes me that people think Deponia is a good adventure game. It's not. The artwork is lovely, puzzles are challenging at the very least, but that's all the nice things I have to say on the good side. Rufus in particular ruins the game. It’s clear that Daedalic intended the guy to be one of those Guybrush Threepwood “loveable loser” archetypes. The trouble is that they’ve ended up with a thoroughly unlikeable character who you don’t want to see succeed, much less play. Rufus has no redeeming features whatsoever and utterly fails to be endearing. He never sticks his neck out for anyone else, all the people around him are better human beings than him, and most importantly from a gaming standpoint he is not funny. Over the entire thing I barely laughed once. It can’t even be blamed on a bad translation either since the visual comedy sequences, such as an early video showing Rufus getting hurt in a variety of ways, are just as unfunny. That particular sequence plays out like a Looney Tunes episode, but is utterly lacking in either imagination or timing. In a good adventure game puzzles should come naturally out of the plot, whereas here it often feels like the puzzles have been thought up at the last minute just for the sake of having them. This is the only explanation I have for the fact that a quarter of the game is finding a cup of coffee, and another quarter is getting an elevator to work. These often make no sense even when you’ve stumbled through them, and you regularly have to fly completely blind as very few of the things you’re “solving” have an obvious objective. Yes of course I should know to put the dead man’s leg behind me to meditate better, or that electronic bull’s blood makes a good revitalizing tonic. Daedalic DO make great adventures, like Night of the Rabbit or Memoria, but this isn't one of them.

A nice adventure game with two problems. 1. The logic of the puzzles is very bizarre at times. 2. The 'protagonist' is a d**k. Which is fine, for a while. But apparently the whole point of him is to be a d**k and nothing but a d**k. After 4 games he never stop being a d**k. He never changes, never grows, never learns a lesson (for more than 10 minutes), never becomes a character it doesn't feel slimy to control. Problem 1 is something I can deal with. Problem 2.... the only reason I finished the series is that I got it at all at one time and I hate to leave something unfinished. A 3.5-4 star game ruined by the main character.

The following review applies to both the first and the second Deponia game. The third one I have not played. I find this game to be hugely overrated, but then again it seems to be a "love it or hate it" case. The good: The 2D graphics are quite beautiful, although cheaply animated. Some of the puzzles are good, some are rather obtuse. The bad: The main character is an asshole (not as much as in the second game, but still deeply odious). This is obviously meant to be funny - it's not. It's just annoying. The humour in general is never funny in the slightest. And this is not a translation issue: I played it in its original German, which is my native language. The humour is just inane and offensive, never funny - very German in that regard, unfortunately. The story is servicable at best, mostly cliché and unoriginal, as are the characters. Conversations drag on too long and (see above) are meant to be funny, but instead are just terribly boring. Some of the puzzles are rather obtuse.

I Had first learned of Deponia, well I can't Exactly Remember actually, but I THINK it was looking through the games here on GOG. When Christmas game I reserved an amount of Steam Points for this game and it's sequel (thanks to the winter sale, I got the 2 of them cheaper than normal). Then at some point i played through them, but you may read my thoughts on Chaos on Deponia in it's review. We start our adventure on a World covered in Junk called Deponia, We play as a individual, whom many of his fellow townfolk dislike (admittedly for fairly good reasons.) named Rufus. Rufus wishes to get to a Ship that lies above Deponia called Elysium. The Story does what it needs to, giving you a goal to strive towards and a main character you will enjoy (Don't get me wrong, he'd a egotistical jerk, but sodding heck is he funny!), however as I have heard others say, alot of the other characters are lacking, and honestly, I have to agree here. Rufus is entertaining as heck, but the other characters not as much. Some of the puzzles are simple enough......some I actually had to look up a walkthrough to figure out. Back to Rufus, his coming off as a jerk......well, it's intentional, and near the end of the game, you find out the why he is the way he is, and that moment is when I realized I love this game. The Art Style is beautiful, the music is fantastic, and the Voice Acting is very good.