Dust: An Elysian Tail

Read the full and unabridged review on A Paladin Without A Crusade: http://kingisaaclinksr.com/2015/08/29/a-paladins-review-dust-an-elysian-tail-a-beautiful-gem-that-revitalized-my-love-of-gaming/ Dust is a 2D metroidvania and RPG light game that focuses on combat, questing and character interactions along with some exploration and backtracking. Dust’s only weapon throughout the entire game is a one handed sword and a special ability called Dust storm. It’s a fairly long game ranging about 15 hours in length. Set in the fantasy world of Falana, Dust is awakened by the presence of Ahrah a talking sword that sets him on his quest to figure out who or what he is. All the while, Dust must discover new powers and abilities to traverse the 2D landscape. Dust: An Elysian Tail is a beautiful gem of a game even if it isn’t a perfect one. It’s a labor of love done almost entirely by a single developer that, frankly, should be the standard of quality all one-man developer teams should shoot for. It’s imperfections are minor ones between some of the characters being potentially annoying for some (Fidget most notably), the combat system is sometimes a little bit too easy even on hard settings and the crafting system often feeling pointless. Still, I feel like these are minor quibbles. Dust will forever hold a special place for me for revitalizing my love of gaming. Its highly responsive combat system, beautifully crafted visuals, enjoyable storyline and memorable characters sealed its award as my game of the year in 2013. Kudos that I continue to support to this day.

Just finished the game..........loved every moment....great graphics and game play.....and an even better story to go with it.......should be more games like it.......hopefully theres a sequel......i'd get it!!!!

For those that love Metroidvania platformers, this is a no brainer. While the story is decent, if not particularly memorable, and the characters are likeable enough to keep your interest, the gameplay is where this title really shines. It's top-tier 2D side-scrolling action with its combination of melee combat and magical attacks, as well as having lots of enemy variety and varied locations. It also carries very satisfying visual impact, as the animations and graphics are spectacular with their bright colors and gorgeous backdrops. Add on very tight, responsive controls, and combat is an all-around blast to play. Outside of combat, there are powers that you can unlock over the course of the story by exploring certain areas. In the vein of Metroidvania, these not only help out in the combat or platforming, but allow the player to access areas of the map they couldn't otherwise to uncover hidden loot caches or additional challenge areas. Overall, you're looking at about 12-15 hours of gameplay for a single playthrough. Now the negatives. While overall the voice work is pretty damn good, Fidget is hit-and-miss. Her voice can be annoying at times, but at least she makes up for it by having charming and funny dialogue. In terms of gameplay, the RPG elements are rather weak, and only really impact combat. There's no significant dialogue system either, so your interactions with NPCs are brief and they really only serve to give you quests. Beyond that, the main quest is linear as hell, and the player's ability to impact it in any way is negligible. It's understandable given its an indie title, but it's still disappointing. There's a crafting system too, and while its extensive, most of the time it's rather useless, as you easily loot items better than the ones you can craft, and as you have to pay money to craft things, making stuff with the intent to sell them is counterproductive. However, these negatives aren't deal breakers, and the game is still great overall.

Could have been a good tablet game, but as a pc title it's very lacking. Combat is basic and doesn't evolve much, game is very short (hardcore difficult might take you a few hours), the story isn't really that engaging. I guess some persons will like the setting. And It's honestly an ok way to waste a bit of time, but I can't help the feeling that this game is only fan-service and was made without joy, love or real skill.

A rather unoriginal story and repetitive combat are the downsides of "Dust an Elysian Tale". Fortunately the artwork is beautiful, the voice acting is great and overall the game is very polished. There is no real difficulty involved so just lay back and enjoy the cutscenes while trashing some bad guys and jumping some platforms in between. You'll want a gamepad which supports X-Input mode.