Dustborn

in library

1.7/5

( 56 Reviews )

1.7

56 Reviews

English & 10 more

Posted on: January 2, 2025

JediMB

Games: 95 Reviews: 1

Not perfect; not what the disinfo claims

It took me a week and 24 hours of playtime to finish the entire adventure. I suppose I'll start by thanking the whiny outrage tourists who made me aware of the game to begin with. Their inane brigading of the Steam forums led to a news article that in turn made me realize that Red Thread Games had something new out that I'd completely missed. Tried the demo and enjoyed it enough that I prioritized buying and playing the full game on Steam back in late August. Between the rhythm game aspects, the combat, and the overall adventure game format, Dustborn tries to do a bit much. It does a great job with the most important part (adventure game), while doing passably well with the combat and thoroughly enjoyable rhythm game sections despite a disappointingly short list of tunes the band can perform. Story and choices: - Starts out immediately after a heist in Pacifica that went somewhat sideways - The crew has just stolen some data from The Purists and have to escape to Nova Scotia - Essentially a road trip game, with the crew touring the Republic as a cover for their journey - Plays around with your expectations pretty well when it comes to dialogue and choices - There's a time for quick reactions, but more importantly a time (or many) for patience Characters: - Core characters are all pretty funny and interesting - Characters from the first half of the story drift into one of three archetypes depending on how you treat them Visuals: - Strong, comic book-inspired and colorful visuals - More Telltale's The Walking Dead than Dreamfall Chapters, but cleaner Combat: - Grew on me - You can choose how much of it you want, and how difficult - Involves upgrading a high-tech baseball bat Music/Rhythm: - The sing-along and songwriting sections were relaxed and cozy. - Concerts and rehearsals could be a bit stressful, but I got good soon enough - Background music by Simon Poole set the mood well - That one Charlotte Heatherley song... if you know what I mean

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: December 28, 2024

Bugfragged

Games: 1 Reviews: 1

Thoughtcrime in 2000 characters

Pros: - The dialogue is more satisfying if you actively try to be nice to the other characters. Shocking, I know. - The characters have interesting backstories if you're willing to listen to them and give them the correct gifts. - QoL updates such as dialogue fast forward and save rollback. The dev does listen to constructive and polite feedback, an art that is lost in this age of reactionary gamers. - Combination attacks are satisfying to use. - Puzzles make you think of every character's abilities, sometimes has alternate solutions. - It's strangely cathartic to cause sonic explosions through the Echo capture minigame. Mixed: - The story feels like it was written primarily for Pax's Librarian Coda. It's the best Coda, but still, that makes the other two Codas feel more awkward. - Although save rollback helps, it's not as good as manual saves. - The music/rhythm minigame is basic and a bit on the forgiving, but feels like a good introduction to those new to this style of gameplay. Cons: - Combat is sparse, making it feel like a minigame. - There needs to be more worldbuilding about the alt-history. - Illusion of choice moments that are basically tutorial for Vox. - Can't use combination attacks on the final boss. - IMO, this should have been a visual novel or kinetic novel. or even a comic series. - Ending feels rushed and late game recruits don't get enough time to shine.

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: December 29, 2024

Regenerator

Verified owner

Games: 1145 Reviews: 22

A political game that pulls its punches

A review from someone who actually played the game with the DLC It's an unapologeticly political game, which I like. It's a leftist game, which I like. It's alternative history cell shaded stylized single player narrative driven Telltale/Heavy Rain/Life is Strange kind of game, which I like. But in typical Telltale fashion only a handful of your choices actually meaningfully influence the story, even though the sheer number of small choices that you can make (and that the game remembers and in some way reflects) is huge. By the game's final chapters it's storyline starts to become positively overloaded with all the strands trying to somehow tie themselves into a coherent whole but the end result being, on the whole, more unsatisfying than satisfying. It touches upon dozens of real-world political issues, but it pulls its punches and shies away from actually meaningfully exploring many of them (for example the issue of disinformation and racism essentially get hand waived away through the use of a supernatural McGuffin and almost entirely ignored respectively). If you set out to make a political game you should keep it focused. While the writing is good, the characters generally interesting, the story needs more focus. Gameplay is similar to the aforementioned games with the addition of a third person combat system, which feels a bit clunky. I originally bought it on the PS4 and the camera system and repetitiveness of the fights, which happen a bit often in the second half of the game, make it feel spurious. The game is really at its best when you're interacting with characters, which is thankfully most of the time. There's also a small rhythm musical mini game which you'll probably enjoy if you like punk rock. It's nice to have, and it tends to add some variety. I didn't encounter any technical issues but graphically the game is really not a tour de force - exactly like a Telltale or QD game, with clunky animations, but interesting stylized visuals.

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: December 30, 2024

ladyerr4nt

Verified owner

Games: 697 Reviews: 1

Good point and click, limitied choices

Its a good 3d point and click. The choices are a bit limited in what outcomes you can get, but thats a common theme in modern point and click games. Dont listen to the review bombing, its a good game.

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: December 28, 2024

Roze

Games: 458 Reviews: 1

Great but imperfect

My full review based on my playthrough on Epic contains around 5000 characters, so it simply wouldn't fit into the GOG limit of 2000. As such, I'll summarize each paragraph as a key point. - The first scene can be annoying because of people talking at once with little time to react, but that makes sense in the context of a high stakes event. - The later scenes are generally more relaxed, and the player would now know how to pause. The dialogue system is the most human I've seen in that we talk over each other, and sometimes it's best not to say anything. The game takes special care to prevent you from picking an option against your will. - The characters are also very human, with none of them flawless. The Life is Strange type moments of calm aren't just to enjoy the scenery but to let the protagonist reflect on her choices. - The gifting system is surprisingly advanced. Simply throwing the gifts at every character will not work, with some reacting negatively. It has to be done at the right time and to the right person. - The voice acting is mostly outstanding. Dominique Tipper is particularly superb, not only through her acting but also because she did a good job at speaking and singing in American English despite being British. - The combat experience is mixed. Mostly boring at the first encounters without the ranged weapon, but very satisfying later. The block ability is unnecessary. The Puritan absorb too many hits before they go down. - The art is incredible. The 2D art (e.g. the images of the characters) is some of the best I've seen in my life. - There is a lot of attention to detail, making it exciting to just zoom in on every poster, book, or any other piece of the game world. - The game locations are quite varied, making each level feel fresh. There is no laziness in the design. - Unfortunately, the ending is underwhelming because of the fate of certain characters and how it feels rushed, with the end screens being static images.

Is this helpful to you?

...

User reviews

Something went wrong. Try refresh page.

This game is waiting for a review. Take the first shot!

{{ item.percentage }}%

Awaiting more reviews

An error occurred. Please try again later.

Other ratings

Add a review

Edit a review

Your rating:

Stars and all fields are required

Not sure what to say? Start with this:

What kept you playing?
What kind of gamer would enjoy this?
Was the game fair, tough, or just right?
What’s one feature that really stood out?
Did the game run well on your setup?

Inappropriate content. Your reviews contain bad language. Inappropriate content. Links are not allowed. Inappropriate content. Content contains gibberish. Review title is too short. Review title is too long. Review description is too short. Review description is too long.

Not sure what to write?

You cannot save your review due to the following reasons:

You need to select star rating
You need to enter review title
You need to enter the content of your review

Filters:

No reviews matching your criteria

English Deutsch polski français русский 中文(简体) Others

Verified owners Others

Last 30 days Last 90 days Last 6 months Whenever

After release During Early Access

Discover CD PROJEKT RED games

Highlights

Featured

Close, but not an exact hit

Dustborn

THE POWER OF WORDS

A ROAD TRIP ACROSS A DIVIDED CONTINENT

A DIVERSE CAST OF CHARACTERS

GAMEPLAY AS VARIED AS THE LANDSCAPE

Other ratings

Add a review

Edit a review

Delete this review?

Report this review

Additional Details (required):

Report this review