The very first thing I noticed about this game is the beautiful colour palette. It's bright and vibrant, and I absolutely love that since we haven't had that many colourful games lately. The colours aren't the only thing that is visually appealing either, the artwork is absolutely fantastic, and the animation is nice and smooth. The effort that's been put towards the game can really be seen here. It's only even more mind boggling that this was all hand drawn by 1 man. There is a great variety to the environments you travel in, from forests to caves to mountains, and they all look fantastic! The only thing that bugs me about the animation in this game is when characters open their mouths. There's just something about it that annoys me a bit, but I can't seem to put a finger on exactly what it is.
Aside from the stunning visuals, the game itself is amazing. Dust has a robust crafting system, a very streamlined combat system, and it makes great use of comical relief and has interesting dialogue. This game does so many things well and everything meshes together to create an awesome game.
The PC port of Dust has been done quite well. The controls are smooth and feel great on the keyboard, and controller support is there if that's your preference as well. There are a variety of options allowing you to choose what visual effects you want on, and even a colour-blind mode for those who are impaired. The mouse glides across the screen smoothly, and everything seems to be in working order, aside from the few crashes that occur. The one big flaw I found with Dust is a crashing problem. Every now and then, something triggers a crash. Thankfully, there are many savepoints scattered throughout the world, and the crashes don't happen extremely often. It's still a little unfortunate to have to spend a little time going through something I've already done, even if it's still really fun the second time through.
In Dust, you play as the amnesiac hero Dust, who is on a journey across the world of Falana to find out who he is. He just happens to end up saving the world while he was trying to figure out who he is. Nothing new or exciting in the idea here, but the writing is done very well, you'll enjoy the journey regardless of how generic the basic premise is. The banter that goes back and forth between you, your flying companion Fidget, and your ancient talking sword is often good for a little chuckle, and the various characters you meet as you explore the world are all unique and interesting to chat with. This game is a bit text-heavy, and all of it comes with voice-acting that is a great pleasure to hear.
This indie game has great voice-acting that comes along with all the chatter of the characters. Everything sounds good, you can feel a lot of effort and emotion put into all the characters. The voices bring a lot to Dust, as the tones and feeling come through, making me laugh at the good and bad jokes, and cry along with the residents of Falana as they feel great sadness.
There's a decent crafting system within Dust, where if you've got the materials and blueprints to make an item you can do it. It's simple, usable, and worth your time to use it as you can easily pick up enough stuff to make something good just progressing through the story. The leveling system is well balanced in such a way that you can gear your stats to fit your play style while limiting you enough to prevent you from becoming an unbalanced character. There are a good number of fetch quests in the game, but you don't feel like you're just going around doing the generic side quests. Every quest has dialogue leading up to you undertaking it, and it makes doing these quests that much more interesting. These quests tell you more about the inhabitants of Falana, in addition to notes you can pick up that are scattered across the world.
Dust has a very fluid combat system, everything flows together easily and you feel strong while you do it. It's got very easy to pick up fighting mechanics, while being complex enough that it keeps your interest. There's no guarding in Dust, only a parry mechanism. As such, the vast majority of players will most likely focus on dodging. This game is all about not getting hit, as enemies smack you around hard and fast. A single attack can wipe out a massive chunk of your health. If the game ends up being too easy or hard for you, there are the varying difficulty levels of casual, normal, tough, and hardcore.
Regardless of what settings you choose, the slick moves you can do are still a blast to execute all throughout the game. Slicing and dicing through your enemies, and soaring through the skies with your abilities to make short work of most foes is a lot of fun.
The game is a good length, approximately 10 hours of gameplay if you just go through the game normally without trying to do every side quest and finding all the hidden items. Even with the good amount of game content, I want even more of Dust. It's unfortunate that there isn't anymore, as I would have loved to just keep playing! The devs had even planned to do more, add another full act in, and expand on their list of features, although there is only so much one man can do, and he had already spent 3.5 years on the game. That's a long time for your debut game.
With fantastic voice acting, stunning visuals and sweet combat, Dust is a game you don't want to miss out on! It's a great game that is a lot of fun to play, and it has an engaging story, despite lacking a bit in the innovation department. Dust is a joy to play through and it will leave you drooling for more when you're done.
9/10
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