dustbourne Kind of like the people-pleaser friend who you know means well but becomes exhausted trying to meet the needs of so many people. Red Thread Games’ adventure/rhythm/fighting game hybrid has its strengths when it comes to serving as a socially conscious, modern version of Telltale Games’ adventure game with its merry band of super-powered misfits living a truly fascinating life. when it tries to be a Below average fighting game While I’ve experienced some of the flimsiest action combat in the Wii era, I wasn’t that obsessed.
dustbourne It feels like it’s trying to explore too many things, making the end result feel like a rough draft of every possible idea the team had for the game. It’s filled with mechanics, characters, and themes that sometimes feel contrived and half-baked, as if they were ideas that someone wanted to incorporate, regardless of whether the game has the bandwidth to thoughtfully incorporate it. Its cast of (mostly) super-powered nomads come from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, as you’d imagine a group would grow larger and larger as they travel across a dystopian America, but as the As their tour bus fills up, it becomes clear that not every character will be given the same room to grow as others.
about halfway dustbourne I realize that not all characters are created equal. Parks, the hero of our story, meets nearly a dozen people who join her and her friends on their cross-country road trip, and in the beginning, each character has a unique path and you can set them up based on your choices. For example, Theo is the boss of this mutant smuggling ring across the United States, and by the end of the day, he might view Parks and her crew as his equals, his employees, or as surrogate children. dustbourne. The game constantly reminds you that some of his reactions depend on how you treat him throughout the game, ultimately leading to specific endings based on your relationship. This is a fun but direct way to see how the way you treat someone affects their worldview.
However, this mechanic never applies to actors who appear in the second half of the game. Instead, the less malleable characters end up feeling like a narrative device designed to get Parks and friends out of trouble, or to create drama that never really materializes, and they ultimately feel like little more than a plot that didn’t simmer long enough. The idea of time. This problem extends beyond the game’s character writing and permeates a story that seems unable to choose a direction.
dustbourne It’s simple enough to begin with. Parks, her friend Cy, and her ex Norm all team up with a man named Theo to form an undercover punk band that smuggles data keys in an alt-future version of America. In this world, President John F. Kennedy was not the man killed in the 1963 assassination attempt. Instead, his wife, Jackie Kennedy, lost her life, and in response to this loss, the president formed the Justice Police Force, a police force that lapsed into fascism, especially when it came to targeting “deviants,” those with super powers. Use your own voice to influence different elements. For example, Parks can use her voice to create negative emotions, while Norm can calm tense situations. In order to complete their mission and live a better life, the group must travel across the country without being detected.
That in itself was a solid enough foundation for this road trip, but every time Parks’ tour bus pulled up, I knew I’d meet another character and learn about the nationwide conspiracy our heroes were fighting. other levels, or learn something new about the team. When I’m halfway across the United States, dustbourne Already it feels like it’s buckling under the weight of ambition. It was clear that the team wanted to touch on different cultures, conflicts, themes, relationships, and character archetypes, but every time it broadened its focus, I could feel it losing the strong baseline it had established. Eventually, these grounded stories began to feel like they were getting lost in the noise.
There are parts dustbourne I don’t think I can even describe it to you coherently because they come and go so quickly and I don’t think I quite understand the purpose of the game. This entire section feels like a detour to a different, unfinished story, with constant escalating and downgraded stakes and huge lore drops that feel disjointed at every turn. dustbourne It’s at its best when it examines how a group of persecuted people navigated the cynical end of fascist America and still tried to find hope and connection. Too often, these ideas get derailed by an inappropriate mix of genres and never pay off. Entire characters are swallowed whole in the final moments as they are sent into the maw of an intricate turn dustbourne Need, I wonder why the game had to bloat into this mess of Katamari made up of different elements when it was already doing enough.
I try to think about the big picture because I really, real Enjoy the little moments dustbourne. Before it starts adding roles for the sake of roles, it I wrap my fingers around it as I watch sisters reconnect, oppressed people find hope in each other, and a group of oppressed people fight for freedom in an unjust world. Those moments keep me going when a new invention or complicated twist undermines what I’m seeing here. But in the end, these are the least intrusive parts dustbourneas combat remains the most egregious addition the game adds on top of an already too full slate. Its imprecision is annoying, the bells and whistles in Pax’s arsenal of sonic attacks don’t add enough interesting flair to give the game its own identity, and its only real redeeming part is that it gives you the immediate option to do less .
The game’s rhythm sequences, in which you play as the titular Dustbourne punk band, are a bit better and challenging enough, but I never looked forward to them because I frankly found the music lacking. Maybe that’s intentional, considering Dustborn is just a front for smuggling, but I won’t be streaming these songs on Spotify. dustbourne Constantly biting off more than it can chew, even with quick laughs like an entire turn-based combat sequence that pays homage to an RPG classic. It’s not even that the ideas are inherently unsound, it’s that the execution never quite matches the height of its relational writing.
I feel like I spent most of this review focusing on my favorite game. Maybe that’s because I’m frustrated with wasted potential, suffocated by a bunch of excess, like someone unwilling to say “when” to someone with an Olive Garden cheese grater. Part of me feels like I need a game like this dustbourne Now; the belief that people coming together can change the world and that no matter how bad everything around them is, there is still something worth fighting for. I think as I got older, I started to regress to the cynicism of my teenage years. I watched the world around me get worse, and those who supported me were taken down just as hard. How long do we have to come together and fight against a system that would rather we lie down and wait for death before things change? How much fighting power do I have left to find out? most of dustbourne poked at my anxieties about the state of the world, and despite its unabashed belief that Parks and her friends could make the world a better place, I felt myself growing weary of the idea. Maybe this world is very similar to dustbournenot as easily defined as good or bad, just full of good people trying to make the best of their situations.
