Dust: An Elysian Tail is a beautiful game.
Dust is an action-RPG-stroke-metroidvania with hack and slash combat fighting set in a fantasy world called Falana. Everyone in this fantastic setting is an anthropomorphic animal of one variety or another. It’s like Castlevania and Bambi sat down down together and decided to create a game.
Your character, known only as Dust, is a warrior with amnesia - stick with me, I know you’ve all heard that particular back story, but it does get better. You wake up in a forest clearing under a ray of sunlight, surrounded by flowers. A magical floating sword, Ahrah, appears before you, speaking of prophecy and the blades of Elysium. Naturally, this means nothing to you, and you have no idea what the hell is going on. Amnesia is certainly a useful trope.
Shortly after the whole “who am I” thing, Ahrah declares himself your new weapon after 200 years of waiting for you in his sleep. You’re suddenly met by Ahrah’s guardian, a Nimbat (flying cat-fox-thing) called Fidget. To be honest, Fidget is a little grating at first. If Ahrah is Dust’s voice of logic and reason, Fidget is the shrill voice of cowardice. That may be a little unfair, because she does grow on you - no matter how annoying she is to start with, her one-liners are nothing short of brilliant. When you meet your first set of enemies and she shrieks, “No, no! Mash the buttons! DO SOMETHING!!”, you warm to her. It genuinely made me laugh out loud, and was the beginning of a wonderful friendship in this truly heart-warming game.
A brief look at the screen may make you think that the game is largely aimed at a younger audience. The bright color palate and cheery level design contrast brilliantly with the desperation the characters face in the course of the story. Dust’s main antagonist, General Gaius, has decided that he doesn’t like the Moonbloods and is hell-bent on their extinction after a long period of peaceful co-existence. Dust, now awake with a magical sword, is tasked with saving the world from the evil, seemingly-unstoppable army that is advancing through the world - killing Moonbloods and generally just being a dick to everyone else who isn’t in the military. At a basic level, Dust: An Elysian Tail seems like a game you can gloss over and pass up - but you would be doing a massive disservice to yourself. Despite its contrivances, Dust proves that a fairly unoriginal set-up can still be done astoundingly well.
The gameplay here is fantastic. Dust, as a warrior, levels up by killing things. Your enemies are mostly monsters, which you’ll kill by the dozens. As you level up, you’ll increase your damage output, defense, and other abilities - such as the strength of Fidget’s powers. While your sword attacks are honestly pretty limited and weak, Fidget’s contribution to the fight is laughable at best. When Ahrah uses his power to unlock your Dust Storm attack, you become unstoppable. By combining Fidget’s fire or lightning attacks with Dust’s warrior skills, you can devastate entire screens of enemies with total ease; rendering all other attacks entirely pointless. While it’s satisfying to be such a total bad-ass, Dust very quickly becomes a one-trick-pony. This is made worse considering you need to use this attack to access hard-to reach areas if you want to unlock new abilities, bonus items and characters. While these bonus characters aren’t playable, it’s damn rewarding opening a cage and seeing your indie favorites like The Kid from Bastion or Super Meat Boy (from Super Meat Boy) step forth into freedom.
“Yeah, when Dust starts swinging his sword, you don’t want to be anywhere near him. Have you seen the screen? He just goes vwooshzheeooshzoozoosh!”
This game isn’t simply just a nod to the indie community though. A little while in, I met a shadowy merchant. In a world steeped in the genocide that General Gaius is spreading against the Moonbloods, this merchant is understandably choosy with his customers. He mentions that the monsters Dust has been killing drop items which he’d be willing to trade. He’s also willing to pay double for each new creature drop sold. Fidget, in her best Eastern-European accent, declares “Aaah… He’ll buy them in a high price…”. The merchant, confused, replies with “I… well, yes. Yes I will.”. I however, was not confused. Resident Evil 4 is one of my favorite games of all time, the reference had me roaring with laughter. Dust may look like you’re watching a children’s anime, but it’s a beautifully written, hilarious game aimed at players of all ages. There’s truly something for everyone here, and despite it’s flaws, it’s fantastic.
The campaign is a good 7 hours long, with enough side quests which flesh out the world that mean you could sit and play for a good few days before experiencing everything. The side-scrolling nature of the game means that as you play, you build a map of the world, room by room, in true metroidvania style. There are multiple paths and secrets, leading to the aforementioned caged indie game characters and collectable items. There are also challenge rooms to find, where you run gauntlets and can see how your times measure up against your friends.
Dust: An Elysian Tale is an indie game which looks and plays better than many of the AAA games on the market. When you finish it and realize that it was designed and programmed entirely by one man - Dean Dodrill - your mind will be understandably blown. The artwork, level design coding - all of it stems from a single person. Considering the time it takes a full studio of people to make one game these days, it’s damn impressive that this game took only three and a half years, a second writer, some voice acting - and a Final Fantasy X-esque soundtrack by HyperDuck SoundWorks - to make. The soundtrack itself is wonderful, but sadly isn’t the kind of thing you will remember long after playing. If you asked me to sing you the theme tune at this point, all I could do is shrug and say it’s on YouTube.
All in all, Dust: An Elysian Tail is pretty damn good. The combat may be simple, and the story is nothing particularly new; but when all is said and one, it’s game where the appreciation comes more from the gorgeous artwork, the hilarious dialogue and the interaction between characters than from killing monsters. It comes highly recommended.
Nic Bunce
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