2024-08-19 15:00:00
An atypical Road Trip in dystopian North America full of melodramatic story
The team that gave us Dreamfall chapters, Red threadthere is development DustbornA Road Trip with an interactive narrative and a variety of gameplay mechanics. They teamed up with the publishing label Conradh na Gaeilge Quantic Dreams SA AA publishing with a strong message about misrepresentation, discrimination and characters with very specific powers in a dystopian North America.
The year is 2030 and North America has changed much more than we know it, with changing historical events and an “accident” that changed everything. For reasons we will find out, there are people who have powers and of course, they are persecuted for being dangerous to “ordinary people”.
Paxour main character is one of them, with special abilities they call “speaks“, giving her the ability to make others do what she wants. On their journey to escape, Pax and her friends have stolen information about the tyrannical government that has turned part of North America into a dictatorship.
A road trip full of political message
Along the way, Pax will have help Saiher best friend with the power of super strength, Noamwhich can calm and soothe people’s nerves and Theohis “leader” in this spy mission. They are supposed to be a rock band who are allowed to tour the country and reach “La Resistencia” to deliver important information.
They are also fighting for the disinformation of the government, the discrimination against the “Anomalies”, as Pax emphasizes at every moment that they should be called, and the goal of freedom. This political message is always there, but there is also an odd desire to include certain policies on the agenda that affect so much the works of cinema, series and video games.
The game tries at every step to emphasize this and through so-called comprehensive language, it tries to make clear where it is going. It gets quite annoying, because the feminine plural is always used even though a man is speaking. This further slows down a relatively slow and tedious episode, despite telling an interesting story (although there is nothing we have not seen already), which becomes tedious and too political for my experience.
This way we see more characters that will make the plot more interesting, as well as adding companions to the team with different abilities. Our long (very long) conversations will create “consequences” with the characters and their relationships, which will be shown in each chapter in comic form (which I really liked).
In addition, we can receive orders or secondary missions from NPCs, which gives us a wider content if you want to follow the stories of those secondary characters you meet.
Different mechanics in a different world
Dustborn is an interactive story, something seen in titles like Life is Strange or Dreamfall Chapters itself, but it adds fairly simple hack and slash mechanics and other mini-games. As a punk band, we will have to play in small gigs simulating Rock Band or Guitar Hero, which would be more enjoyable if it weren’t for the rather simple soundtrack.
There will be stops along the way, such as overnight camping and supplies, where the group will talk about their things, their daily life and where they can strengthen relationships, give gifts that we will find if we explore them first, and make up. more songs. In the end it becomes quite tedious and the temptation to go to sleep to continue the journey is powerful enough.
However, if you want to know more about the characters and their relationships/past it is necessary, although the pace is very slow with this. Here we can choose whether more or less fraternize with our comrades, be close or rip deeper into their feelings, a life that will help the player to create other narrative lines, although not mandatory.
There is also a component hack and slashwith sporadic fights with combos that we can improve, special powers and other abilities. The combat is shallow and boring when you have a few, which despite improving and adding skills doesn’t work well.
The fights against the big bosses didn’t give me anything more exciting either, something anecdotal instead of part of the adventure. Although they showed fights in the trailer as integrated, it seems like a supplement without caffeine, and despite not being bad, it seems a bit wasted.
And another key mechanic is caught “echoes” in our ME-ME devicea modified portable video game console that can neutralize entities that cause confusion and distress to humans. Discord and mistrust are the consequences of these echoes’ action, and Pax has the ability to trap them in a game of tug-of-war like that of the Ghostbusters.
By getting these echoes we will be able to get more superpowers once we de-mod them, giving some life to the exploration part of Dustborn along with gaining more combat skills. In addition to clothes and gifts, we will find robot parts for abilities and echoes for powers, so get lost exploring the small areas on the journey.
Audiovisual one lime and one sand
With the comic style, the visual appearance of Dustborn is appealing to the eye, with well-designed and amazing characters. The environments have less detail and some animations are bordering on the minimum required for an AA title, but it looks very nice. However, I miss a little more interaction with the situations, since it is a bit artificial.
Of course it’s a modest title, with a low price, but it’s the animations and the collisions of objects and combat that annoy you the most. While this isn’t the focus, it detracts a bit from the good work of character modeling, which is much more done by focusing on the story.
The game is titled in English, but subtitled in imperfect Spanish, focusing on the inclusive and empowering language that is so fashionable today. Most of the dialogue contains these words in capital letters, such as “TOGETHER” and “WE” when he talks about a mixed group or even when Theo, who is a man, talks.
But perhaps what worries you the most is the behavior of the majority of the characters, thirty-somethings fleeing from Justice, embroiled in conflicts, but protesting against their comrades for complete nonsense. It takes you a lot out of the story they’re trying to tell, with jokes and crude dialogue more typical of fifteen-year-olds than adults. Also it’s worse with Theo, because he doesn’t know anything when he’s a spy, a globetrotter dealing with all kinds of people and situations.
I also expected the soundtrack to be of a higher quality, but it remains in themes simple and without any charisma, the parts of the game where you have to play with the group can be undermined.
Conclusions
Dustborn is a title focused on interactive narrative that places great emphasis on the relationships between the main characters and their environment, as well as their reactions to our actions. It includes Fighting Mechanics, Rock Band Music and other mini-games, but all of them lack depth, making them a haven of play amidst so much narrative.
The game didn’t seem bad to me, it’s ok, but maybe I got the wrong idea of a story-oriented adventure game and it becomes burdened with the dialogues made for teenagers. The political message and constant rebuke is completely unnecessary and shoehorned in a bit, which makes his inspiration in Life is Strange come to nothing.
Dustborn will be released on August 20 ga Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Game Pass, Playstation 4, Playstation 5 and PC and a value of €29,99. En South Games You can get its edition in physical format.
Dustborn
29,99€
Advantages
- Character design art
- an entertaining story
- A variety of mechanics, although …
Cons
- poor execution
- Slow slow pace
- Very simple in combat
- A medieval soundtrack
- An unnecessary political message
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