Duskfade

Gameplay: When you look this game up on the internet you will inevitably find posts with one name attached to this game’s list of inspirations: Kingdom Hearts. I even learned of this game through a YouTuber known for his videos on KH and other action RPGs. This has led to a mismatch in expectations. Of course visually the inspirations to Kingdom Hearts are clear. But this is a pure action platformer game. You will gain some new movement and combat tools. But the end of the game feels very similar to the beginning. You won’t be leveling up as you fight, gaining stats, unlocking a huge list of combat abilities, there’s no combat menu, you aren’t slinging elemental spells. Is that a bad thing? Not inherently. I enjoyed the expanding movement options and how they unfold previous areas. Secret paths that branch out into other paths make the levels feel layered. Though once you realize there’s little to be gained from combat other than the game’s main currency; which always seemed maxed out; there’s little motivation to fight save for the few times the game locks you into an arena. The game honestly needed a money sink, some sort of place to put all your excess shards into like the bakery. Something to add a bit of flavor to the town and doesn’t require a second currency, the main limiting factor in buying ability upgrades and cosmetics. Especially when you’re not buying potions or healing items due to the game’s flask system. The simplicity of the combat is both a benefit and not. I appreciate the team’s restraint. But there absolutely could’ve been a one or two more options to make it all feel complete. Crowd control was something I felt was missing with how often the game will send several handfuls of enemies at you. And they often tend to be fairly bulky enemies towards the end. In addition to your melee attacks, you will gain 4 special moves you can execute. These range from a short-range shotgun style blast, and a few others I won’t spoil. Also because forgot one of them. Yeah, sadly they were pretty situational and outside of the times I was forced to use them due to game’s design (which brings up another question of a limited-resource special move being required for elemental puzzles), I found myself relying mostly on my basic Melee attacks for the vast majority of fights. That said, there is a nice amount to wiggle room to mix in different light and heavy hits. The combos are long enough to feel substantial but don’t lock you in place. The speed of your attacks is great, though I do feel the sense of landing an attack, the hit and your enemies reaction to it, could be improved. There are also a few upgrades to your abilities and hits, these must be bought with the games main currency and additional upgrade gears. The platforming is floaty, you spend a lot of time in the air as your zipping around levels. But it does feel overall very well considered and satisfying. And your base abilities ensure that your platforming starts good and feels better with the additions you gain later on. The distance which you platform doesn’t always feel like it was given similar consideration however. Many times the two jumps and short dash in the air you use will land you solidly on that next platform. But there were a notable number of times where despite clearly needing to use all three movement abilities, the air dash would cause me to overshoot the platform and leave me scrambling to reverse my momentum back above solid ground. The rail grinding also feels like it throws you into the fire immediately in terms of obstacles. The place where platforming and combat meet is the bosses, and I this is my biggest sour spot. Upon reducing a bosses health to certain thresholds, they will become invulnerable and platforms around the arena will rise, leading to player to follow them and complete a small puzzle to break through the bosses invulnerability, thus allowing the player to get a few additional hits in before the next phase commences. These phases also have an audible countdown, upon the conclusion of which the player will start taking tick damage every other second or so. The hits in this damage-over-time felt like they were affecting my inputs and animations, making it even more difficult to complete the platforming and puzzles. This was immensely frustrating. Being forced to start an entire boss fight over again from the beginning of the first phase upon death was also very frustrating. This game also very much needed a minimap, or a select/start map. Especially in the games second dungeon, which is big enough that it’s divided in to multiple parts. But outside of these pain points, the game feels very strong and confident in it’d design. It’s an extremely solid foundation, that could use a bit of polish for sure. But it’s still impressive what this team has built here. I really want to see where and how the team builds onto this from here. Story: During your adventure, you’ll pick up bits and pieces of information about the civilization that existed many years prior. But it also doesn’t leave the story the game is trying to tell in the dust. You won’t feel like you’re missing much by not collecting every piece of lore you can find. This does of course give the impression that these are two completely different elements of the world that don’t have a lot of overlap until the very end after completing a mural of stained glass. It’s ultimately really about a kid and sidekick trying to save his sister and the fate of his small corner of the world along with it. I also do wish the various NPCs in the hub were a bit less self-interested and dismissive of you. But without spoiling it does go places emotionally. It’s clearly personal to the creatives behind it and sticks the landing where it needed to. Visuals & Music: The game takes you through your familiar sights like twisting forests, gritty deserts, sun-kissed beaches, and the like. It does so with enough unique twists for me to be completely won over by every level. And it made going back for collectables that much more engaging, to see new places in each level that I hadn’t before. The character designs are also good. Zirian’s default look is iconic without feeling busy and overwhelming. And while the Cloudies are simple they get the job done, though I think there could’ve been a few more bespoke designs for those dotting the game’s towns. It’s all very cohesive, impressively so for again a small team using Unreal Engine. Not a single asset or character design feels out of place. The visuals are one of the first things that come to mind when I think back on this game, and that’s a testament to them. The music, however, I wish I could feel as strongly about. There’s a pair of boss themes and a couple area song have stuck with me since my time with the game. But for the most part they blended into the experience. That said, the music is confidently and professionally composed and mixed. The instruments sounded nice, the themes fitting the moments they’re played in very well. The voice acting is also very well done. Especially in the emotional cutscenes, all the lines that are delivered hit exactly as they needed to for me. I was genuinely surprised at the quality on display on this aspect. Conclusion: Does the game succeed in what it was trying to do? In Duskfade’s case I very much think so. It’s not flawless. There’s some things that need polish & depth. There’s a bonus area that was teased a few times via dialogue only to learn later was cut from the game. There’s parts I wish were stronger, longer, shorter, etc. And I sincerely hope this game succeeds enough for the team to follow this up. One that allows for further refinement and polish of a promising start. This game was clearly made with love, and that matters a lot in this day and age. I absolutely enjoyed my time with it far above any of the sore spots.

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It is filled with design choices that I think only serve to add frustration and annoyances, such as losing momentum after a jump + dash, and the inability to rebind controllers is borderline insane to me. There's nothing about this game which is bad, but nothing was elevated to a degree that would make me go out of my way to recommend the game. If you feel an itch to play it for whatever reason, expect a decent time.

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Beautiful<3

game was fun and a breathe of fresh air. Classic platformer, so you know at some point the will throw some wild hardcore parkour. rails aren't the best, but works and is engaging. story is a bit of cheese, but good cheese. fine game, casual, very fine game, Kingdom hearts fans.

Congratulations to the developers. This game is both beautiful and incredibly fun. It feels like a love letter to platformers and games from the PS2 era, with plenty of little nods to titles like KH. I enjoyed it much more than I expected to, and you can genuinely feel the care and passion put into every level. Truly, what a great game. If I had one criticism, it would be that I would have liked to see more uses for the in-game currency beyond the couple of attack upgrades and a few other minor things. The endgame collectible hunt could also have been much more enjoyable with a radar or something to help with 100% completion. Overall, I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it. ============================================================== Felicitaciones a los desarrolladores. Este juego es hermoso y muy divertido. Se siente como una carta de amor a los juegos de plataformas y a los títulos de la época de PS2, con muchos pequeños guiños a juegos como KH2. Lo disfruté mucho más de lo que esperaba, y realmente se nota el cariño y el esmero que pusieron en cada nivel. De verdad, qué buen juego. Si tuviera que señalar algo, sería que me habría gustado encontrar más usos para la moneda del juego, más allá de un par de mejoras para los ataques y algunas otras cosas menores. La búsqueda de coleccionables al final también podría haber sido mucho más amena con un radar o algo para facilitar la tarea de completarlo al 100%. En general, me gustó muchísimo y lo recomiendo totalmente.

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