Dustborn PS5 Review. Dustborn has a lot of ideas, but none of them have been genuinely realized. For a game set in a dystopian America where people have powers, most of that takes a back seat to Red Thread Games’ seemingly deliberate design decision to focus on political statements and ensure every word and theme was politically correct. It’s a shame because Dustborn has much going for it, but it constantly takes everything its world offers and turns it into a statement.
Dustborn PS5 Review
A Trigger Happy Story
You take on the role of Pax, a woman who, with her friends, steals an object that they plan to deliver to someone in Canada under the guise of a rock band. The game starts with you in the car with your friends, where most of the dialogue mechanics are revealed. The decisions you make and how you respond to your friends shape your relationship and, with some, your romantic relationships.
You can answer some choices immediately, but new dialogue options can open up if you wait for the conversations to play out. One of my favorite parts of conversations is moving the camera around, which can reveal new things to discuss in the environment or even things that characters may be doing outside of the camera view.
The game’s slow start doesn’t do it any favors. You don’t know anything that’s going on or why you’re on the run. You don’t even get a natural explanation for your powers. Powers that some people have used their words. Pax can get people to do exactly what she says. If she tells people to stop talking, they stop talking.
A Great World That Doesn’t Get The World-Building It Deserves
The world of Dusborn is its most fascinating component; it’s a shame that more of it hasn’t been explored. For example, we have a future where John F. Kennedy isn’t assassinated, but instead, it’s his wife Jacqueline who is killed.
This forced Kennedy to become a dictator rather than a President, which led to a very different America. One divided with various factions and leaders across the country. Kennedy also establishes a force to hunt down, capture, and kill all Anomals (people with voice powers).
It’s an interesting concept that doesn’t get enough attention. Instead, most of the world-building is done around your party as they discuss their feelings with each other while constantly reminding me of their sexual orientation and pronounces. It’s all fine and dandy to establish this, but to continually remind me over and over for the dozen hours the campaign lasts gets stale and forced.
Another issue I found with how the story and dialogue were presented is that the developer constantly forces these themes and stances onto the player instead of letting them occur naturally throughout the story.
Words Hurt
Your party members have different unique powers, or Vox as they are referred to. One is extremely powerful and can break down walls; another can calm people down by manipulating their emotions. The issue is you can’t use their powers unless the game allows you to use them during specific moments in the game.
Even then, they seem pointless as their abilities degrade your relationship when you ask them for help. They often think you only want to be around them for their powers. It’s a pain when you spend a lot of time building a relationship, only to have it go downhill when you ask them for help.
Though the game features a lot of slow-paced dialogue, it is broken up with various gameplay elements. Exploring locations is fun as it opens up many fun conversations with locals and the party.
Simple Combat With Fun Ragdoll Physics
Combat comes into play when you encounter corrupted robots, the military force chasing you, and a bunch of bikers trying their best Mad Max impression. Combat is simple and doesn’t ever pose any challenge. You swing away with your baseball bat, which leads to some hilarious ragdoll physics. There just isn’t enough going for it to make it memorable, while the animations are also somewhat janky and unpolished.
Having said that, one standout element of combat encounters are the destructible environments, with walls and other objects smashing to bits as enemies are slammed into them.
You can also use your “Words” in combat. Pax can learn and unlock various Words that she uses against her human opponents. Words like Bully get enemies to gather together against you or get them to attack each other by using Cancel.
As you may imagine, these words are precisely what you suspect they are, and you can even use them during dialog. In some instances, you can Cancel people you talk to, which makes them believe in things their friends don’t, so they turn on them. You can Bully them into submission and get them to do what you want out of fear.
Shot Through The Heart
You also have to convince people you are a real band. Using a QuickTime event minigame, you can learn and perform new songs throughout your adventure. The songs are very political, and they have plenty of statements the developers wanted to make. You’ll either like them or you won’t, but the minigame itself is a simple, quick button press as the icon reaches the center that you have to press.
To unlock new Words for Pax to learn, you must hunt down Echos left behind by people. These Echoes are pockets of misinformation that have taken a life of their own and influence the people around them, and some of them can even be possessed by these Echos.
You free them using a handheld video game that Vox can use to capture these Echos and turn their negativity into Words to use against people. So, in other words, she’s taking this negativity and using it for herself against enemies.
Gorgeous Cell-Shading And Great Voice Acting
The voice work in Dustborn generally pretty solid, and everyone gives a stellar performance. You’ll probably have your favourites among the cast, and there’s some annoying examples, such as Pax’s best friend, Sai, who can’t keep the F word out of her mouth. As such, it gets old fast and she comes off as very ignorant at times. Conversely, Naomi is a cool-headed lady with a soothing voice who I could imagine narrating books and nature shows.
Dustborn’s cell-shaded graphics are another visual highlight, with the characters looking particularly impressive while the dystopian world is ripe with detail and superbly designed.
Unfortunately, I encountered many game-breaking bugs during my time with Dustborn. One bug broke my game entirely and wouldn’t let me progress, forcing me to grab a save from the PS Cloud. Another bug wouldn’t trigger dialogue events; sometimes, prompts wouldn’t appear to open doors or grab objects.
Dustborn has many ideas, but none of them work well together. A game like this would have benefitted from being a narrative-driven experience like Life is Strange rather than trying to be three different games in one. Dustborn has high points, but its need to make a political statement keeps it from being great.
Dustborn is now out on PS5 & PS4.
Review code kindly provided by PR