Of Dust And Tails

There have been three games in my life that have made me go. ‘I’m not into furries, but.’ Today we're going to talk about the far more obscure one of this select group.

Dust: An Elysian Tail is a Metroidvania Dungeon Crawling Spectacle Fighter that was first released fourteen years ago as of the writing of this review. It has a very peculiar art style, almost as if Disney’s Robin Hood (the cartoon that first hit theaters fifty-three years ago, again, as of the writing of this review) suddenly had become a video game and you started playing it.

Aside from the music and the voice acting it is, in its entirety, the work of a single man.

One man did all of the background art, all of the foreground art, all of the lovingly crafted and animated 2D character sprites, the scant few 3D models, all of the coding. Etc, etc, etc.

With how gorgeous the game is, one would be hard-pressed to believe this fact.

Dust is a very colorful game with plenty of similar though nonetheless very different biomes.

Beautiful foresty glade? We’ve got that.

Creepy woods? We got those too.

Haunted mansion full of monsters, treasure, and secrets? Yeah you can find that here.

Various caverns full of spikes that deal an unreasonable amount of damage? Yuppers.

It has all of the staples of a standard Metroidvania game, but the combat. Holy molly the combat is satisfying.

Admittedly, you don’t have many combos to work with. But the combos you do have use every trick in the book to make them impactful and satisfying. The screen shakes as you use progressively more powerful attacks in the combo, musical cues play in time with your attack animations. Many a time have I executed a throw on the last enemy, only for the perfectly timed musical beat to signal the (unfortunate) end of the combat.

And don’t even get me started on the air-juggling in this game. The jump button is a little floaty, but once you master the fundamentals of the combat system, you will spend most of your time mid-air. From chaining the air grab to snatch enemies from the ground like some teal-colored foxy eagle and slam them against the floor in the middle of a pack and send them all flying with a good chunk taken out of their health, to utilizing the ‘turn everything in the screen into sliced cheese lawnmower of death attack’ known as the Dust Storm. Once you find your own rhythm, you will never touch the ground again except when you choose to.

The music is gorgeous and surprisingly varied. More often than not fitting the vibe the background art is trying to set. I will shamelessly admit that I have used this game’s soundtrack as background music for various roleplaying games I’ve ran in my long career as a forever DM.

The voice acting ranges from adequate to amazing, none present phoned their performance in, but there are definite standouts in the cast. The performance of one of the main characters in particular I found grating at first, but by the time I finally finished the story (so I have a tendency to go off the beaten path and faff about collecting every key to open every treasure chest, sue me) I realized my annoyance had transmuted to fondness.

There are even playful nods to other classics in the genre, such as the fact that one of my main sources of healing came from the harvesting of mysterious wall chickens. Springing forth from destructible walls, fully cooked and ready to eat.

Not to mention, the game is so well optimized that you could almost run it on a potato. And its options menu is very well done, allowing you to customize nearly everything in the HUD to fit your particular needs.

Lastly, the story is linear. It’s a simple story, competently told, with solid writing throughout. And with surprising nuance if you’re willing to dig just a little under the surface. It’s not perfect, but I found it endearing.

In all honesty, I cannot recommend this game enough.

TLDR: It is a solid game, with beautiful graphics, above average voice talent, extremely satisfying gameplay, beautiful music, plenty of exploration and ability to go off the beaten path. It is a game that is just as good now as it was fourteen years ago.

Though comparing it to some of the utter slop that has been released over the last few years, I’d hazard to say that it is even better now than when I first played it.

If you are into metroidvanias, check it out next time there is a Steam sale. And set it to the highest difficulty. The game is a little too balanced toward your survivability otherwise…for my liking at least.