Duskfade

This is the kind of game we needed right now, good platformer with old school vibes but amazing visuals, just joy.

The game is good, but there are many things I feel hold this game back. TLDR: Overall rating: 6/10 Starting with the good: - Movement was smooth felt great - Combat gave enough of a challenge - Character customization looked nice - Graphics were beautiful - Some secrets were enjoyable to discover - Enemies had a nice design With all that said, gameplay was serviceable, and that's the main point for a game. Though now on to the negative: - Movement can have a bit of jank *slight spoilers of unlockables - skip if you don't want to know* -- Rails were annoying to deal with having it all with random crap on just about every rail you dealt with and gets a bit old quick. -- I had some strange moments where certain mechanics just didn't work all the time, such as grabbing a ledge when I appeared to be high enough to reach, but just falls straight past the ledge, yet grabbing it at other times. -- Grappling Hook in some instances felt like it should have reached, but had to get much closer than anticipated in order for it to deploy. -- Similar to the Grappling Hook, Wings didn't always deploy while holding down the button, resulting in just free falling into a pit or back down to a lower area. - The collectables in the game did not feel worth going through the effort of collecting them, especially as someone who always tries to collect everything to get 100% in game to see any potential secrets. -- As much as I enjoyed the customization of the character outfits and blade, it was a chore to collect them and having the forced playback of the old areas once you unlocked all of your moveset. -- Getting the weapon upgrades didn't feel like they really did anything. -- Unlocking music to only stand and listen to doesn't feel worth it, I'd love to have something to change the music as you play, or some sort of usage of the music in the world. -- The usage of the coins to collect viewable cards... was super disappointing. The art was nice, but no fun or function to it. -- Stained glass isn't even tracked, making it impossible to tell which area you found them previously. I'd say once you have found one, it should at least give some sort of indication that you have found one in that area to let you know you don't need to search there again. I don't want to explore endlessly unaware of where I found pieces. The levels tell me I am 100% finished, but I'm left at 87% game completion, which this just feels punishing, not fun having to wander aimlessly. -- Treasure chests with shards made it super infuriating, especially when chests could also hide collectables that you are looking for, but you find nothing part shards while you have the max 9999 shards in your wallet. - Bosses lack variety. -- All bosses have the same pattern... knock down 2 segments of health, and be ready to quickly parkour your way to somehow stop them from chip damaging you to death. Lacks creativity and only fun the first time as an idea, not for EVERY boss fight. - The "magic" or "time" abilities you get throughout the game don't feel necessary, other than the one that allows you to walk through the special gates. That was about the only ability I ever really used because I had to. - The Sword [clock hand] weapon upgrades in the game also felt unnecessary. I would have preferred just having the heavy swing right off the bat and then utilizing the upgrades found in the world to actually allow you to make it feel stronger and break the harder crystals in the game. Add more combos and mechanics with those upgrades rather than any of the magic that was not needed. As far as everything considered that I can think of here, it's a fun game to just run through once, but don't really worry about collectable and just enjoy the game as it is. It will probably take you 10 hours to just play straight without collecting things.

Great Platformer, game design is top notch and environments are beatiful.

Obwohl ich Platformer eigentlich nicht mag, hat Duskfade mich irgendwie komplett bekommen. Eine niedliche und traurige Story, die mit ikonischen Charaktären ausgestattet ist. Klar könnten diese etwas besser ausgearbeitet sein, aber für mich hat das Storytelling trotzdem funktioniert. Das Gameplay macht Spaß, es gibt ein zwei Stellen da könnte es etwas responsiver sein, aber ansonsten hat man hier ein solides Spiel mit Kämpfen die wirklich Spaß machen, mit etwas Action, mit viel zu sammeln und einfach einer guten Zeit beim Spielen!

It's a fairly solid indie platformer. If you play this and get the feelings of Ratchet and Clank with some Kingdom Hearts, you wouldn't be too far off to think that the devs got some inspiration from them. Gameplay, the platforming is pretty fun. The core of your character's kit is a double jump and a roll that can be done in the air to travel further. As the game progresses, you'll also get access to new abilities for traversal. I will say that the last movement ability detracted from the experience, but that's just me. Combat is so-so. You have access to a pretty basic set of attacks and a couple of abilities that run off a meter. One thing is that you'll start to realize every battle takes place in a fairly open area. Besides boss battles, fights with the regular enemies will throw a lot of enemies at you. They are a mixed bag of some interesting, some tough, and some just there to annoy you. The beginning segments of fights and boss fights didn't seem the greatest, but later on I think the boss fights definitely pick up in quality. I played on the hardest default difficulty, and it was pretty doable. Besides the platforming and fighting, there are collectibles to find in the world, and mileage will vary depending if that's your thing. One gripe I have on that is that the only way to check collectibles per zone is from the fast travel menu. Also the game features no map, and many of the collectibles are only obtainable through backtracking once you have the abilities to reach places you haven't. For me, personally, it was too much of an annoyance to try to remember where I have and haven't been. Presentation wise, the game looks and sounds pretty well. Visuals are up to par, and the character designs are pretty good. One part I will say the devs did well on is the expressions the characters make in collectible animations; it's the little things like that really add character. Audio I would say isn't is as good as the visuals, but it's not terrible. The music does its job, has some good tunes, but nothing that really stands out to me. Voice acting for the English side was well done. When there is spoken dialogue, I think the cast did a good job conveying what's a simple story on the themes of growing up and moving on. Overall, a very solid indie platformer. For the price, it's a good 15 hour run if you want a new platformer to delve into.

Fantastic game with great gameplay and visuals. Could use a few very small qol updates for when you want to go back and hunt collectables (such as a few more check points and the ability to leave a level whenever you want) but thats a very minor issue in an otherwise great game.

I've been having a great time exploring this world. Colorful, full of secrets to locate and collect, and combat consists of more than simply "hit it till it dies". The story feels a little childish, and the cutscenes had me rolling my eyes a few times, but very few platformers ever really stand out for the story. There are a few minor issues as far as controls go, but otherwise this is a great homage to PS2-era platforming, which I believe was the intended mission of the developer.