During my most formative years, platformers of both the 2D and 3D varieties were prevalent and popular. While I’ve always played a wide variety of games, thanks to numerous local video stores and both my grandparents and parents, some of my best memories involve this genre. In fact, the first game I bought with my own money was one. Looking back, I played many such releases over the course of the NES, SNES, N64 and PlayStation 2 eras, and not just on those consoles, although they were what I used most.
As I’ve gotten older and experienced great losses in my life, and unexpected health problems, I’ve often looked back at better years. At times, this nostalgia extends to games I played. For that reason, I occasionally enjoy playing games that are made to feel older, or take inspiration from those days. Games like the platform-action title, Duskfade, which was just released by developer Weird Baluga and publisher FireShine Games.
Duskfade is a 3D platformer that would have felt right at home on the PlayStation 2, although that console wouldn’t have been able to handle its rather beautiful visuals. This is a modern game that has an old heart, so to speak, and is designed to feel like a love letter to another era. The developers did a good job of this, too.
Things begin in Tick Town, where a young man rushes home to the house he shares with his older sister, who’s seemingly locked herself in her room for some time to work on a mysterious project. Not long after he gets to the door and tells her he has her favourite pastries, does something happen causing some sort of explosion. The resulting blast sends him into a strange dimension, before he awakens at the local inn, surrounded by the town’s cloud-like citizens. Their house? It’s gone, just like his sister.
After the explosion, things have changed. The sky is different, and there’s a strange tower in the distance. Upon going there, our protagonist (Zirian) discovers that there are a number of chains locking a massive door, behind which his sister seemingly is. He also meets a strange metallic bird, which becomes his grumpy and sometimes hotheaded companion. They decide on its name being Cuckoo.
The majority of this ten to fifteen hour long game involves travelling to different parts of the world, most of which are themed. There’s a beach, a seaside port town, caverns, forested areas, a volcanic region and a ghost town, for instance. All the while, you’ll find echoes of the past that hint at what happened, and why almost all of the humans seem to have disappeared. You’ll also learn about the Clockmakers, whose lineage was important to this world. Boss battles will often also conclude with cinematics that show Zirian’s past, including his grandfather’s final days, which were difficult not just for him but also his older sister. She wasn’t ready to lose him.
Clocks, time and both grief and loss, play important roles in this story and the world in which it all takes place. There’s a lot of clock based imagery, and the main character even uses a sword that looks like a clock’s hand. It also brings to mind the sword from Kingdom Hearts, which this game shares some similarities with.
As Zirian attempts to break all of the chains that are keeping his sister imprisoned, he must venture through numerous different areas and maneuver through them using platforming abilities like jumping, double jumps and dashes (which can be done in the air). The platforming is pretty good, but isn’t perfect. I fell off the edge quite a bit due to misjudging a jump, or dashing when I didn’t need to, and often just missed the platforms instead of overshooting them by a lot. The length that Zirian can travel in the air sometimes feels tough to gauge and also inconsistent, but don’t let this deter you from playing this game. It isn’t a major issue, and only a small amount of health is lost.
I also tried to find all of the collectibles, which meant doing some more advanced platforming, including travelling on sticky walls that moved, and trying to use water spouts to get to out of the way areas. The water spouts were often difficult and annoying to deal with, in terms of getting a good jump out of them and being precise, so I sometimes gave up on this.
Later on, the spouts practically disappear. Instead, there’s a lot of on rails movement, and I mean that literally, as well as some flight. The on rails stuff can be annoying at times, because it has lots of obstacles and requires more precision than is really available. Crashing into something takes a lot of health off too. I may have died more doing this than anything else, outside of the final boss. It’s nice that you keep learning new things, but I must admit: I got stuck during the final platforming segment because I forgot I could dash in the air and kept trying to fly to a platform. I blame the fact that it was 9am, and I had been up all night.
The collectibles found within this game include music boxes, which make you memorize a tune and replay it, cloud cats that must be chased down, coins, upgrade tokens and items that can do things like increase Zirian’s health bar. Since you’re learning new abilities as you progress, and upgrading your weapon so that it can break tougher crystals (which often block doorways), the game wants you to go back and revisit completed locations. This can be kind of overwhelming, though, and won’t appeal to all. Thankfully, it’s not required.
One can use the aforementioned upgrade tokens and shards they collect — the latter of which act as currency — by visiting an upgrade shop. There’s one in Tick Town, and it can be travelled to from any discovered teleportation checkpoint. These portals are spread throughout the game world, and aren’t rare.
By upgrading, one can increase the power of Zirian’s sword, as well as the radius and strength of his blast ability. Those are just two of the available upgrade types. Others improve different abilities. Plus, there are also mysterious flasks containing coloured liquid to collect or purchase from this vendor.
Over the course of the game, players will unlock other parts of Tick Town, and meet new characters, including a travelling musician who takes the music boxes that you collect. There’s also an outfitter who allows you to change Zirian’s costume, and a blacksmith that helps you change the look of his sword. You’ll need to collect certain things in order to increase your options at both shops.
I realize that I haven’t talked about the combat, which is important, so let’s touch on that.
For some reason, the world of Duskfade has been invaded by inky blobs of varying sizes and abilities. There are tiny ones that follow the player around, some that shoot projectiles that can be sent back at them with the sword, and others that are wearing big suits of armour. You’ll have to time your attacks, then dash away, to avoid being hit. Doing so at the right moment can even trigger a slowdown effect. This combat is actually a bit more challenging than I was expecting on the normal difficulty, which is the third of four. There are lots of health potions to be found inside breakable boxes, though, and one can carry an extra to begin with. Later on, it’s possible to carry more.
As one gets further into the game, the enemy variety increases. The developers add massive bad guys in armour that can only be destroyed with heavy attacks, big foes that punch like boxers and musical foes. The latter can play a tune that makes the movement controls backwards, so be careful. This variety was welcomed, but the enemies that could only be defeated with magic-based attacks were annoying, especially when the meter refills kind of slowly. I didn’t like fighting those.
The combat is decent, but unspectacular, and does the job. It could have been better, and isn’t without frustrations. Locking on to enemies is possible, but not always great, and it’s easy to get hit a lot while trying not to. You’re often put in ‘arenas’ with varied groups of foes, so it can get frantic.
One helpful ability allows Zirian to become invincible for a short period. If the player ends this early, it results in a damaging explosion that can hurt enemies. By upgrading this ability, one can extend the invincibility period.
There are a surprising number of boss battles to be found within this campaign, including a deadly sin, a giant security robot and a metallic frog. These battles are involved, complex and challenging, and they’ll require focus. They can be difficult, but they’re creative, well-designed and mostly fair. I did, however, have an issue with the robot’s beam attack preventing me from jumping into water spouts that I needed to use to get to platforms in order to destroy its energy sources. I had to jump from one water spout to another, but the beam would hit me at the top of the first spout and cause me to fall into oblivion.
It takes a little while, but you’ll eventually meet the big bad who’s behind the bad things going on. They call her Despair, and she’s a strange, doll-like creature, who loves to taunt Zirian and Cuckoo, steal important item(s) from them and lay down in mid-air. She’s a good villain.
The final boss, though, can be a pain in the ass. It has two phases, and there’s no checkpoint after beating the first one, even though there’s a decently long cutscene in-between. The second phase is a lot tougher, and health potions are only sometimes dropped (maybe just on lower difficulties, too), so this can get frustrating.
That boss likes to teleport away from the player and perform tricks, including creating clones that blow up if one attacks them. It has damaging ranged attacks, dashes and can also deal damage in close combat. Furthermore, it likes to imprison players within a wall of crystals, and can also cause several explosions (in a row) that affect most of the platform, forcing you to try to find the green safe areas in time. The player must also get close to attack it, and it’s always a risk, making it feel unfair due to the small windows provided. It’s a tad bullshit.
Duskfade is a beautiful game that often looks like a painting. It’s very easy on the eyes, and has great art design. The world is very colourful and detailed, and I sometimes took a moment to just take in the sights. The characters also look pretty good, although Zirian and his sister look a bit too much like traditional anime characters for my preferences. During one cutscene, I got a bit creeped out by the sister’s expressions and animations. Also, a couple of the cutscenes looked a bit compressed and slightly blurry.
This title features voice acting, which is pretty good and better than in most games of its ilk. This complements strong writing, and a poignant story about love, loss, grief, and thinking about better days while the present slips away. I really liked the grandfather character’s dialogue, as well as some of the jokes spread throughout the game world.
Duskfade is a quality, impressive and enjoyable game that pays great homage to the 3D platformers of yesteryear. Although it has some issues, none are major. I quite enjoyed my time spent playing through it, and am glad that I gave it a chance. Maybe I’ll revisit it (on another platform) down the road.
Fans of PlayStation 2 era 3D platformers need to check this one out.
This review is based on the PlayStation 5 version of the game, which we were provided with.