Let me start off by saying that I consider myself to be a relatively calm person. I don’t let anything get to me and I don’t get ‘worked up’ over something that’s not worth getting worked up over. That said, Dustforce has found a way to pull at strings of mine I didn’t even know I had.
Dustforce is a game from a small group of developers, Hitbox Team, that takes the player on an adventure through mansions and forests alike. Players must run, jump, dash, and sweep their way to victory. In essence, Dustforce is a platformer, but it’s so much more than that when you really get into it. This is all due to the neurotic leaderboard ranking system that has been marvelously utilized. Like I said, it can make the calmest of people become completely and insanely addicted.
As mentioned earlier, Dustforce is a platformer at heart. You control a person on a sidescrolling, 2D map. You run. You jump. You hit all the right points to move on. However, in Dustforce, the player has two particular goals to accomplish: sweep up all the dust/leaves/garbage and do it in a time fitting of the coveted S rank. This, of course, does not do the game any justice as there are many elements that must be taken into account should you want to complete every level perfectly.
Take the combo meter, which counts up the amount of dust you have swept up until you go too long without sweeping anything. It’s critical to maintain your combo meter just as it’s critical to use your special attack at precisely the right moment. This special attack can only be used when you have swept up enough dust to fill the meter at the bottom of the screen. It’s a powerful attack that clears out most of the dust that can be seen on the screen at the moment it is executed. In most cases, I found myself using it twice in most levels; once about midway through and again at the end.
Now just how the heck am I going to get up there?
At the end of every level the player is rewarded judged on their completion and timing and to the right side of their own ranking, the player can see the ranking of all other players on Steam. Not only that, but (this is where the “marvelous” part comes in) Hitbox Team has included a feature where players can click on any of the listed players in the leaderboard and watch a full clip of how they completed the level from start to finish.
You see them jump from there…run up that ledge…jump twice there…hit that…OH! Then, run down there and jump up there…you get the point.
This is critical for players who are itching to attain that double S rank on every level or for people who just want to watch in awe as they witness the prowess of the people who have mastered this whole virtual parkour thing. Me? It just makes me hate my inferiority even more and leads me to incessantly click that restart button every time I make a single wrong jump or miss one leaf on the ground.
The only thing in Dustforce that doesn’t make me become completely neurotic is the music. Indie games, as of late, have been stepping it up when it comes to the musical score of their games (Minecraft and Bastion come to mind). Dustforce’s music is one that I would definitely purchase if I could. Your goal in this game is to clean. That’s it. And it provides the perfect tune to compliment your menial task. It doesn’t try to embellish the gameplay or make it seem like the situation is dire. You’re cleaning and the music is fittingly calm. You have enough to make you go crazy, anyway.
I have no idea what is coming out of that vacuum.
I feel it’s important to point out that as of this review, there is a locked level editor mode where I presume you will be able to go in and create your own levels for yourself and hopefully all of the Steam community to try their hand at. This will beautifully play into the community aspect that the leaderboards have given the game already and hopefully generate a bigger and broader community of creators a parkour enthusiasts alike.
As you might be able to surmise already, Dustforce is not an easy game. A majority of your time will be spent watching and rewatching videos of players that have attained the double S rank and then trying to replicate their moves on your own. This, along with the lack of achievements (well, there’s one), will definitely turn many players away but given the attention it demands, players can find themselves happily addicted to this fun parkour platformer. At just 9.99 USD (it’s on sale for 8.99 USD as of this review) it’s definitely worth checking out. Besides, I think you’ve played enough Skyrim.
