From Red thread gamesunder the aegis of Spotlight on Quantic Dreamit comes to us Born from dust. A narrative adventure with touches of other genres that makes the effort to constantly surprise us with new mechanics. However, there are darker points that also deserve to be commented on. If you want to know more, stay with us in this analysis to find out what we thought of this proposal supported by Quantic Dream.
A story that tries to keep you hooked
Pax, Sai, Noam and Theo are the protagonists of this unique retrofuturistic story in a United States that ceased to be so after a significant event that would forever change the course of the country’s future: John F. Kennedy survived assassination (in the game script this was obviously omitted) from 1963. The first image we have is of our protagonists trying to escape after a successful robbery in which they managed to seize a valuable cargo. From there a story of humans and robots is forged, with discriminations involved similar to what was observed in Detroit: Become Human, family dramas and other issues included.
Now, there’s something wrong with the narrative, and it’s not exactly something we should ignore: takes too long to start. Also, when you see that it finally starts to get going, the truth is that it has not managed to hook me as it should, because of a huge lack of context This prevented me from properly connecting with the characters and what they want to tell us. This can be very subjective, but from my personal experience, this is what I experienced.
The genre-blending is Dustborn’s best feature.
Although the main premise of Born from dust is based on a A narrative adventure without puzzles, focused solely on decision-making and introspection of its story and characters, it also features other mechanics that manage to avoid repetitiveness. One of them is the one that concerns the hack-and-slashand yes, from time to time we will be able to fight hand to hand against some enemies, even with improvements and powers that we will unlock as we advance in the story.
The gender hack-and-slash It is presented in a fairly simple way, although this does not harm the adventure. It is good to hit hard blows after having talked for a while with certain characters, which helps to avoid repetitiveness. Likewise, the rhythmic genre makes an appearance and finally brings us to play multiple songsjust to disconnect a little (although it also has weight in the script). At one point, without spoiling too much, we started using a special device in the form of a portable video game console that will allow us to capture “ghosts” that we will have to search manually in certain areas.
All of this is, in my opinion, the biggest positive point of this title. These are undoubtedly simple mechanics, but there is no denying that at least have made efforts to reduce repetitiveness as much as possible. In this way, it is achieved that everything we see is not just cutscenes and conversations with characters (something that does not necessarily have to be bad, if it is done well). In addition, in the small closed areas in which we can move freely, we will find collectibles that will be used to unlock additional dialogues and relationships with the rest of the characters by giving them certain objects, which encourages us to search for objects on the stage.
The special powers of the protagonists of Dustborn
The main characters of Born from dust They are defined as “anomalies”. People with superhuman powers which vary depending on who it is. For example, Pax, who the player controls, has the ability to manipulate other people through his “speech”. Let’s just say it can change people’s minds. To give another example, Sai has extremely high physical strength compared to any ordinary human. This is used to solve some problemsbeing able to call the appropriate character when it is necessary to use their powers in order to resolve the setback. Of course, we are talking about a very scripted mechanic, just like the game itself, which cannot be used freely.
With Pax’s powers, we have a little more freedom of choice. There will be conversations where normal dialogue is no longer a viable option. That’s when he comes in the “Speech” of our protagonist, through which we can choose to block, push or, in general, mentally manipulate to the other person involved. There may be slight changes in the future of our odyssey across this fictional United States depending on what is chosen here, as with regular dialogue.
Nice graphics marred by technical issues
Using a typical cellular shading, Born from dust displays a more than decent graphic and sound section on the screen. Although, unfortunately, there is no dubbing in the language of Cervantes, there is a perfect dubbing job in the language of Shakespeare. In this type of proposal, there will always be a lack of Spanish dubbing, but it must be recognized that the original in English is a pleasure.. The music is perceptible in mostly relaxed compositions that fit them like a glove.. Graphically, the title is so present in the comic aesthetic that it literally becomes one. playable comic. We will constantly see comic bubbles, sometimes even breaking the fourth wall to communicate directly with the player. Likewise, each completed chapter opens a comic that shows us a summary of what happened throughout it.
And now it’s time to talk about the negative part of the technical section. And it is It suffers from several issues like a fairly low fps rate for almost every hour of the adventure (the length of which varies greatly depending on how you play, with an average of 15 hours). THE crasheos recurrentmainly in combat hack-and-slashThis is something that unfortunately also needs to be highlighted. Hopefully, and hopefully, a patch will be released in the coming days/weeks to address these issues.
In short, Dustborn tries to be revolutionary, but…
We must not fail to recognize that Born from dust It’s a game that at least offers some interesting and unusual mechanics. in a genre like narrative adventure. And that’s precisely why it gets a pass, because otherwise there’s nothing really notable. Not only does the story take too long to get going, but it also leaves a lot of things unexplained.. Personally, this does not allow me to communicate with her at all. On the other hand, Although excellent work is evident graphically and sonically, we cannot ignore the technical issues..
The proposal from Red Thread Games and Spotlight from Quantic Dream It leaves us with a bittersweet taste in our mouths. And with a certain sadness for what could have been.. However, Since it’s available in the Xbox Game Pass catalog at no additional cost, we highly recommend giving it a try.. Finally, we want to thank Southern Games for the code provided that made this analysis possible, while reminding you that you have a physical edition of Born from dust for Xbox Series X|S and PS5 with lots of content inside.
Born from dust It is available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4 and PC. We say goodbye to you by reminding you that in the Xbox Space we will be at your disposal daily with all the news, analysis and articles about the video game on your favorite console.
Born from dust
Pro.
- The game tries to surprise you with new mechanics.
- Graphically pleasing.
Contra.
- Too many technical errors, which we hope will be fixed in a future patch.
- The story takes too long to get going.
- Personally, I’m not totally connected to the story or the characters.
I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember, so you could say I enjoy talking about them a little.
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