I randomly finally got around to playing through Dust: An Elysian Tail after it haunting my backlog for a decade or so. I no longer remembered how it got there or what I thought the game was, I expected a Metrovania but while there are some slight bits of that it is mainly a mostly linear beat 'em up/basic character action game. Difficulty is a mess, I played on tough (difficulty level 3 of 4) and beyond the initial getting used to things/completely unleveled early bit it was absurdly easy even with the enemies hitting for an absurd amount of damage as the AI is such that if you basically just attack the vast majority of enemies won’t be able to hit you. I remember wondering if I sorta found an exploit with the second boss as it basically looped the same basic attack pattern repeatedly but no that seems to be the way the game works.
This all shifts wildly in the final run as you end up as part of battles between the evil general’s soldiers and the fighters of the species they are trying to ethnically cleanse and not only do the soldiers parry your attacks while attacking in much more irregular ways but things become so difficult to read with a dozen characters on screen all of the same size and proportions attacking each other but only half are enemies, just a dramatic difficulty spike after a game long flat run. Ended up doing mostly cheese tactics against them (repeated jumping attacks or projectiles, letting the soldiers on my side do much of the hard work), felt like I almost no hit the final boss on my first attempt, credits roll.
It’s also one of those games that had the budget for voice acting and hence everyone talks way too much.
Some solid pixel work, was pleasant for stretches in a sorta mindless kinda way, not really sure how it got the following it did but hey, good for them I guess.