Recent reviews by Jonnasn

I originally played the first game a couple of years ago. I liked it enough to buy the entire collection, and I'm really glad I did.

The setting is Deponia, a planet filled with the trash of a once-thriving civilization. A space station called Elysium is a paradise of sorts where the high-class folk live, isolated from the rest. The protagonist is Rufus, a mechanical whiz from Deponia who dreams of going to Elysium. The plot starts when Rufus' latest attempt at escaping actually causes a girl from Elysium to fall into Deponia. From there begins a wacky journey filled with twists and turns.

This is a point&click, as is usual with Daedalic. They tend to have a traditional approach to genre, inspired by classics such as Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle. Much like those two examples, Deponia is pretty cartoony in nature, though the writers also take comedic cues from stuff like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The art style is colourful, and the animations are pretty well done. They're fairly basic in the first game, but they improve immensely in the sequels.

The gameplay is usual fare: take random stuff from the ground, steal random stuff from people's houses, combine items randomly until you find something, all with the goal of tricking someone, or getting items into the hands of people who want them. They also include Layton-style minigames peppered throughout the plot, which are a nice change of pace. They range from genuinely challenging to "easy-but-funny".

They play with the formula from time to time (especially in the later games), but that's the main gist of it. Puzzles follow cartoony logic, main character makes a joke when describing items, etc.

The catch in the middle of all this is that Rufus is a massive jerk. Essentially, he actually is written like someone who tricks and steals stuff from other people for selfish goals. And this is not a case of "Jerk with a Heart of Gold", he really doesn't give two figs. He's barely better than the villains. Much of humour comes from this, the sheer audacity of some of the things Rufus pulls (and says). The beginning "merely" has him cause mayhem in his home town by destroying some buildings, but as the plot progressed, they kept finding new lines for him to cross, ranging from animal cruelty to invasive surgery to...worse.

It's black humour, essentially, and it doesn't pull any punches. Most of it works (in fact, I found myself laughing out loud a few times), but when it doesn't, it can leave a really bad taste in your mouth.

There're also some neat extras here. For starters, The Complete Journey provides something I absolutely love: Developer's Commentary. This one gets especially silly, as the director may provide genuine insight into the writing/animation/design process on one screen, and then on the next one just pick up his guitar and play a full-length song instead.

The achievements are pretty cool, I've dedicated some time to getting them all. They're usually some joke hidden in the game (for example, if you use the sunglasses on a pile of garbage, you get a bizarre Terminator reference), but there are a few that require you to scour the backgrounds for well-hidden collectibles.

Another cool thing (for me, at least) is that the game was originally made in the German language, meaning I can put the audio in German and text in English. This was pretty important in helping me improve my German while here in Frankfurt.

Unfortunately, it means that some jokes and puns may not have translated as well. Usually stuff related to how certain words and accents sound (there are a bunch of jokes involving a character's accent that may not sound as funny in English, for example). That said, I think the English voice actors sound fine, from what little I heard of them.

A big flaw in the series is the abundance of bugs (once again, this is usual for Daedalic). It's easy to see from the community at large that every game had a few annoying bugs that impeded progress, screwed up the layout, or something along those lines. Most of them were cleaned up in The Complete Journey, but some remain (I myself found a handful of minor ones, and one where I had to close the game and reload).

Overall, I found the Deponia trilogy to be a great series, and an example of the Point&Click genre done right. No disrespect to Telltale games, or stuff like Life is Strange, but my favourite brand of P&C is the one that presents a big town to explore and lots of items at your disposal, and then demands some out-of-the-box reasoning to beat.

Overall, I rate it 5 out of 5 stars. Highly recommended, for fans and newcomers to the genre alike.

For the English speakers: it's a neat little puzzle platformer. You have a gun that teleports you into places, and you solve puzzles based on that. There's pixelated art and chiptune soundtrack, so you know what to expect from the presentation. It's a couple of hours long, but pretty decent replay value. In fact, it has some pretty original achievements, many of them expecting you to play through the entire game in a sitting.

Overall, 4/5. Short, but really well done, and the price is more than fair.

Para os Lusófonos: É um jogo engraçado, de plataformas, com uma série de puzzles baseados em teletransporte. É curto (uma horita ou assim), mas tem uns segredos pra descobrir, e uns achievements ("proezas", vá) interessantes. Para além disso, tem boa arte pixel, músicas chiptune que ficam no ouvido e, sendo um jogo Brasileiro, tem opção em Português. Destaque para a opção #ZUERA, que é hilariante, e um excelente bónus para nós Lusófonos.

Realmente, o único senão do jogo é a longevidade curta, mas pelo menos o preço reflecte isto. Dou-lhe 4 em 5.