Since switching to the new dice system to pick my next game, this was the first time it wasn’t especially kind to me. I didn’t find anything I was especially excited to play and it probably didn’t help I was picking a game about 2 hours before the end of the Extra Life 24 hour gaming marathon. Still, this game stood out from the list. I had picked it up during one of gog’s larger sales out of curiosity, and where the marathon had me finishing Corpse Party, I decided I wanted something funny. I did enjoy this one, but it has some tendencies that are just a complete let down.
Story: Rufus is not happy with his lot in life. He is stuck living on the surface of a literal garbage heap planet named Deponia. Those who live here do so scavenging the garbage dumped from elsewhere to live and build a home for themselves in this inhospitable place.
But Rufus has no plans on taking this lying down. He not only dreams of leaving, but has had many attempts to escape. The only problem is that obviously none of them have worked. All they have done is earn him injuries. But today’s plan was different. Today he was going to hitch a ride on a cruiser who’s destination is the floating city Elysium where he can live in the luxury he “deserves.”
Well, that’s what he wanted anyway. And while this plan got closer then any other as he managed to make it onto the cruiser, he was quickly tossed off the side to fall to the ground once again, but not alone. Before he fell, he tried to rescue a young lady from the floating city who seemed to be in trouble with the crew, only to accidently send her crashing to the surface too!
From this point forward, you will guide Rufus as he tries to help the poor woman who’s life he may have just ruined in his attempts to be her hero. His dreams of grandeur and the fantasies of her falling in love with him fuel his need to continue such attempts, for better or worse. For you see through all this, Rufus is also not a good person. In fact he is a terrible, egotistical, and selfish human being. But at the same time, he just might fit the bill to save both her and many others due to the mission she was on and conspiracies of those closest to her.
This is a fairly straight forward, but entertaining plot with very few twists that are not obvious from the beginning. Most of the amusement is watching Rufus cause a lot of his own troubles and trying to short cut even the most important things he could be doing in a fairly slap-stick form and convincing you he is one of the worst unlikable people you’ve ever met in any form of media… although there may be something to change your mind later.
But simple also in this case comes at an additional, way too common, and very annoying cost. Deponia is one of those games that was caught up in the trend of assuming it will be a trilogy before the first game even launches. And while the game does end at a descent point for this purpose, it’s clearly also a cliffhanger designed to only be completed if you get part 2. These gimmicks are simply annoying.
7/10
Graphics: Deponia displays it’s adventure completely with hand-drawn animation that looks absolutely fantastic. The environments themselves just ooze character as you rummage through the ruined landscape and the frontier town Rufus calls home and has managed to survive it. It’s rundown, dirty, dingy, and lovingly drawn and colored to give it all a personal feel.
The characters, while not as impressive as the world itself, still have this feel of personal love and care put into all of them. Everything moves almost perfectly fluid, and the characters are all pretty memorable. Again, the level of detail and care here is beyond just about anything you will see out there. I just found that compared to the world they take place in, the characters you meet just do not have the same level of grandeur and impressiveness in their look. They fit very well with the world and style, but visually, the star of the is game is the land itself.
8/10
Sound: Much like the graphics, the sound in this game clearly was done with love of the project in mind. The music is grand and orchestral, if limited in quantity. It sounds really good and would probably be welcome in many such projects, but there isn’t a lot of it. And that is to be expected due to the short length of the game itself.
Unlike the music, however there is plenty to hear going on in the game. It all sounds pretty good and varies greatly from something as simple as objects whipping around as Rufus combines and uses them to the motor of a junker-car to shattering glass to even explosions. Im actually impressed with this as I think about it.
But like most games of this type, the star and most memorable audio work is the voice acting. Rufus is absolutely perfect. You can practically hear his contempt for most, his love of chaotic and destructive behavior and his over-inflated ego as he claims how he’s the best and most perfect person ever. The voice actor did a fantastic job!
And while most other characters have much smaller parts, they definitely push their character beyond simply their visuals as well. Rufus’ “friend” Wenzel is the most casually sarcastic character I have ever met who clearly “cares” for Rufus as much as Rufus “cares” for him. He’s not in the game for a particularly long time, but he’s just a great example of a brilliantly acted character in a brilliantly deficient cast. If you can’t listen to the voices in the game, you really are missing out.
9/10
Gameplay: Deponia is a point and click adventure and carries a lot of the tropes and mechanics of the genre quite well. You will click where you want Rufus to go with a golden arrow containing two gears. If you can interact with something you push your mouse over, the name of the object will appear as well as the gears showing the actions (big gear for left mouse button, small for the right) streamlining the interface far more then the classics of this genre. This game even takes it a step further by mapping your inventory to the mouse-wheel. Spin it down to drop your menu and up to push it back and get back to the game. Its a new innovation which takes a little getting used to, but works well to speed up the process when you have an inventory based puzzle to complete without taking up screen space.
And those puzzles can be rather odd. This game is very cryptic and will take time to figure out what the game wants you to do as often as not. It also doesn’t help that you will need to think like an asshole. Rufus is frankly a self-serving one and you will find that having to taint your answers if you want to progress. In short, this game can be very hard at times. However, there is no reason to be afraid to try anything that comes to mind, as this is also one of those games that won’t actually let you kill yourself by doing something dumb. Either it will be comical or Rufus will refuse to do it instead.
The result is a very entertaining total package, if one that can be a pain in the ass to figure out from time to time.
7/10
Bugs: And this is where the game suffers. If you consider the world drawn before you in this game a bit like the world of Fallout due to how it’s assembled, this game is also the Fallout of point and click for bugs. I never ran into a single one that would break the game, but I ran into several blatant ones… some funny, some annoying, and some scene-breaking.
- Rufus! You shouldn’t BE here! This is perhaps the most common issue I ran into with this game, as there were times when Rufus would behave like he was where he should be and the result of what he was doing would be right, but he was just in the wrong spot. In particular there is a tunnel late in the game he should walk into complaining about it being dark (while claiming to have mastered awesome sonar-like powers) before bumping along and walking out confused of how he was turned around. Instead, he walks in place at the entrance of the tunnel until he appears where he would have walked out.
- The Inventory would like to talk: This happened exactly once and struck me as very odd. A conversation started in the game when the inventory menu dropped down over it. I was able to wheel it up without an issue, but it clearly was not supposed to happen as the mouse wheel no longer effected it after that moment until the conversation was over.
- Why is that in German? This one was just funny, but late in the game there is a puzzle that involves moving through an abandoned car, and Rufus gets hurt if he does it wrong. The problem is that while his voice acting is in English, it comes with a subtitle in German. I actually did it twice to make sure I didn’t see it wrong.
Overall: Deponia is a short but fun little point and click title. It is far from flawless (especially in the tech department), but it is solid and worth your time to play if the environment it takes place in interests you. It even comes with a few unique quality of life updates to the formula! However, it is also a point and click title, so if puzzles (inventory or otherwise) being the base of gameplay does not appear to you, neither will this game. And finally if you are like me and ending a game expecting a sequel frustrates you, it will end on a sour note.
Score:
6/10
System Requirements:
- 2.5 Ghz single core processor or 2 Ghz dual core processor
- 2 GB RAM
- Open GL 2.0 compatible graphic card with 512 MB VRAM
- 2 GB hard drive
- Windows Vista or 7
System Specs:
- AMD FX 8350 (8 cores) running at 4 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- NVidia GeForce 960 GTX with 4 GB VRAM
- Windows 10
Source: gog.com
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