Dust: An Elysian Tail (spoilers)

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I don't think we ever made a topic for this game, instead everyone talked about it in status updates or in a humble bundle topic. I've been playing this game and I love it. The RPG elements are amazing and this is one of the best platform game I've ever played. I haven't beat it yet, but I'm currently at 70+% completion. Just in the last 3 hours of gameplay I've gotten rediculous powerups in terms of gear. Regen and extra loot buffs on my equipment has made the game much easier. I have 12 regen points and in the down time between encounters, that auto healing really helps out and saves me quite a bit of cash instead of having to use the healing items. The extra cash is huge. I can buy so many health items now and better armor that I'm not even worried about cash at all now.

 

The latest 3 upgrades I got were the power slide, the vine iron grip abilities and Fidget's lightening attack. That lightening is brutal when it works. Sometimes in confined areas it seems to just do a couple small ball lightenings that don't connect to enemies unless I spam the attack a couple times. It is a devastating attack. But what I'm really loving is the Fire Blast. Once I figured out I can control where the fire columns explode by doing a jumping down attack the moment I shoot the fire.. I've been able to make the fire columns appear directly in front of me or right on my character.. it is extremely brutal now that I have Fidget so leveled up. Most of the time I have the entire screen fire columned by spamming it. And all the zombie creatures in the sorrowing meadow area seem to be weak against fire. Especially those annoying wizards that keep auto teleporting behind me when I do an attack. I set a fire column in front of me, turn around, attack the guy with another fire column and then he teleports right into the first one.. then I keep up the fire attacks and he basically kills himself by teleporting back and forth into the fire.

 

I love the dialogue in this game and most of the time I talk to every character until they start repeating themselves.. but when I got to the blacksmith, I kept talking her brother.. the guy only grumbles, but Dust kept saying new stuff. It ended up being an achievement that I thought was pretty funny at the time.

 

 

I also put poison ivy in some guy's clothes because he was a jack ass. Its the little things in this game that are like the icing on a cake.

 

 

Fidget has some of the best lines in this game.. There was also a time where I had to collect this guy's sheep.. and when I found the first one, I grabbed it and Fidget was completely confused about how in the hell an entire sheep could fit in my inventory.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

The lightning attack was superior to everything IMO. I hated the fire columns because of their stationary nature. Lightning was how I got the 1000 hit combo after equipping a ring the made you super weak with the caption "Why would anyone ever use this?" It took me a while to figure it out, because nothing lasted beyond a few hits by the end of the game.

 

The narration of this story is amazing. The voice actors are spot on. If you haven't got to it yet, there are some crazy puzzles to solve... All I can say is the ending touches your heart, and makes you beg for another game.

 

As I've said before, the game mechanics remind me of Super Metroid how you can go back to portions of the map and find new secrets once you've obtained new abilities. But has one of those Dark Cloud 2/Zelda type stories... If there are 7 Blades of Elysia, I expect 6 more games dammit! 

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I finished the Sorrowing meadow tonight. I have a ring with an experience 1.5x modifier and I'm gaining levels left and right now. Here are a couple screenshots I thought were great:

 

 

This guy with the hitting stick is hilarious.

 

 

 

 

 

This guy got what he deserved:

 

 

 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

YES!! I hated that guy. Have you found any of the time trial challenge rooms yet? I thought they were pretty fun.... you get a ring normally at the end of each.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I found most of them I think. I even got a 4 star rating on one of the challenges.. probably because it was an easy one and I got it on my first try. I've been playing it again tonight. I'm at 89% completion and just got to the moonblood village in the lava area. I've gotten so many good upgrades that my Fidget power is in the 2000s.

 

I now know Dust's origins.. wow. He is 2 souls in one body.. and creature born of innocence and power. I'm loving this plot. I was completely surprised by the animated cut scene too. I didn't think there would be any cut scenes in the game. I finally got the double jump. It makes things much easier. But I must be missing another upgrade because there are still a few areas that have air vents pushing air upwards that I can't seem to do anything with. I'll probably get this beaten tomorrow.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Oh, if you see the area with the hour glass symbol, its an item you get, I can't remember where, or what mission.... but when you get it you need to just go back to that spot and kneel until you are swept away.... apparently those funky clues are suppose to tell you to do that... but after trying for hours to figure it out, I just looked it up.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Thanks for the heads up about that.. I found the red crystal with the hourglass symbol on it so I got in there. After I heard the music in that area and the sparkly dust that moved while I walked, I knew it was the Braid guy I'd find in there.

 

I beat the game. I loved it. I got 100% completion of all areas and treasure. My total game completion was around 112%. Some of those clues were helpful, like the one that mentioned taking a leap of faith off the hand in Archer's Pass. I went to that hand and jumped to the left.. it triggered a moving platform that appeared right in mid air and i landed right on it.. It took me to another friend lock box. I did find all the friends too but I only recognized half of them.

 

The only quest I didn't complete was that "C-C-C-C-COMBO Breaker!" one. Great Killer Instinct reference too. I have the pendant that reduces my attack down to around 180 but I don't know the best place to actually get the 1000 hit combo. The enemies at the end of the game could take the punishment but whenever I got up to 200+ someone would get a lucky hit in on me.

 

Heres a screenshot of my stats at the end of the game.. My Fidget damage was insane.

 

 

At the end of the game where Dust decided that he was his own person and not either of the two souls he possesses.. that was great.

 

 

Holy crap the ending was sad.. and Dust died in the lava.. but right at the very end he re-emerges as literal Dust.. I really hope they make a sequel. And after seeing the ending, the title screen makes more sense now considering its an image of him re-forming himself from that same blue Dust.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

That ending ;_;

Go to the place with the zombies, the first area with enemies should do it. Take off all your armor and other relics. Then unleash the lightning attack non stop it should reach it pretty fast as long as you take care not to get hit.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I was thinking the zombie area would be good. I forgot about un-equipping all my other gear. lol. No wonder I kept killing them.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

;_; One of the most emotional endings ever... The only game to ever make my eyes go watery... I'd like to see a sequel to his story, but the fact that there are 7 total blades. I'd also like to see the other blade's stories.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Honestly.. I teared up a bit too. It was so sad. And was it just me or did General Gaius look genuinely sad to see that his friend was really gone. I mean, yeah the guy was evil, but I kind of felt bad for him that what was left of his best friend was the one who killed him.

 

I might have heard the cut scene wrong, but I think that moonblood guy said there were five blades. And there were five light sources on Ahrah that were blinking out as Dust died which might be what those stood for. Look at 2:46 in the video above. I want a sequel for this game. There is so much more they could do. Maybe one of those Elysian blades is evil as a counter balance to Ahrah. Perhaps in a sequel Dust will find someone as powerful as himself wielding one of the blades. It could be a Jedi vs Sith kind of plot line. Also.. Fidget is a Nimbat.. and her tribe has been the guardians of the sword for what.. centuries I think. Even tho we saw normal villages, Mudpot people and Moonbloods, we never got to see where Fidget came from. Maybe in a sequel we could see the nimbat village and possibly a new continent of creatures and characters. Perhaps since Dust turned into a dust form at the end of the game and flew off.. perhaps he was being carried away to where he needs to be next to fulfill his destiny.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

The whole game was full of emotion from Fuse's madness, to that kids father that passed in Mudpot... and the epic repeating of the life-thread line at the end. It was just crazy how the whole game transitions at a certain pace and then the last 3rd of it, you just get bombarded with all this stuff.

 

5, 7, Its been a while. I just remember its a odd number. It would be interesting if the odd one was a dark/evil blade. Thats what I was thinking as well. If they made 4 other games with just as good level designs, I would be so happy. I loved the platforming and hidden areas in this game. The eggplant looking bomb fruits provided really good puzzles that were challenging but not frustratingly hard. It would be nice to have 5 games actually, in which the 5th came into full circle with a council of blades, and what not.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

That kid's father dying in mudpot was so sad. I felt horrible. For a while I thought I might have been playing to slow.. maybe I could have saved him if I went a bit quicker. But it was a fixed point. ;_; And it was really fitting seeing how the game ended and Dust referenced that life thread.. Poor kid. At least I got him some snow in the end.

 

btw, that Reedus guy and his box.. it almost killed me before I could rush to an enemy. Did you talk to him after the box instance? He was even more insane.. "The trees.. they're plotting against us! we need to cut them all down!" Or something like that. He was going on about something else too and Dust said: "No Reedus." and "Goodbye Reedus." sounding all annoyed.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 I went down into that cavern and let the stone ogre kill me. That was crazy because I didn't know if he was serious or not like MGS2 where Colonel tells you to turn off the game... but you're not suppose to .

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I thought Dust was screwing with the guy at first. I laughing pretty good until started dieing.

 

I forgot about the cavern at the bottom of Aurora, I ran all the way to the edge of the town while eating chickens to maintain my health.. I went to the farm and got killed by a slime.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

My only issue with a sequel to Dust's story is the whole "losing your powers and regaining them". As much as I loved God of War... I thought that was always so stupid to get dropped into Hades at the start of every game to lose all your powers. I'd much rather see a come to full circle series of games.