I’ll be honest now. Daedelic is slowly becoming one of my favourite publishers.
A quick look through my library later I find I have at least five games I can instantly spot which Daedelic has made. All beautifully crafted and highly polished pieces of work. So now I am making a point of looking out for their games.
Chaos on Deponia is a new one to me, and so coming in at the second hurdle (apparently) put me at risk of missing story. Not so in this case though. On its own the adventure is a classy romp through general lunacy that feels like Douglas Adams built Borderlands but took out all the boring RPG levelling trash and replaced it with much more interesting story.
Which is a good thing.
You follow general calamity Rufus, who along with Goal (Person) aims to leave the junk planet of Deponia and reach the legendary floating city of Elysium. As you begin, this plan fails horrendously, and Rufus must attempt to find the pieces of Goal’s consciousness split during the failed attempt and get to Elysium.
Now they key selling point of this game is the humour. If the humour is not for you then this game is a bust. For me it feels much like the humour of Monkey Island and as such strikes gold. Characters are charming and witty, with plenty of golden comedy moments in the smallest of actions. Fourth walls are broken plenty and I didn’t really ever stop smiling while playing which is once again a good thing.
Deponia is traversed though 2.5D scenes, each beautifully drawn and detailed. You’ll have plenty of time to admire as there is no pressure to push forward at more than a leisurely pace. Characters are all voiced and varied enough so that you don’t feel like one voice actor did half the cast. Their interactions are one of the main points of comedy, usually them against Rufus, who is quite the laissez-faire hero in that he either doesn’t understand or care about any danger he is in.
So far it’s all good for Deponia and to be honest I have pretty much nothing but praises. Alongside brilliant voice acting and art design comes a soundtrack fitting of the junk-ridden world around it, one which I would happily listen to without the game. Controller support works well and the controls feel sensibly paced. If I needed to dig out one problem it would be that the framerate occasionally dips without obvious reasoning for doing so (though I can only claim this as a problem for PS4.)
I find it hard to say much more about Chaos on Deponia. It definitely worth playing. It ticks all the boxes for those looking for something which harkens back to the old LucasArts adventures. It ticks all the boxes for those looking for a fun new adventure game. And it ticks all the boxes for those looking to sink into point-and-click style adventures. It is an all-round good experience, one you should expect for Daedelic.
Basically, it’s a good thing.
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