Goodbye Deponia is the last release in the Deponia trilogy created by Daedalic Entertainment. Daedalic Entertainment is a German software company responsible for creating the Edna & Harvey series and the more recent Memoria, though they aren’t just a developing company as they have published many games like Torchlight 2 and Tales of Monkey Island.
Plot
The plot of Goodbye Deponia revolves around Rufus, who seems to be the human manifestation of chaos and unpredictability, and Goal who is the love of his life, and also whom he puts in danger time and time again. Whatever Goal sees in Rufus I will never understand but Daedalic Entertainment have definitely managed to highlight the spark that exists between them, at least I hope it’s a spark and not the fire that Rufus is probably starting.
Goodbye Deponia is set after the events of Deponia and Chaos on Deponia and as a result of the mishaps that I’m quite certain that happened, Rufus had made quite the name for himself and he has fans, one of which is very helpful in his own little way. As I have only played Goodbye Deponia I was in the dark about the plots of the other 2 games and if I had played those I may have got into Goodbye Deponia with a bit more ease as the game does not recap previous adventures that effectively except for Cletus and his new and improved fiancé, which is does introduce in its own humorous way.
The game
I have never played a point and click game before so Goodbye Deponia was a very interesting game for me to play and it is definitely a game that makes you think to progress, but with the completely absurdity of the game I found I had to think outside the box, or completely forget about the box on some cases, and some parts are just nonsensical to me, I say this because I hadn’t found the actual item to plug a leak with, but I did have a pillowcase and it makes perfect sense to me to stick a pillow-case in a leaky pipe.
The game starts off with you simply moving about Bozo’s cutter, but after a run in with a much meatier cutter the crew are forced to stay at a hotel for the night, here you meet characters that I would guess are the social norm on Deponia, but then again I am comparing them to Rufus.
As I cast out what sanity I had remaining to think as Rufus does in my appalling (but still quite heroic) attempts to solve the puzzles that Rufus comes across I found myself being inspired by the amazing art style of the game, and the humour that came spewing out of it. This game is sincerely beautiful, on the aesthetical level anyway, mentally I just couldn’t attach myself to Rufus’s ways of thinking, which may be the reason I found the game so difficult and obviously not because I couldn’t pick up on the hints the game throws at you. To me it seems that anyone who has played a point and click game before will be able to think, or at least have an easier time figuring out what needs to be done.
Music
The game features storytelling songs that explain what’s been happening and are also a great transition from location to location, the songs were the German dub for me due to the version of Goodbye Deponia I played but I have been notified that the full game will feature English dubs for all the storytelling songs and all lines of dialogue. The background music of each level works perfectly with the level and captures the mood of the current scene.
Voice acting
The voice actors and their skill suits the characters that they are playing but there are slight hiccups in the recording quality of certain lines where it sounds like the voice actor got too close to the microphone. I also found that the default sound levels of the game didn’t do the first scene justice, due to the characters lines being really hard to hear compared to other effects that are going on in the scene. Goodbye Deponia is also originally voiced in German because of Daedalic Entertainment being a German company, because of this there are translation errors and missing parts of the dialogue lines, though subtitles help clear this up, but no significant amount of information is missed from the translations.
Conclusion
Goodbye Deponia is a fun and solid point and click game that has many different items that you can use and craft with, there are also many different lines of dialogue to give you hints on how to do the current task. The story progresses nicely and at a comfortable pace with its very unique sense of humour, which makes it a very addictive point and click game, something, which I thought was impossible.
Any lovers of point and click games will love Goodbye Deponia and followers of the franchise will be happy to know that Goodbye Deponia and Rufus are still as chaotic as they are in the earlier games. Anybody who has the same problems of playing point and click games like me will be happy to know that there is a hint system included in the game too, but you will still have to think in-depth about what Rufus needs to do.
