Update Thirty: 2 August 2017
Dex
21 hours, 32 of 32 achievements
tsuper review: 9/10
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Wow. What a wonderful, wonderful game. I am so glad I didn’t miss this. I would have, if not for BLAEO.Dex came out in 2015, but somehow I hadn’t seen it until someone made a post about it on here! They highly recommended it, which made me want to play it. Now I’m more than happy to add my voice to the chorus of ‘yay, this game.’
Dex is a 2D sidescroller cyberpunk RPG, heavy on the R. You play as the eponymous Dex, who is chased out of her room in the middle of the night before she’s shot by police. Why? Who knows. Who tells her? A weird shiny AI man. Where does she go next? You’ll find out. Dex does everything cyberpunk right - it’s got the gritty aesthetic but with interesting, well-rounded characters, it’s got sideplots galore, and it posits some real core questions of the genre - that of humanism and trans-humanism, the singularity, big business and surviving in, around, and underneath them, etc.
It’s also a joy to play. It felt, strangely, a lot like Ori and the Blind Forest where I died a LOT in the beginning, but I didn’t feel frustrated or put off by it - I simply had to work and get better. And then, once I crossed that threshold of skill and upgrades, I flew through the game like I owned it. It’s not like the challenges were too easy, but that I knew precisely what to do and how to do it. It became FUN! I specialized in hacking and melee, so I was up in all the enemies’ faces. I also played on baby (casual) mode, which probably helped.
It’s also gorgeous to look at. We’ve all played pixel-based games, and some of them can look like real messes. Dex has some of the most detailed, gorgeous pixel art I’ve seen in a game, and a lot of it, too - there’s not a lot of obvious reusing of assets in an intrusive way. The animations are so, so, so fluid, especially on Dex - which is good, because the whole game is spent pretty much looking at her. I love her character design, too, and not just because she looks a lot like me!
Dex isn’t perfect - the main storyline gets kind of lost in amidst the sidequests. But it’s smart, it’s pretty, and it’s fun as hell to play - which, as I’m playing more games and writing more reviews, are pretty much my three big asks. I would heartily recommend this game.
Next up: Monthly challenge, five of five. Can I beat my last game in time? Time to take a trip into -
See you soon!
I’ve had Dex in my maybe-I’ll-pick-it-up-within-a-couple-years list for a while as it looked neat and I’m into cyberpunk, but that 21h of playtime scared me a bit. Was it due to going after 100% or just taking it slow or is it really that long? D:
Hi, Kaleith! It absolutely really is not that long - HLTB has it at 12 for main storyline, and 17.5 for completionist. I think that’s a pretty fair estimate, mostly because I am definitely a thorough player and I also have a bad habit of getting distracted and leaving games idling while I do something else, which can inflate my playtime. (That’s why almost all of my VNs have dozens of more hours playtime than I actually spent playing them) I also think the more skilled you are, the faster you’ll go through it - a lot of that time in the beginning was me getting using to the controls/dying a lot/taking areas really slowly.
Even though it’s a longer indie title, though, I’d still recommend you pick it up anyways.
I’m definitely guilty of sometimes leaving games open in the background too, that makes sense. The part you mentioned about being similar to Ori in regard to being hard but fair and really fun once you figure it out boosted my interest, thank you ^^
Glad you enjoyed Dex. Definitely a highlight for me.
With that review, I’m so glad I still/already have Dex on my wishlist! :D
Sounds awesome! :)
Great review! thanks.
Dex does look pretty good, though I wasn’t sure I’d like it– and it would probably just go into my Backlog of Shame.
Valley, on the other hand, is on my wishlist and looks really good. Though it would probably also just go into my Backlog of Shame for a while…
Nice you enjoyed the game!
I’ve seen the pics you used out of it for the monthly :)
Have lots of fun with Valley!
Happy challenge killing :)