Isometric twin-stick shooters have been around for decades. The concept of a high-octane action experience mixed with simplistic mechanics is easy enough for anyone to pick up and go. The additional elements to make it more than just a point/shoot experience, such as a role-playing game backbone and interesting enemies are what makes this type of game more engaging. And that’s where Rogue Games Dust & Neon comes in.
D&N is a game that does a perfect job of being an isometric twin-stick shooter. The old west backdrop puts it in a cool, Sunset Riders scenario. While its RPG backbone and gun variety help to keep the game’s longevity going, the enemy variety pulls it back just a bit. The game is a blast to play, but it’s far from perfect.
So, get that six-shooter ready, lock and load, and let’s get busy living rather than dying with this review.
Gameplay that drives the story
You live. You die. You live again, and this time as a gunfighter. While the story of Dust & Neon isn’t going to get to the level of Hades anytime soon, developer Rogue Games seemed like they want to give you reason to go shooting, and they provide enough with an old west revenge story for purpose. You play as a resurrected gunfighter that is sent out into a post-apocalyptic world to take down evil robots and their minions. There is nothing more or less going on with the story other than that, which is okay because the game wants you to get cracking on the action. And sometimes you just need a little reason to get you in the groove for a lot of action gameplay. That old quick storytelling concept was born from an arcade experience, and it works in this genre.
Now, the gameplay takes center stage with Dust & Neon, and there are a lot of moving parts to it. On a base level, the gameplay is a shooter. You move around large desolate landscapes, traverse buildings, and hunt down robots to shoot. Your character completes tasks/goals set forth by a scientist, who resurrected you, for each level you take on, which you can choose at your liking. Each level has risk (difficulty/task) and rewards (what you get from completing it), and each one comes together in a unique style. The latter of which makes the adventure interesting. For example, there is an early level where you’re on a set of moving trains that are connected, and you can switch train carts back and forth as you progress to ultimately find an object you’re looking for and escape the level. This level in particular is restrictive and forces you into action, as you can’t actively avoid sticky situations with multiple robots coming at you at once. It works within the confines of the twin-stick shooter concept and makes the gameplay interesting. Plus, you gather a lot of loot (guns, money, health) as you travel through it.
Now, about those twin-stick shooter mechanics to get you out of sticky situations, you use the thumbsticks to move and point your gun, drawing your aim with LT, and then firing your gun by pressing RT. To add more complication to the mechanics, you must reload with X, and the game sticks true to its gunfighter accuracy, as some guns have two, three, or even six bullets. You must reload the number you use, pressing X the same number of times, as it’s not done automatically for you. This ain’t Call of Duty.
I found reloading helps add some accuracy to the old west theme the game runs on, and adds a bit of tension to the entire gunfighting process. The latter of which makes for an added amount of challenge to the gameplay. I can’t tell you how many times I either forgot to reload a gun in the middle of a battle or panic-pushed the gunfire and then panic re-loaded. Neither scenario was good for me, but, again, it adds challenge to the gameplay overall. That’s a nice layer of complication to the controls that make it more than just a basic twin-stick shooting experience. Plus, it reinforces what it felt like to be a gunfighter in the old west.
RPG elements that improve gameplay
The RPG elements of this game starts with the guns. As you progress through levels, you will find gun drops everywhere. The guns have a certain number roll on them, and this is a random roll, where you must decide whether to pick up a gun with certain attributes or leave it. Those attributes are broken down into categories like damage, critical hits, accuracy, handling, and capacity. Each gun you find or buy comes with these attributes and some are more important than others. For example, you may find a gun that has a high damage rate but a low accuracy rate. You must decide what is more important with the gun, accuracy or damage. For me, someone who doesn’t like thinking too deeply about a gun’s usefulness in a variety of manners, damage was always my number one attribute to consider before anything else. I can tell you that is a bad strategy and I found that out firsthand when I took on the very first robot boss. I had a triple-barrel gun that was powerful, but only up close on enemies, and that didn’t bode well for a powerful boss. It just didn’t end well…multiple times.
Getting back to guns, the amount of complication that comes with gun choice makes this an engaging RPG element that pushes the action a bit further than expected in Dust & Neon. You really must make an informed decision based on the scenario you’re about to enter, be it a boss or just a bunch of enemies. I never thought I would read gun stats in an action game like I did with this title.
To add another element to the overall gun-toting process, within the game you collect money lying around and/or by completing missions. That money can equal upgrades with character attributes that can relate to how you handle guns or can be buffs for your character related to guns (and other things). You can power up before a mission so much that you will tear through enemies quickly. Of course, getting money is what makes this happen, and that relates directly back to success in missions. This one aspect of the gameplay helps motivate you to keep playing and to be more daring. It’s a nice balance within the gameplay design.
Your character can also collect points from successful missions that can be used towards even more attributes, including combative and defensive upgrades. These upgrades could be quick recovery, improving the health of the character, or as simple as adding accuracy, stability, or ammo amount. All of this adds more depth to the RPG backbone of Dust & Neon.
Abundant enemies (sometimes the lack thereof)
What are guns, upgradable attributes, and character buffs, if you don’t have enemies to use them on? They would be worthless unlockables and collectibles. The enemies in Dust & Neon lie somewhere between interesting and unremarkable. You’ll find that out quickly in the first level of the game. The enemies repeat a lot, and those that don’t can’t be fully appreciated because it’s an isometric twin-stick shooter and it’s difficult to see the differences between them. Specifically in the first level of the game, you will run into creepy crawlers, roller robots (robots that legit roll), and those that look like humanoids that are a bit more West World-like. The difference between the ground-based robots and the bipedal is easy to figure out. The bipedal robots not so much. The bipedal are separated by gun power and brutality, though visually it’s hard to make out a big difference. Regardless of guns, the game just seems to wash-rinse-repeat these enemies throughout the levels, which makes it feel like the game is just stuck with a finite variety of baddies. A very small finite variety.
Now, when you get to the bosses it becomes apparent that they are quite different than the underlings. Going back to the first boss, it wears a long coat, sports some glowing orbs that protect it from initially getting damage, and it fires different ammo, such as heat-seeking rockets or blue orbs that spread out (and sometimes bounce) across the level. The variety of bosses is nice, but it doesn’t distract from most of the game where you’re just wash-rinse-repeating the lower enemies. Getting to a boss means you’re in for a rough ride, though a different one from most of the enemies you dispatch.
Enemy variety outside of the bosses might be the biggest knock for me about Dust & Neon. It brings the overall gameplay down just a bit.
Pacing – an oddly relaxing experience
The pacing in the game is weirdly in the middle. For most twin-stick shooting games they wear the chaos they bring with their gameplay like a badge of honor. That chaos is also the reason for the simplistic mechanics that come with them. Nonetheless, the chaos is what makes twin-stick shooters what they are, it is their essence. If you think about Hades, when playing that game once you get into a room and enemies are alerted of your presence, literally all hell breaks loose. See what I did there? Clever as shit.
Anyway, the pacing in Dust & Neon is oddly relaxing as your presence to enemies is dictated by when they see you or if they hear you firing off your gun. When you do neither, the enemies are relaxed, and you can just mosey on through levels. I was telling my wife while I was reviewing this game, how it’s one of the most laid-back action games I’ve played. For an old guy like me, that’s oddly satisfying. For people expecting constant chaos, it may not sit well with them.
Regardless, I must give major kudos to Rogue Games for their attention to detail in the aforementioned areas of the action. Firstly, when the enemies see you, they will follow you until you die, or they die. When you alert them to your presence, enemies will follow you around levels and even follow you through doors and other locations. They will hunt you relentlessly, and that’s a neat detail that shows the amount of thought that went into enemy design.
The other design detail is when you’re near an enemy and pull the trigger on your gun. If any enemy is within earshot of your gunfire, they will come running. Again, it’s a minor detail that goes a long way with enemy design. If you’re going to take down an enemy with authority, you must be aware of other enemies around you that you may not be actively hunting. Once they hear the gunfire, they will be on you like a spider monkey.
Both details show how much thought was put into the enemy’s design. Sure, you won’t get a variety of enemies, but you will get a variety of reactions to your presence. That is a good design.
Levels and presentation
The levels in Dust & Neon are well-designed, too, though some of them will be lost on players due to repeated environment elements (buildings, fences, etc.). The levels sprawl out and have a good bit of thought with how they relate back to an old-west theme. For example, the first level will show off gravestones, saloons, and just crazy old-west tech that makes you think you’re in a gunfighter’s world but also a tech-driven nightmare. There is plenty of space to explore, though mostly you’re on a very restrictive, linear path the entire way. Regardless, there is enough real estate where you will spend a small amount of time exploring to see if any hidden secrets are lying around. It’s certainly worth going the extra mile when you’re covering levels.
On the presentation side, the visuals are cel-shaded-driven and remind me of old 80s cartoon design that is akin to something like the 1987 classic BraveStarr. I’m going to make you google that one, kids. I like the mix of tech and old west with the style of the characters. Hell, even the music points you back to the old west, and that part of the presentation works well.
Visually, the game is a peach, as is the level design. Again, the latter might not contain a huge amount of variety, but the girth and exploration make it interesting.
On that sweet note, let’s wrap this up.
Conclusion
Dust & Neon from developer Rogue Games is an interesting, and oddly relaxing twin-stick shooter. Its RPG backbone and simplistic mechanics will keep you coming back for more, even when the unremarkable enemy variety, sans the bosses, might dull down the experience. There is still a lot to do and explore in the game, which makes it at the very least a good action title.
