Dustwind: The Last Resort (PlayStation 4) Review

By Eric Ace 03.11.2021

Review for Dustwind: The Last Resort on PlayStation 4

The old Fallout series might be unrecognizable to newer players who grew up only on Berthesda's FPS installments. The first and second game were far ahead of their time with roleplaying, story, meta-humour, and just overall solid packages that, minus a few nit-picks here and there, still hold up to this day. An odd stepchild, but still in the same vein, Fallout: Tactics was a real-time tactical squad game that tried to roll most of the RPG elements into a isometric squad-shooter. It worked… somewhat. It was just an odd mix in general, and partly why this was never really remembered that largely. Dustwind, originally just a multiplayer title on Steam, is unabashedly a direct copy of Fallout: Tactics. The console release now includes a single-player story, and while it has an interesting hook, is largely a disaster.

It doesn't take long playing Dustwind: The Last Resort to realize it has serious consistency and direction problems. One of the easiest ways to tell if you might be remotely interested in this is if dialogue boxes like 'Get him!!!!!11111!!!1!' or the chronic use of swear words to be edgy comes off as cool, or too try-hard. From bad UI issues, horrendous gameplay decisions, and just overall inconsistency, it has been a while since a disaster like this has graced the consoles. The premise is actually interesting. taking the role of a nameless mother who her kid gets kidnapped, the quest for redemption across the apocalyptic wasteland is always an intriguing choice to get the party started. Sadly, issues begin very quickly, from the long (and arguably necessary tutorial) that tries to shoehorn a host of controls best meant for a PC onto the PS4 controller, to a bad setup of what this is going to be like.

In the tutorial, unbeknownst to the player, the character is set at max level, so max stats across the board, life, speed and so on, along with late-game weapons and armour, it largely feels like a twin-stick shooter kind of game of stomping through enemies. The difficulty isn't the problem. It's what comes after. The 'real' game sees the character with no stats, next to no life, can barely shoot, and so on. Have fun punching enemies while 10 of them shoot at the character with their slingshots and toilet plungers - both of those are serious weapons in this game by the way. Thrust into a huge map the player walks at what can best be described as a snail's pace reminiscent of Diablo. There is no run available. Frequently quests will have you backtracking across the map, therefore be prepared to spend inordinate amounts of time watching a character slowly stagger their way across the empty map over and over. An issue has to be pretty bad to be able to kill a game single-handedly, and the walk speed alone in this could do it, if it was not for the other issues present.

Screenshot for Dustwind: The Last Resort on PlayStation 4

Combat is random, punishing, and has a huge variance. Sometimes the player will get some attacks off, kill everyone without taking any damage, or conversely a single attack can wound player, crippling them, and essentially marking the end of that run and needing a reload. Despite the inclusion of some stats, most are fairly useless - they give some slight accuracy or damage boosts, and the all-important walk-speed stat to try to preserve the gamer's sanity, but even maxed it is ridiculously slow. The story and game try to copy the dark humour of the Fallout series, but miss everything that made it good. It kind of feels like a kid that tries to copy someone else's joke, and it just falls completely flat.

Fallout had swearing, gore, and dark situations, but it was always treated with some degree of seriousness, whether it was people's desperation, or just the general subplots that were memorable about people trying to survive. This is like an early teen that thinks dropping as many swear words and bloody bodies as they can into a game makes it mature. It actually just feels cringey. There is a lot else that is wrong with this title; things like the poorly designed UI, and a text that is often unreadable due to how small it is, but really there just isn't anything here to bother recommending. There isn't some cool gameplay, or some great story within that justifies wading through these hosts of problems. It's just a poorly done product, and will be forgotten soon like so many others. Apart from how bad its walk-speed is, memorable as least to this reviewer.

Screenshot for Dustwind: The Last Resort on PlayStation 4

Cubed3 Rating

3/10
Rated 3 out of 10

Bad

There is next to nothing good to say about Dustwind: The Last Resort. From an abysmal UI that is nearly impossible to see due the tiny text, to chronic controller problems, to the egregious issue of large maps without the ability to run, this gets in its own way so frequently that players will come away angry about just how bad of an experience it is.

Developer

Dustwind

Publisher

Dustwind Studios

Genre

Strategy

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  3/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date Out now   

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