The hardcore platformer is going through a bit of a revival of late thanks to titles like N+ and Super Meat Boy. In fact these two games seem to have a heavy influence on Dustforce, although developer Hitbox Team has infused plenty of their own great ideas throughout as well. The premise of Dustforce is simple: you play as a janitor who must go through various areas cleaning up leaves, garbage, ooze or dust. Did I also mention that you’re basically a kind of ninja janitor? Yeah that’s pretty important.
Using some awesome abilities you will fly through levels trying to sweep up the area. Your goal is to both go as fast as possible and be as efficient as possible. In fact the entire game is based around perfecting levels in order to move onto harder levels. It can be brutally difficult but when you’re cruising through a level and getting everything perfect it’s a fantastic feeling.
Clean your room, rake the lawn and then hit the jump.
When I describe your character as a “ninja janitor” I am not being sarcastic at all. The default character is a man with blue overalls, a broom and an insane amount of agility. In the game you can climb walls, run along ceilings, double jump, dash in mid-air and perform plenty more acrobatic feats. You’re going to need to master these abilities to get through the game and each works great with a simple control scheme that relies on your reflexes and accuracy instead of hitting complex button combinations. There are also four different characters to play as, which you can select at will at the beginning of a level. Each character plays mostly the same but with slight differences that makes each perhaps more suited to different play styles or even certain levels.
To play Dustforce you can use either a keyboard or a gamepad, including an Xbox 360 controller. Both work fine and all buttons are completely customizable allowing you to set up the game based on how you want to play. I used the Xbox 360 controller for most of my time but I’ve heard many people say the keyboard works better for them.
In addition to your heightened jumping abilities you will also need to attack. There are various enemies in the game which are seemingly normal objects or animals that have been tainted. Some of these serve as obstacles to conquer but most are floating in the environment and serve as a way to navigate through levels. If you dispatch an enemy while mid-air you earn another jump, allowing you to use enemies as ways to cross long gaps or reach areas not normally accessible.
Dustforce is all about being perfect, which is both the game’s best and worst quality. When you start the game there are a variety levels open to you by default in four different areas. These are the easiest levels. By getting a perfect score on these levels you receive a key that will open a door of the next hardest difficulty. Perfecting a normal door gives you a silver key; perfecting a silver door gets you a gold key and so on. The act of achieving a perfect run is highly rewarding because it means that you swept away every bit of dirt in a level while never breaking your combo. Your combo will break if you should die, get hit by an enemy or take too long in between sweeping away dirt.
By making the level progression solely linked to getting a perfect run it also kills any chance this game has for a casual player. If you’re not good enough to get through a level with a perfect score then you basically get nothing. There are checkpoints in a level but if you die and have to restart from one then you have broken your combo. In other words they’re basically there for practice. For a game that’s so much fun to play it’s a shame that the only way you can unlock new levels is by being perfect. For many players it will be tasking just to finish some of the harder levels, let alone get through them without making a mistake.
Gameplay aside Dustforce is a beauty for both the eyes and ears. The art style has a certain HD 8-bit feel that looks amazing while also being able to run on pretty modest hardware. The animations are smooth and the game never falters or chugs. The music is also great, offering simple, somber melodies that fit perfect with the various areas you travel to.
Dustforce is a game that I wish I could highly recommend to everyone. The way that you move through each level is fantastic and it makes you feel like a ninja more than any other platformer I’ve played. Sadly it’s going to be restricted to a certain type of player that will be willing to work through a level over and over again in order to achieve the “perfect run.” It wouldn’t be a problem except that you’ll eventually hit a point where you’re just plain not good enough to unlock more levels, leaving you without even being able to try out everything that Dustforce offers. However if you are that kind of player who will stick with the game, you will undoubtedly be rewarded with a great experience.
