Desta: The Memories Between

Desta: The Memories Between, developed and published by ustwo games, is a thoughtful and emotionally driven title that merges narrative introspection with light tactical gameplay in a way that feels both deliberate and personal. Rather than chasing scale or complexity, it focuses on intimacy—telling a story about grief, identity, and reconciliation through a structure that turns internal struggles into playable moments. It’s a game that doesn’t rush to impress; instead, it slowly draws players into its world, asking for patience and reflection rather than quick reactions. At the center of the experience is Desta, a non-binary protagonist returning to a place tied deeply to unresolved memories and strained relationships. The loss of a parent looms over everything, shaping not only Desta’s emotional state but also their distance from the people who once mattered most. Instead of presenting this narrative in a straightforward way, the game filters it through dreams—abstract, symbolic environments where past events and relationships are revisited in altered forms. These dream sequences act as both narrative progression and gameplay arenas, allowing the story to unfold indirectly while…

Desta is a weird game to categorize. On the one hand, I really enjoyed the gameplay loop, though I can acknowledge it's simple at its core. Maybe too simple. That said, I find it fun from the very beginning & I played through the whole game multiple times inspite of the fact I absolutely hate the dialogue. This isn't a roguelite like Hades where you're getting new dialogue constantly; you're hearing the same thing over and over again. No skip button, you have to manually skip each line even if it's your 15th time seeing it. I'd just mute the dialogue and set the music to max, which was made by Mansur Brown for this game and is definitely a highlight. Another highlight were the challenge levels, which force you to approach the game in a new way. Also probably my favorite because they had minimal dialogue to skip. Some levels are too easy, others require replays, one I spent probably over an hour on and then realized the developers wanted me to approach it differently. I enjoyed the game so much, I went through the effort to get all the achievements, though you won't see it here because I played the game for free through Netflix. Having played both on a touchscreen and on a mouse …

Well the ball tactics gameplay is interesting indeed, it is fun don’t get me wrong, but the problem is that the whole game is based on it, nothing changes. Take another tactical game like FF Tactics let’s say, now imagine playing it only with 1 class (for all characters) but each character has 1 ability (passive or active). And now play that whole game with this set-up, sounds fun? That’s the thing about the gameplay, it is fun for a while but it eventually gets stale fast. Now I for the story. At the core it is a wholesome one, with the main character, Desta, going back to her/his/they/them/it (I don’t know anymore, or care much) home. The main character fights through the anxiety of reuniting with friends, relatives, acquaintances via dreams. You recruit those people by fighting them in dodgeball, once you beat them, they join your team. After you recruit them you can also level them up to gain not only a few extra stats and abilities but also short dialogues with them (this is how you get to know em better). The main problem of this game, in my opinion, is the fact that this is a rougelite. So, in order to level up characters you need to grind, you can do so with 3 (1 of th…

Simply having randomness does not make the game roguelite. You can randomly get a (mostly) active and a passive skill on antagonist and you can pick two team members. Sound like quite some combinations to pick from? No. You can only pick one active skills from two at the start, and after that you can only get random skills. For the team members they will join your team in order. Lore-wise I am fine, but gameplay-wise your already limited choice is reduced to nearly zero. I am not mad at the gameplay, but saying it's roguelite is misleading. The difficulty curve is steep. In the main story, it is super easy and you can even reduce the difficulty further down. But when it comes to the challenge, it suddenly becomes way harder than main story. After getting used to the challenge, it seems not too hard, but there should be some intermediate levels that help you get used to it. Lastly, and my main complaint about the game: 100% the game will take around 20 hours on estimate, but your main story is only 3 hours. It's just way too grindy.

I never thought I would like RTS games, but these vibes and music make the genre feel reborn. I love the dogeball like combat, and im a sucker for rougelikes. It's a nice story and I can actualy relate to desta.

Es un SRPG sencillo, original en el que juegas a balón prisionero. Como juegas a balón prionero, para atacar necesitas recoger el balón, lo cual le da un plus estratégico. Tiene un control malo, tirar es un suplicio muchas veces. Los niveles son tremendamente injustos, siempre estás en desventaja numérica, los enemigos tienen habilidades especiales parecidas a las tuyas, y contra los "jefes", tienes que jugar varios niveles seguidos. Al basarse en un sueño, la historia no tiene importancia. La protagonista Desta vuelve a su ciudad natal para reconciliarse con su pasado. Pero como estas dentro de un sueño, y como te recuerdan a menudo en el propio juego, no sabes el desenlace real de esas conversaciones. Por cierto, es el juego más "woke" que he jugado nunca. No me suelen molestar esas cosas, pero hay un capítulo que da hasta vergüenza ajena. Los desarrolladores lo deben de saber, porque al principio del capítulo te dicen que puedes cambiarlo a una historia alternativa. Completamente doblado al inglés. Me ha hecho gracia el acento británico cateto que tienen todos los personajes, con la mecánica woke es que no pega ni con cola. En fin, como sólo se le puede dar voto posítivo o…