Dustless

This game has English. To find the setting, go to the second option on the title screen, then click the first option. English will be the 4th setting down from the top. There are going to be a few things here and there that don't get translated, but it seems like most of it is good to go. The game itself is awesome. I played the demo a while back and although the save file transferred over, I started a new game so I could read the dialogue. The movement is nice, the attacks are varied, and the parry window is relatively forgiving. You will quickly unlock new subweapons, attacks, and traversal upgrades, so the games pacing seems pretty fast. I love the art style, especially the NPCs and bosses. They have an oversized and creepy vibe, and the choice to make the platforms mostly dark is working well in the early game. I don't think there is a map unless I am missing it, and there seems to be some backtracking, but so far, I don't necessarily know if it will turn out to be a Metroidvania or if it will just borrow some of that genre's elements. Either way, the game feels fantastic to play and I can't wait to dig in further. I am sure I will come back to this review once I…

Cool art and bosses but the positives stop there. Combat is jank, exploration is meaningless, the heal is way too slow for the combat in the game, spamming the block button will counter everything and allow you to use your powers and go hitless for a lot of bosses, you get hit by frontals when you are behind enemies. This game needed another year in the oven.

Dustless, developed by 神刀之死 and published by Paras Games, is a striking side-scrolling action title that merges the elegance of wuxia storytelling with the structural depth of a metroidvania. The game begins with a simple yet evocative premise: a lone swordsman awakens with no memory in a desolate, sacred place tied to blades and forgotten warriors. From there, the experience unfolds as a journey of rediscovery, not only of the character’s past but also of the world’s hidden conflicts and lingering echoes of ancient martial traditions. The narrative is intentionally restrained, allowing players to absorb its themes through exploration and atmosphere rather than heavy exposition, which gives the entire experience a quiet, almost meditative tone. At the center of Dustless is its combat system, which is both deliberate and expressive. Instead of relying on fast, chaotic button-mashing, the game emphasizes control, timing, and precision. Each encounter becomes a test of awareness, where parrying at the right moment and chaining attacks efficiently can mean the difference between victory and defeat. There is a satisfying rhythm to combat that gradually reveals itself as players grow mo…

The movement mechanics are a bit janky.

I was initially enjoying some aspects while playing Dustless, like the snappy controls during combat and the difficulty early on as it hit a sweetspot between challenging and easy. But after an hour and a half the issues started pilling on and the difficulty spiked tremendously hard. It didn't help that the ingame systems were downright confusing with VERY rough translations on their tutorial elements so i was probably missing some critical information about the game's mechanics. The game by default booted in full chinese but luckily options being the 2nd menu option is a pretty general design choice so i swtiched it to 'English', if you can call it that... That being said even if i understood everything perfectly i would have still noticed all the unpolished elements in every corner of the game. The aforementioned tutorial pop-ups often had UI overlaid on top of the text, making parts of it physically impossible to read. There was a noticable lack of music and SFX and what was present was very rough and underwhelming. Visuals were very mediocre and the level design was amateuristic at best with boring corridors and boring platforming. Said platforming also controled very poorly …

I'm just not seeing what everyone else is seeing here. It's got a VERY unique art direction, and the controls are pretty tight. Animations are fairly smooth. Atmosphere is very cool. All seems good, until you load up and start running through the game. The tutorial for... moves? Button prompts? Something. The tutorial for something is... odd. I think it went right past "unique", into "this is weird" territory. You get some info dumps thrown at you very early (before you even have full control of your character), and it's like "ah... I see. Um... ok". I think they were trying to be creative with their tutorial, which is fine, when it works. But I don't think it was working in their favor this time around. Now, navigating... navigating comes down to "is that a platform? It's probably a platform. Oh... it wasn't a platform." And you'll be thinking that a lot. For being a platforming game, they leave out something very crucial to this genre: you can't look down. There are suggestions here and there of paths leading downward. Cliffs, little platforms. The hint of a ledge. So, naturally, you jump down.. and often end up respawning immediately. It LOOKS like a path. There's a STEP t…