Dex

Genre: Action-Platformer / RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in the Dex & Akane bundle, along with Akane.)

Dex is a game that combines Action-Platformer and RPG elements (and later some Two-Stick Shooter elements) in a cyberpunk setting, following the story of a young girl suddenly attacked in her home by forces working for powerful corporations who must figure out why she’s being targeted, who her mysterious savior is, and just what is going on to tie the two together. This game was released on PC in 2014 and gradually ported to other platforms, with the Nintendo Switch getting the game in 2020.

Dex’s cyberpunk world is realized through hand-drawn visuals that are decent, but nothing truly groundbreaking. Backing these visuals is a synthesized soundtrack that fits the setting well, but doesn’t do much more beyond that.

For the gameplay itself, I’ll say that I actually had to completely rewrite this review. I was ready to write this game off as not worth anyone’s time, because the opening hour or two of this game is pretty awful. Not only does the game do a poor job of introducing you to the main character and the world they find themselves in, but the first parts of the game are the most linear, and highlight the worst elements of the game.

Those elements would be the terrible platforming and bad combat. Platforming in Dex involves a fair amount of blind “leaps of faith” right from the start, and things like climbing ladders are slow and clumsy. Meanwhile, combat is tedious, with characters trading blows with enemies back-and-forth while trying to anticipate enemy attacks with blocks or dodges, but theres little nuance to it. What’s worse, players don’t even get a firearm until well into the game, despite taking down multiple enemies with guns (you can loot bodies sometimes, but apparently not guns). All of this gives a really bad first impression.

Things open up somewhat once you learn how to hack, which involves Two-Stick Shooter-style gameplay in a digital version of the game’s world. After this, players have a lot more freedom to explore the world around them, more fully making use of the game’s previously narrow RPG elements, and opening up the world somewhat as well. Up until this point the game is pretty rigidly linear, but once players have the freedom to explore, it becomes clear that these RPG elements are what the game should have started with, as they’re much more interesting than the Action-Platformer stuff.

That’s not to say they’re great. The game’s map is unhelpful and the area layouts are confusing. There also isn’t nearly as much creativity with building up your character through a skill tree as I would have liked, especially given the game’s setting. But at the very least this part of the game should give players an interesting world to explore and plenty of secrets to find.

I still can’t give Dex a full recommendation – the game’s first hour or two ask a lot of patience of the player to put up with some pretty lousy Action-Platformer gameplay, and even past this point these elements remain lousy. However, players willing to tolerate this to play a decent RPG in a cyberpunk world will find it here… eventually. If that sounds worth your while, you might want to give Dex a look.

tl;dr – Dex is an Action-Platformer with strong RPG elements set in a cyberpunk world. Be warned that the first few hours of this game are terrible, and even past that this game’s Action-Platformer elements remain pretty bad throughout. However, once the game’s RPG elements open up, this part of the game has some good content to offer, and players with the patience to see it will be rewarded with an interesting world to explore. If you think you can bear with the game’s flaws until it gets better, Dex might be worth a look.

Grade: C+

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