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I wanted Dustborn to be a different game.
Dustborn has everything that I usually like in a game: Long conversation segments, mysteries, and a world full of possibilities that excite the imagination. I like "VN" type games ranging from actual VNs to Dective-style games like Ace Attorney and Danganronpa. I don't need a lot of combat or shooting in order to enjoy a game, so conceptually, Dustborn would be a type of game that I would enjoy.
Apart from that, the world of Dustborn has the building blocks for a really great story: Random people are exposed to a superpower lottery and gain the power to affect reality with their words. Some people might get "Fus Ro Dah" powers, and others might get the ability to brainwash others, either forcing them to believe/see things that aren't true, or to feel certain emotions. The developers were going for a "the power of words", thing.
Notably, the protagonist, the black girl with the bat, has the powers "Push, Hoax, Trigger, Block, Cancel, Discord, and Bully". Her powers make her seem like a social media SJW personified. This was all intentional, and so the game developers are surely making some sort of statement about social media, right? Surely this game is either an endorsement of these tactics, or else a cautionary tale about them, right?
Well that's what the developers have claimed. They've claimed that the message of the game, and the moral of the story that the protagonist learns at the end, is that we should all have empathy for one another. Aww, isn't that sweet?
But actual game puts so little emphasis on this point, it's easy to completely overlook it. The game has you brainwashing people who claim you're trying to brainwash them in order to convince them that you're not brainwashing them. The game has you bullying your friends in non-skippable segments. The game has you leaving behind trail of "dead soldiers, some of them just kids" (this is an actual quote from the game). BEFORE the game even starts, the protagonist is using her powers to swindle people out of money and she even just brainwashes a guy for fun.
None of that is condemned. Any disapproving words towards to the protagonist are so sheepish and noncommittal that they don't register. The Protagonist never gets her comeuppance for the evil things that she does. In fact, she gets a happy ending.
The game could have been that cautionary tale about "the power of words", and how using those tactics to fight your perceived enemy is actually bad for discourse. The game briefly dips its toes into exploring this idea, with both the bad guys and the good guys explicitly wanting to "broadcast disinformation" on a wide scale in order to change reality for their idea of "the greater good", but those ideas aren't explored beyond one or two lines. The game could have been a Trojan Horse that was marketed towards "modern audiences", and then BAM, hits them with a "actually you guys are the villains" in Act 3. The protagonist could vow to never again use her brainwashing powers. That's what I wanted this game to be. That's the kind of story you could easily tell in this game's world. That's the story that these twitter users need to hear, and it would be presented in a way that is digestible to them.
The only reason why I played this game, and didn't just mock it from a distance, was because of the claim the developers made above. They didn't lie, but the game's message of "hey no, stop, have empathy" is literally just one sentence during the protagonists monologue at the end of the game. Blink and you'll miss it.
The end result is a game that does not deliver on its promise. It fails to stand up for anything, makes no statements about anything, and leaves no impact.
Go play Life Is Strange instead, that's a much better game.
