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Deponia is a point-and-click adventure game where you play as Rufus, a sociopathic adventure game protagonist on a quest to rescue a woman that fell from the sky.
Presentation
Deponia starts off with a comedic musical number outlining the basic premise. It’s a strong opener in the sense that you get a good idea of what the rest of the game is going to be like, but I absolutely hated it. These plot-relevant songs reappear a few more times, each as unfunny as the last.
After this unique opening, you get your first taste of the graphics and they’re pretty solid. Nothing game-changing, but definitely a strong point. The animations are certainly mediocre, although they aren’t bad enough to ruin the game. Similarly, the soundtrack isn’t awful, but you spend so much time listening to the same looping song that it gets stale after a while.
Story and Writing
As with most point-and-click adventure games, the narrative is a major focal point. In Deponia, the basic premise is simply the main character, Rufus, trying to help a beautiful woman return home. Obviously, I’m leaving out plenty of details along the way, but the entire story is essentially a prequel to the next entry in the franchise. There isn’t any meaningful character development, and it ends right when things start to pick up. It’s as if the entire narrative is simply filler trying to stall until the sequel comes out.
Even though I found the overall plot to be underwhelming, the dialogue shines through as the worst part of Deponia. Almost every character is used to set up jokes, but they rarely land. Most are corny one-liners or puns that might get a mild chuckle at best. Some come off quite poorly, such as Rufus always trying to be left alone with an unconscious woman, or the stereotypical bearded man in a dress demanding to be called ma’am. Beyond that, the comedy comes from Rufus’s humorous observations.
Rufus is an over-the-top version of a stereotypical adventure game protagonist. It’s a genre full of characters that are supposed to be heroes but often do horrible things to achieve their goals. Here, it’s played for laughs and I generally enjoy the concept, but it’s weighed down by lackluster execution. He’s a monster, but it’s not funny, just unlikable. When the plot needs him to switch into a more heroic role, they slap together a mildly redemptive scene to show he isn’t all bad, but it’s not enough to make him palatable.
Gameplay
You can expect to see all the classic point-and-click game mechanics: vague item-based puzzles, extensive dialogue trees, and hidden objects that blend in with the background. Unfortunately for Deponia, it can’t use its age as an excuse for its shortcomings, because it came out in 2012. Puzzles occasionally venture into “moon logic”, where the solution is so esoteric or nonsensical that you’ll either waste your time guessing or be forced to look up a guide. This isn’t to say every puzzle is exceptionally hard, it’s just that many solutions require you to think exactly as the developers did. This mostly crops up when you need to combine items because your inventory can begin to balloon as you progress, leaving you with dozens of potential combinations to try. Most players will only get stuck once or twice, so a guide isn’t required, but I also didn’t find the puzzles satisfying to solve, so I wouldn’t worry about ruining the experience by checking a walkthrough; frankly, you aren’t missing out on much.
Verdict
Deponia has a few bits and pieces that are great, but they’re overshadowed by the abysmal comedy and lackluster gameplay. It wastes your time with long, drawn-out puzzles that are more frustrating than challenging. The story is a barebones prologue that should have been trimmed down and combined with its sequel. That being said, the best way to decide if you should give it a shot is to watch the intro song. If you get a chuckle out of it, this might be the game for you. Otherwise, you’re in for a painfully unfunny time.
2/10
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No performance issues running on: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, 16 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 3070
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