It seems more and more games are being ported to Switch, regardless of how old they are. Daedalic’s humor driven point and click series Deponia comes not too far behind the other console ports. It’s been several years since I played the original game in the series back on PC, so I was definitely ready to jump back into the world of trash.

Growing up playing mainly consoles, I didn’t have a whole lot of experience with point and click games. However, one of my friends had an older brother that played plenty of PC games, and LucasArts Games were my introduction to the genre. The likes of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and Day of the Tentacle all slinked their way into my heart, and I had a thirst for more. I played what I could find, things from Sierra and the like, but nothing ever felt the same as Tim Schafer’s games. That is, until Daedalic came along with Deponia. They had several IPs that launched before it, but this was the first game to really grab my attention and tell me I needed to play it. And so I did, and I loved it.

The game tells a story of a man, Rufus, who feels he is too good for the world he’s living in and makes it his aspiration to ascend to the utopian city in the sky, Elysium. Perhaps rightfully so, as the inhabitants of Elysium don’t realize that the planet Deponia is inhabitable and use it as their garbage dump. Rufus happens upon an organization that has captured a woman named Goal who intends on letting the people of Elysium know that Deponia still has humans living on it, but the group that has kidnapped her has other plans, and it’s up to Rufus to save her – or at least trade her for a large sum of cash to her fiancé. It’s all fairly predictable, but the writing in it is worth several chuckles.

So how does the game from 2012 translate to modern day consoles? I haven’t played through the PS4 or X1 counterparts, but it feels right at home on the Switch. The genre could live more comfortably now than ever with touch controls if they decided to use them like a mouse, but sadly that’s not the case since it’s not transferable to the other consoles. As I mentioned when playing Silence on the Switch, the portability and pick up and play nature of the genre makes this an obvious place to put it. If there was a comparable system to trophies/achievements on Switch, I’d be more likely to make this my platform of choice for games outside of exclusives.

Perhaps the game’s biggest downfall is what made the genre so famously difficult: the puzzles. Not every portion of the game will have you scratching your head, but there are plenty of absurd solutions to seemingly simple inquiries. There’s also the concern of everything needing to be a joke, whether it’s good or not. As I mentioned, I enjoy the humor quite a bit in this, but even I don’t laugh at every dad joke that’s made. For the most part the voice acting lands, but there are some characters that I wouldn’t mind being mute instead. And despite looking absolutely gorgeous in screenshots, the animation is rather minimal, although decent enough. Again, this was one of the studio’s earlier games, and it’s outclassed by their later entries.

There’re all sorts of subgenres within the point and click gameplay mechanic, but Deponia plays to those that enjoyed ol’ Guybrush and his swashbuckling adventures. The game is far from perfect, and certainly not the best entry in the saga, but it’s a wonderful beginning to a fun narrative that will leave you feeling content and perhaps even nostalgic for the years past.

8 out of 10

Pros

• Gorgeous Environments
• Humorous Writing
• Rufus

Cons

• Some Convoluted Puzzles
• Everything’s a Joke

Deponia was developed and published by Daedalic Entertainment. It is available on NS, PC, PS4 and X1. The game was provided to us for review on NS. If you’d like to see more of Deponia, check out the Nintendo store page.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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