Recommending Dustforce

Excellent video. I agree with everything you said here, but there's another thing that made me love Dustforce so much more when I discovered them: secret areas.
The whole game is set up to have you getting through the levels via the path they've laid out for you with the dust/leaves/garbage/slime, and it feels soooo great when you finally string it all together and it looks so effortless. But what's this? If I just leave the dust trail behind, let my combo break, and explore the levels, I can find this cool little place off to the side. Maybe the music changes while I'm here. Maybe the camera zooms out and lets me see the starry sky. Maybe the whole screen changes to black silhouettes on a pink background.
What's the point? This is my favorite part. There is none, gameplay-wise. They can be tricky to get to--and even trickier to find--but you as a player gain nothing from the secret areas. In fact, getting to them almost guarantees you won't be getting that SS rank on this run. But they weren't meant for you as a player. They were meant for you as a person. You get to see this cool little thing and wonder how many other people that have played this level got to see it, too. You can already feel that Hitbox Team put a lot of soul into the game just playing through it, but the secret areas push it above and beyond. Make the game feel that much more alive.

The Dustforce OST is one of my favourites. It helps reduce my rage at failing to S rank every level.

Coming back 5 years later to say that I still can't play platformers, but that I've recommended this to all my friends who do. Each of them thats tried it loves it, and knowing that their second game will not be like it has me so excited to finally give them some playtime

The mechanics governing your movement, especially the way you "earn" more jumps, are perfectly designed. It's such a gratifying game for those who enjoy working out efficient pathing.

This video introduced me to my favorite game of all time, and for that I am forever grateful. Thanks Matthew.

Matt, I can assure you I knew nothing of this game whatsoever. I have only recently found your videos, and the first video of yours I ever watched was the Oddworld comparison one, because Oddworld is my all time favorite game. I can easily tell you that your video did its job very well, because I have bought Dustforce exactly right after watching your video about it. Thank you for introducing me to this awesome game. Anyone reading this comment, I urge you to do the same.

I gotta say, not many youtubers that I get ecstatic to see a video from, despite the content. Love what you do here, will continue to recommend to everyone that will listen.

Ironically enough, this video ended up being a video I often overlooked from your channel. Watching it now, I'm pretty satisfied I gave it a chance, and will probably be just as kind to Dustforce now because of it.

holy crap a friend randomly mentioned this game a few days ago, i'd never heard of it before, i got it, SS'd all the main hub worlds, and am working on the difficults right now. and i wouldn't even consider myself a big platformer or speedrunner. i just like good games, and this one is almost perfect.
it's scary how similar our thoughts were. i'm really happy to see you spreading the word

As a top dustforce player. Congratulations on being easily the best review of the game I have seen to date. I strongly dislike every review of dustforce I have seen because, at its core, the game was never meant to be reviewed. It is a game about progression as a player, steadily increasing your mastery of the game. whether 4 hours or 40 hours you cannot have reached that mastery yet, it's simply not possible. And that's not your fault either. I just don't agree with ANYONE judging the difficulty curve when they have not reached the levels to reflect on it. It is like judging a book's plot line in it's first 5 chapters. You have gone further then the cover and you may feel you've done your duty as a reviewer. But the real reflection on the book comes after finishing it.
That being said you did well to explain what you have experienced in your 40 hours and what you can see others have done beyond that. You might not experience it yourself, but thats okay. Others might be able to see through your experience and decide for themselves. You almost didn't review it at all. You simply stated that the game isn't for everyone but it might be for whoever is watching and that they should give it a chance before listening to what other reviewers think because of the inherent inability to accurately review a game like this.

Thanks for this review, it made me go out and buy the game. In fact every single one of your reviews is a pleasure to watch. Because every single second is filled with intelligent thought. This is no exaggeration, you seem to have a penchant for brevity, others would take 5 times as long to deliver the exact same content. The length of your reviews reflects a refreshing depth I don't see anywhere else, rather then the usual pointless drivel so common on youtube. In any case keep it man, you're stellar. And I hope you get more successful.

I know it's been almost five years since you posted this video, but it just so happens that I bought Dustforce somewhat recently and played a fair amount of it, and I can say without hesitation that it's one of the very best 2D platformers ever created. I'm glad to see there were some people who truly apreciated this game when it came out, as much as I do now (although the replays in the game speak for themselves). It's truly a shame that a gem like this will be missed by so many players due to biased reviewers and some people who judged it without understanding it.

I completely agree with your analysis. I came to Dustforce a long time after once I found the sound track and decided to play the game it came from. I was blown away at how good of a job it did with challenging me and making me still calm. If I want to restart a level, let me restart the level, not watch an opening sequence, you get right into the gameplay with Dustforce.
The early levels still have a difficulty to me and while I'm horrible at it, I still recommend it to anyone who likes platformers since it seems to do such a fantastic job at it.

Came over from Rags recommending you in his vid on Polygon article regarding BioShock infinite & Trump, and I have to say I'm not disappointed in the slightest. I played this game WAY more than expected when I got my Vita, and I'm beyond happy to see someone explaining how intricate and truly enjoyable this game is. I can't say this any more genuinely: thank you. Keep up the great work! Time to binge the rest of your vids

I got dustforce in an indie Humble Bundle sale and it is one of the best 2d platformers I've ever played. It's such a high quality game that sits at such a great price. The amount of appreciation for this game that I see online is heartbreaking, because it really is that good. I'm glad to hear that Team Hitbox made enough money from Dustforce to fund the development of their next game. They're obviously a talented bunch that has whatever it takes to make a classic platformer.
The replay value is great, too. I've had this game for over four years now and I know I can always come back to it and have an enjoyable experience (especially with the level editor). I've never had a moment where I'm bored with this game, and if I ever put the controller down it's only because I lack the determination to keep practicing and improving.
I don't mean to say this game is flawless. It's not perfect, and there are certainly a couple of levels I thought could have been designed a bit better. In particular, I thought the combat-heavy levels where you're enclosed in a small space with lots of enemies were not as fun to play and didn't provide that same experience of flowing through a deliberately designed platforming challenge unless you were a player of the same caliber as those at the top of the leader boards.
Despite having a few levels I could have done without, I think Dustforce is an incredible game. It's one that I'll never forget, could recommend to anyone who likes challenging platformers, and I think it will withstand the test of time for as long as people still have a desire to play platformers. If this video wasn't enough to convince you of how awesome dustforce is, then listen to me, and go ahead and get it!

I knew I loved this channel for a reason. Dustforce is one my favorite games and definitely my favorite platformer. Really glad that it's getting more attention and I hope more people who want a mechanical platformer will hear about it from you.

I think even the whole "dust" theme of the game is particularly inspired. It's like the developers took that satisfying feeling of running your finger over a dusty surface in one motion and made it into a game. I'm very glad I was able to discover this gem through videos like this. I've always been a huge fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, and Dustforce really scratches that itch for fast-paced, performance based platformers. It's not aping Sonic by any means, but it hits a lot of those notes that drew me into that series.

I played Dustforce and reviewed it when it came out a couple of years ago. Thoroughly enjoyed it and gave it a high recommendation. I kinda sucked at it, and got frustrated trying to get past particular levels and such, but it was just so wonderfully made and the controls were so responsive, I couldn't help but love it all the same.
Nice review and post-mortem look on how great it is, as well as possible reasons it didn't do so well.

I'm almost certain Matthew is referring to Super Meat Boy's world 7 @ 4:34
Great review as always, definitely going to try this one out.

LIFEFORMED, follow that musician. He's extremely good and its sad this game is underrated, I bought the game because of his music, and seeing the long development hell of Tunic, a Legend of Zelda-style game about a fox wearing a tunic and wielding a sword really is going to have superb music.

Great thoughts on a great game. Much like for you, this game flew completely under my radar a couple of years ago and only picked it up a couple of months ago. It's one of the most exhilarating platformers I've ever played.
But you failed to mention one of the more compelling features of this game, the same thing that made the Trials games so infinitely replayable: the level editor! There's a slew of great user-created levels out there for you to try as well, focusing on anything from difficulty to speed to aesthetics. You really oughtta check it out!

I'll never beat "Backup Shift" or "Hideout"

Awesome video as usual. You really do inspire me as an English major who is interested in teaching the critique of various mediums of pop cultures.

DX update took away your complaint about lack of easy levels which are still fun to speedrun.

If I recall correctly, the developers made a post on their subreddit quite some time ago expressing surprise with how many players were actually able to complete the game's final challenges with double S ranks. If ever there was a sign that a game is tough-as-nails, it's when even the *developer* doesn't think you'll be finishing any time soon.

Fantastic review as always! You really sold me on the game, I never even knew it existed until now unfortunately.

A Solid review from you can convince me to buy pretty much anything, you're my favorite reviewer for video games, keep on doing what you do :)

I love these reviews of overlooked games (I bought and played hours of SpaceChem yesterday) but I notice a sentiment you made on this video is the same as the last one: These under looked games are often hiding in plain sight, and their metacritic suffers for being niche. Which is unfair for the game itself, but metacritic is for the average player compared to the niche. Its a tough problem to solve, but its not as though its not predicted based on how often it happens. The best solution I can come up with is word of mouth, and here it is in delightful video form. Thanks again for the quality content MatthewMatosis.

ok proud dad moment my step son made this game :)' im glad you gave such a good review

Thanks for pointing this out. I was interested in this game prior to it's release because of the visuals, but I remember reading a review saying it was basically okay but nothing to write home about. Sounds to me like they didn't "get it" like you seem to have. I just bought the game because of this video, it looks like so much fun and I want to support the developers :)

Good review and yeah it feels like a crime that this game didn't get more recognition (even when capcom was porting this game to systems it didn't seem to get much attention) especially since the developers did such a fantastic job at making such a great experience such as this game here. Hopefully their next game will be more of a success and this game gets the recognition it deserves someday.

After comparing DX and the original, I think the complaints about difficulty comes from the hub world design. DX locks its more difficult levels behind platforming skill as well as keys and has no worlds. The original, on the other hand, divides the map into four distinct worlds and only has key requirements. This can lead to players feeling a need to finish the "first world" before moving on. So, instead of learning the game, players can feel a need to play some of the hardest levels before they can move on to the easier levels of the next world.

Aww, no word about the level creator? It's remarkably efficient and fun to use.

I had never heard of this game before but recently kept seeing the name pop up and Im quite intrigued, just from watching the fast paced and smooth gameplay mechanics, it made me think of why there has never been a Sonic game with such an emphasis on a good feel of controls and I would be very happy to see something like that...but Sega...

Man I bought this game on release and perfect scored 90% of the levels, and this makes me want to go back so badly... I really hope they make a sequel or expansion, or a spiritual successor, cos they really did it right, and I still listen to the soundtrack to this day. Also, the old man is awesome!

I swear if they release this on switch it would take off, I don't know what would be required to port it to switch but seems like it would do well there

I can't wait for whatever they make next.

Very awesome review. I love when good, thoughtful critics do reviews like that. It was highly informative, and you really did a good case for this game.
+1 Sale.

Nice! I'm always pumped when you upload a video man.

As someone who's got double-S on all regular levels as well (and good effin' gods the final levels...), I think you've done a good job describing it. It is indeed not a game for everyone, but for all the people out there who love to run through Mario or Sonic games at high speed, I urge you to take a look at Dustforce.

The soundtrack from this game is master piece.

Love your reviews as always, Matthrewmatosis, I really appreciate the balanced and well-reasoned arguments that you always present.
I was wondering what your thoughts were on the way Japanese games tend to get overlooked by western media, just like how things like Dustforce do; just look at the recent E3 hype train where literally dozens of high profile japanese games such as Persona 5 or Psycho-Pass got completely overlooked to talk about lots of, sometimes a little generic, indie games.
Love the reviews, keep up the great work, it's a delight every time i see one of your videos in my subscription box.

As someone who has enjoyed playing internet platformers for a while now. I look forward to giving this a go. Especially as its received high price from both yourself and Sexbad. Two of my favourite reviewers on youtube.

I've been eyeing this game for a while... Thank you for making this video. I wasn't too sure of it. But watching and listening to your review (along with the gameplay clips) I can see this is worth looking at.

GREAT information. Buying this right now - thanks TB for sending me your way and you've got a new subscriber for sure!

Thanks Matthew for informing me of this game's existence. Hopefully this will be on the Steam summer sale

Great video, this game deserves more exposure.

Truth be told, I feel like you need to make these videos more often, they are very informative and fun to listen to, at least that is what I feel.
Not sure what you're doing, but I wish you luck on your stuff

Great review as always, and love to hear you shed light on reviewer mindsets like this.
Your opinion on E3 hype? Anything general or specific?

Bought this in a humble bundle once and never looked at it but now I'm most certainly interested due to the insight you provided.

Beautiful review of a beautiful game.
Just found your channel and I am so very glad I did.

I just bought this game from Humble Bundle today and was pleasantly surprised.
Also I just wanted to say, Matthewmatosis you're a very good writer.

I hadn't even heard of this game till you made this video. I just bought it due to your recommendation. Hope you make more of these videos.

I have a friend who played this game and streamed it for a few weeks. He pretty much said the exact same things about the game and it showed in the stream that the game valued tight gameplay and challenge. It's a shame that critics bashed irrationally and not a lot of people bought it.

Great video, as always.
I've been looking for an excuse to play Dustforce since its release, and I think that this informative video has finally given me enough confidence in the game to do so. :)

Having watched your video on it inspired me to redownload the game. One of the reasons for that is I never knew that that quickfall mechanic exists in the game. I have yet to be able to figure out how to do it on my own after ten or so minutes of attempting it. People in the comments here lampooning folks who like Super Meat Boy/Dark Souls but dislike this game probably don't really get the criticisms thrown at it. Super Meat Boy is an extremely mechanically simple game: you press one button to jump, have a directional input, and can hold a trigger to make yourself run faster. Your only context-sensitive input is wall-jumping, which uses the same initial jump button, and is immediately intuitive. Dark Souls, while esoteric in terms of progression at times, never hides something as vital as its control scheme: you get every bit of information you need out of the Northern Undead Asylum, and it's up to you to remember them all, which honestly is not too difficult a task. The true difficulty in Dark Souls lays in its immediately unique nature, relative to other action games. It's much more passive, and about making smart, quick decisions that are about time micromanagement. It never doesn't tell me I can jump by hitting the run button while running. Dustforce, contrarily, hides something so seemingly vital as the quick hop, or being able to wall jump and reverse your jump to quickly ascend a wall. My impression of this mechanic was that it involved either having a parallel wall to quickly ascend, or using one of your broom swings to afford yourself another jump, which you can then use to jump back into the wall. Apparently, judging by some of the footage in your video, I'm incorrect. I haven't yet watched any footage of how one can pull off one of these more seemingly-advanced maneuvers, but I don't really feel like in 2014 I should have to. I think the problem with the game is in its presentation, but not visually or in terms of sound design. Its about the game's inability to clearly communicate to the player what it is. If I'm playing a platformer, why do I have manually map controls to my 360 controller? Why am I constantly getting lost looking for new levels in the mid-game overworld? How come I still don't seem to have a complete grasp on the simple act of playing this game? I think these are lessons the Hitbox team have probably learned a lot about since Dustforce, and I hope they can make Spire a more fluid experience, because I'm just not sure Dustforce is worth the hassle.

Fabulous video - Dustforce is an absolutely brilliant game and one which almost precisely achieves what it set out to do. It's rare to see a platformer with things like cancels and precisely timed elements in them, but Dustforce has it!

Having done an in-depth review on this game myself, I'm glad we have some mutual grounds. It's a shame reviewers panned it just because of the game's difficulty, because diving into the game more, and there are so many pluses ready to be dug. The chilly music really fits into the fluid platforming the game is trying to focus on, fanning frustration is also true. Camera works, mechanics that have layers, awesome theme. Man I hope more people will give it a try despite it being an old game now.

dustforce is love dustforce is life, i also ever felt that the game never received the deserved praise, people like to compare with super meat boy but in the reality the games are much different. Meanwhile repeating SMB levels were a pain in the ass for me, dieing in dustforce never made me rage quit the game or anything
praise hitbox team

Fantastic review. I saw videos on this and didn't care much until this well thought out review. Definitely going to purchase it when i get the chance.

This guy's opinion on games are so thorough and well thought out that if he told me he to buy a game because it was good, I would probably do it on the spot...just like I did with dust force :P Its not even really my kind of game, but hell its $10 and its fun and it supports indie developers so why not.

I tried the PS3 demo when it came out, but due to financial difficulties was unable to pick it up. I think I'll give it another try though. I do like hard (but fair) platformers, and getting that perfect run is the reason I poured more hours into Sonic Unleashed and Generations than I'm proud of.
I'll recommend it to my friend too. He likes to perfect his technique, so maybe there's something in here for him.
God video as always Matthewmatosis.

I’ll have to check it out. Love to support quality underrated titles

oh the joy when I see a new upload by you

Wow... I am so glad that I found your channel. Amazing and balanced review.

I love this guy, he is my favorite video game critic on RUclips.

The first time I heard about this game was while I was in a skype call with two friends. One of them mentioned they were thinking of buying the game. The other friend told them it wasn't a good idea because it was just another artsy indie platformer. The first friend said, "yeah, you're probably right" and didn't buy the game.
I thought of that conversation when you were talking about why the game is under rated.

Rewatching this review again after having played and adored this game for years, and it's still as good a look at this game as it was back then. This really is an excellent game, and it remains one I find myself always going back to.
While I doubt you'll notice a random comment on an old video, I wanted to throw this at you anyway: Have you tried Umihara Kawase? Like Dustforce it is a rather difficult abtract platformer, though unlike Dustforce it's far more free form, down to allowing the player to select their progress path through going to different exit doors in stages. I find some folk who appreciate Dustforce also tend to find value in Umihara Kawase, even though the two games are very different.

played the demo and spent more time on it than the total fans spent on ground zeroes. Unfortunately, college graduates without jobs are the bane of support. Year later, still looking, this brings pleasant memories.

Wow, I didn't know Dustforce did so poorly. That is a real shame. I absolutely loved this game, and I watched a couple of speedruns and they are jaw-dropping. Real shame to have to call this game "underrated", what the hell is wrong with the games journalism scene?

I simply adore this man's lexicon.
1. dividends
2. mitigate
3. deluge
4. onus
Once again, this is a fine video Matthew.

I somehow found the soundtrack of the game a few years ago on youtube. I really like it and still listen to it.
This is the first time I see gameplay and I have not imagened a hard jump´n run when listening to that music.

I've got nearly 300 hours in this game, and I still boot it up to play custom levels almost daily.
The only real criticism I have for this game is the underdeveloped multiplayer, which is unfortunately local only.
Also, get it on PC, the console ports are bad.

It's great how much the sales and Humble Bundle helped, the sad part is that now people rarely buy games that are not on sale (I got it with the Humble Bundle). They were lucky to get the startup money from the competition and I wouldn't mind if they did a small Kickstarter for Spire, a good indie game can secure a bit of funding to make it to the release date and also gage the player response :)

Good work!, I completely agree with the review hypocrisy, I think reviews are getting better since Sessler gave Titanfall a perfect score. More people noticed then I think.

Total biscuit brought me here and i must say Matthew is one of many youtubers that give me the pro consumer information that only improves our gaming community as a whole...Thank you I really listen to all your videos and make sure i take off ad block to try and help you out a bit, you deserve it mate =]

Matthew is probably the best video game commentator I've run across on RUclips. He's obviously following the quality over quantity philosophy, but unfortunately that never brings huge success on RUclips. This man deserves so much more respect.

Another great review, Matt. Opened my mind to some of the things I'd never really thought about what with the hypocrisy in reviews.
Was this game selected from the list of indie games that you got from your Twitter followers a while ago? Just curious, because I'd love to see you review some of those games.

Dustforce is on sale for vita right now for 2.99. Definitely picking it up.

One of the greatest critiques i've ever seen.

I got this game in one of the Humble Bundles. I really didn't expect to get into it as much as I did, but eventually I managed to S rank all of the main levels and unlock the secret world. I would rank it among my most satisfying achievements in gaming. I could only beat one of the secret levels though. Damn they were hard...

Great review. Happy to see more content here...

Incredible review! Matthewmatosis hitting the nail on the head!

I'm like you on this one, I followed the game even before it got release since I thought it was cool. And I eventually got it (through a sale), but haven't actually given it a chance. I really should give it a try since it does looks like a fun and challenging game to play.
As for the "hypocritical reviewers" thing, I totally agree with you on that. Especially since also easy/not challenging games but that can still be good also get the shaft a lot. I seriously think reviews should focus on the level of enjoyment rather than other things.

This actually looks really good. I'll try it out sometime.

Dust Force is on sale right now for $4.99 on steam!
I just bought it because of this review.

Awesome work as always, thanks for bringing this one to my attention.

When you present into the emergency room

I love dustforce so much! I played hundreds of hours back in the day and even got one world record, and rank 2 on the tutorial

Matt, I want to stand in front of a mirror with you, pumping our biceps synchronized.

Been playing this game for 10+ hours, did not know you could dash straight down.

Watched this video ages ago but I'm finally getting the game now it is on sale on EU PSN.The demo was great and all of the DLC is free too.
I'll probably look into the DX version on PC as well.

I loved this game when it came out, played it for a solid 15 hours and then dropped it. Very worthwhile purchase, but I don't know if I'd consider it groundbreaking in any way.
I wish it had some sort of active multiplayer, playing against friends is really a tonne of fun, even if it's only scoreboards/ghosts/replays, but it feels a bit lacking. It's hard to jump on Skype or TeamSpeak and "play with friends".

Amazing content as always, Matt

watching those dust levels is setting off my allergies

You are an amazing reviewer! You actually put some time and thought into what you say instead of hust shitting out videos!

I'm honestly shocked to hear that this got negative reviews. As someone who hadn't heard of dustforce before seeing this video, I would've imagined it getting high "out of tens" across the board. It looks like it plays just as smoothly as meatboy which, in my opinion, is all a great platformer needs.
I don't need fancy mechanics or stellar graphics. I need great gameplay. Dustforce appears to have this in spades, and has a strong central mechanic and pleasant visuals as the cherry on top.
The (youtube) comment about the double standard between this and meatboy is very true, and I cannot believe that people would lower their score of a game based on difficulty in such a blatantly unfair manner.

Hi. I was wondering what you think of The Binding of Isaac. It's a really divisive game, due to it's unusual approach to completion (which is becoming more and more common, though, partially thanks to said game's success) but if you've played it a bit what are your thoughts?

What are the odds, I bought this game not too long on GOG's summer sale today. I really enjoyed it, though I think the controls feels floaty, not as tight as I thought it would have been. I am still getting used to it.

just got this game a few days ago. (i know Im late to the party) Im totally obsessed already! I have three vids on my channel of it already. Those double S scores are tough sometimes!!!