Duskfade is an unashamed love letter to the PS2 era of 3D action platformers, and it wears that influence with real confidence. You play Zirian, accompanied by his mechanical companion Cuckoo, trying to rescue his sister from a mysterious Clock Tower that has plunged the land into eternal night.
Weird Beluga have made the sort of game a lot of people have been quietly waiting for. As one reviewer put it, it feels like someone found a lost PS2 platformer, gave it a glow-up, and somehow made it more charming in the process.
The Loop
Jump, dash, grapple and glide through fluid platforming that carries straight into the boss fights rather than stopping for them.
Fast hack-and-slash combat with parries and dash attacks. Enjoyable, if not the deepest system here.
Ethereal forests, underwater realms, sunlit dunes and cloudy heights — with backtracking once new abilities open old routes.
Breakable objects everywhere and collectibles hidden at a fair difficulty — sometimes tucked away, sometimes in plain sight.
The Art Direction Is Extraordinary
It’s backed by a soundtrack players kept comparing favourably to Kingdom Hearts III, and by genuinely impressive optimisation — reports of running at high settings on an RTX 2060 without a single stutter, plus Steam Deck Verified status and confirmed handheld performance.
Movement Carries It; Combat Doesn’t Quite
The platforming is the star. Fluid, satisfying, slightly floaty in a way most players found charming rather than sloppy, and cleverly woven into boss encounters instead of being paused for them. Learning to long jump out of a roll is the moment several players said the game clicked.
Combat is where opinions split, and the split is instructive. Some found it a genuine highlight — fast, smooth, deeper than expected from a platformer. Others found it a competent but shallow imitation of its inspiration: only four special attacks, enemy variety that rarely demands strategic adjustment, and spongier enemies in the back half.
The honest summary is that roughly 90% of encounters are short and sweet, and the platforming comfortably overshadows the fighting. Combat is fine once you work out its rhythms — it just isn’t the reason to be here.
Other Rough Edges
The lighting issue is the one we’d prioritise. Art direction this strong deserves to be visible, and a bloom slider would cost the developers very little while noticeably improving the experience for anyone struggling with it.
The story lands better than “predictable” suggests, though. Told largely through environmental detail, it deals with loss and staying present, and multiple players reported being genuinely moved — one admitted to tearing up. It won’t blow anyone away structurally, but there’s real heart in it.
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
| The Good | The Bad | The Ugly |
|---|---|---|
| Genuinely BeautifulEvery reviewer led with the art. Dynamic lighting, deliberate colour and contrast, and biomes blending Ratchet & Clank industry with Alice in Wonderland surrealism. The underwater sections in particular are stunning, and one player expects best art direction nominations. | Combat Is Shallower Than It LooksFour special attacks, enemy variety that rarely demands adaptation, iffy lock-on, easily-broken combos and swings lacking weight. Fine once you learn it, but it’s the weakest system in a game where the platforming is excellent. | No Keybind RemappingYou cannot rebind controls on keyboard and mouse in 2026, and it’s the single most raised complaint. Controller and Steam Deck players are unaffected — everyone else should know before buying. |
| Movement That SingsFluid jumping, dashing, grappling and gliding, woven directly into boss fights rather than paused for them. Long-jumping out of a roll is the moment it clicks, and the platforming comfortably carries the whole game. | Combat Hard StopsDodges, combos and counters lock you in place with seemingly no invincibility frames. Manageable in most encounters, genuinely irritating in the busier ones. | Overcooked Bloom and GlareGodrays and light effects strong enough to wash out the screen, and dropping gamma to compensate makes dark sections unreadable. A bloom slider would fix it — art this good deserves to be visible. |
| Loving, Not DerivativeKingdom Hearts and the PS2 holy trinity are all present, but nobody called it a copy — the references land as genuine tribute rather than nostalgia bait. It’s an original IP, superbly optimised, Steam Deck Verified, with a soundtrack players rate alongside KH3. | No Map, Vague OpeningThere’s no map of any kind despite substantial exploration, and the opening offers so little guidance that some players found it confusing rather than intriguing. | Collectibles Without PayoffA 100% completionist reported most collected items serve no purpose, there’s no endgame content, and an unopenable door makes DLC plans fairly obvious. Deflating after a full clear. |
The Verdict
Shatter the shackles of time as you jump, swing, and slash through a fantastic world in this love letter to classic 3D action platformers. Duskfade sets out to do a specific thing — recapture the feel of PS2-era 3D platformers without simply imitating them — and it succeeds comfortably.
The art direction is the headline and deserves to be. The movement is the substance. Between them they carry a game whose combat is merely fine and whose story is merely nice, and the result is genuinely one of the better 3D platformers in a genre that barely exists at this scale any more.
The problems are mostly the fixable kind. Bloom needs a slider. Keybinds need remapping. A map would help. None of those are design failures, and all of them could land in a patch.
The honest read: if you have ever missed the PS2 era of 3D platformers, buy this — preferably with a controller. It’s the closest anyone has come in years, it’s an original IP rather than a revival, and it’s made with visible love.
If you want combat depth as the main event, adjust expectations. This is a platformer that fights, not a fighter that platforms — and it’s much better at the former.
A small studio made something distinctive and finished it properly. That’s rarer than it should be.
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Score Breakdown
