Goodbye Deponia is a game I actually played all the way through to the end and while it may be relatively short, it was quite an enjoyable journey, although maybe a little long-winded in parts in some attempt to pad-out the length of the game.
Point and click adventures are a bit hit and miss with me, I enjoy them, but I tend to forget about having to go back and retrace steps to complete tasks, something you’re required to do in Goodbye Deponia. What makes this more playable is the comedy involved to give you some laughs along the way.
Rufus is one of those loveable rogues who isn’t the brightest of protagonists, yet has a certain charm which allows him to get along in his endeavours. If you’ve played earlier Deponia games, you will know about Goal who, in Goodbye Deponia briefly becomes a damsel in distress.
There is an actual storyline to the game and not just random events. Most of the other characters don’t have much to offer other than some dialogue, but each have their own personality you can identify with, it’s sometimes hard to believe that they’re really friends with Rufus.
Missions and tasks are pretty menial, but there are a few tough ones thrown in to make it more of a challenge. You’re aboard the Organon Cruiser and have to navigate a dance floor a certain way which will allow Goal to reach terminals, I felt it was somewhat ridiculous and could easily deter the more casual adventure gamer.
The artwork is great, there’s a lot of detail gone into the drawings and it all integrates well, meaning that the characters blend in well with the environments. Some games can be so obvious where the background is just an image and the characters walks over some of the scenery, there is some depth which helps give Goodbye Deponia some quality feel to it.
If you play the game straight without going through all the dialogue options, you’ll find the game is only around nine hours long. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, point and click adventure games don’t need to be of epic proportions, so for a standalone game and not part of an episodic series, it’s not too bad.
I think to get the puzzles, you need to have played the earlier Deponia games or they may not make that much sense to you. It’s not that they’re unique, it’s when you have to mix crazy things together in your inventory. Would you normally think of putting toothpaste on a bagel? Well, there you go.
The long-winded bit I mentioned at the start is about how the cut scenes can drag on a bit. While they’re nicely animated and entertaining, a few seem to get a bit awkwardly long and you just want to them to stop, so you can get on with the game. It’s not only cut scenes though, extended dialogue moments are a bit too… extended.
It’s a pity that it has those extended dialogue moments and slightly ridiculous puzzles, because it stops me from awarding the game MG Gold. While it feels like a complete game and an enjoyable journey throughout, it’s not too newbie-friendly and you can easily do something out-of-order which breaks the game.
Goodbye Deponia Verdict
While it was fun to play through, it wasn’t that easy and I even had to refer to YouTube videos a couple of times (despite having the official walkthrough at hand). Most of the things, people and places had relevance, there wasn’t much to distract you from the quest, but there were still some times where I got a bit lost.
There are some real laugh-out-loud moments and the songs at the end of main segments are worthy of a good chuckle. It’s aimed at mature gamers, so it’s not recommended for little Johnny who is probably too busy being annoying on GTA Online to bother with this anyway and if you let your 10-year-old play that, they might as well have a go at this.
There’s not a lot of bad language, but enough to call for a PEGI 12 rating (surprising as there’s a couple of ‘F-word’ instances and it’s usually stricter in videogames). It’s a victim of ‘sudden end syndrome’, this is when someone doesn’t know how to end something satisfactory, I felt it was OK, but could have been better.