In 2012, when Daedalic Entertainment released the first part Deponia, no one could have imagined (including the developers themselves) that this trilogy would turn out to be one of the best humorous quests in history. One evidence of such popularity is the strong reaction of fans to the finale Goodbye Deponia. The farewell to the bully and cynic Rufus turned out to be so emotional and sad that it was time to write petitions demanding to change the ending. The Germans, obviously, also felt this and decided… no, not to rewrite it, but, remaining true to their principles, to build a completely new game around this ending.
Back to the Future
For those who, for some strange reason, are not yet in the know, let us remind you of a summary of the previous episodes. A disaster man, a cynic, a narcissistic egoist and an informal Rufus lived on the landfill planet Deponia, where some vegetate below, in a garbage city called Kuvak, while others enjoy life in upper Elysium. One day he realized his dream, got to Elysium, destroying half of his hometown along the way, met the beautiful girl Goal, and after a series of incredible adventures, outrages, acts of vandalism and self-cloning, he saved Deponia from imminent death – albeit at a very high cost.
Three years after Goodbye Deponia it turned out that Rufus didn’t say “goodbye” to us, but “goodbye”. In fact, it came out without announcement and without warning Deponia Doomsday, where we meet this charming rogue again. True, the meeting turned out to be very strange. The whole game is one continuous parody of both “Groundhog Day” and “Back to the Future”. Together with Rufus, Goal and the time traveler McChronicle, we have distorted the space-time continuum and are now forced to relive the same events, the same nightmare over and over again, replay the same ending three years ago, move from the past to the future and back again in order to change something and break this vicious circle.
Laughing panorama of Rufus
This sounds, however, much more serious than it is played. Rufus is still the same narcissistic cynic and loafer. He breaks everything he touches, and in his vision of a future apocalypse, what worries him most is that for some reason he grew a mustache. In three years Daedalic Entertainment Not only did she not lose her sense of humor, but she even increased it. Frankly flat jokes and witticisms below the belt in Deponia Doomsday several times less than in the last game. But from the very first minutes, Rufus begins to hunt for a pink elephant and eventually mistakes his own mother-in-law in impressive pajamas for him.
And then everything is in the same spirit: Rufus helps a stern Viking with depilation, talks to a flower that looks like Elvis Presley (Elvis Presley), convinces peanuts to sacrifice themselves for butter, shaves beards from bees, breeds new breeds of animals from different genetic codes, communicates with his own double and even lectures to students..
The concentration of jokes, funny situations, funny dialogues and hilarious comments is off the charts. This is largely due to the fact that Deponia Doomsday Compared to previous episodes, the quest has become more concise and concentrated – there are fewer large locations and empty runs back and forth, but there is more action and healthy laughter.
Mini-games and maxi-logic
This, of course, affected the gameplay. Strange, https://wilberforceinstitute.uk/lay-betting-strategy/ bizarre and funny logic common to all quests from Daedalic, is still here – here you can make headphones out of potatoes, take a photo with a bowling ball, use slippers for massage, and so on. But in general, due to the fact that the locations have become smaller, and the story and action itself have become more concise, in Deponia Doomsday you are much less likely to fall into a state of frustration, trying to understand what they want from you and why. Some will say that everything has become simpler, while others will argue that it is clearer and more logical.
But this time there are a lot more mini-games – from a funny version of tic-tac-toe to stylized shooting gallery and 8-bit turn-based strategies. Even QTEs have appeared, but here the authors are not trying to follow fashion, but are ironizing it in their own style.
Authors Deponia constantly experimented with presentation, quoted and parodied a bunch of films, made a lot of references to modern politics and culture, and Rufus himself cheerfully broke the “fourth wall” every now and then, directly addressing the player on the other side of the screen. And in Deponia Doomsday this madness is reaching its peak. What we have in front of us is not actually the fourth part or an epilogue, but a kind of joke, a game within a game that avidly quotes itself, replays its own ending from three years ago ten times and mockingly makes us wonder: did we and Rufus dream all this?? The joke, I must admit, was a success.
Pros: a sea of humor; more logical riddles; plenty of fun mini-games.
Cons: In some places, logic and a sense of proportion still fail the authors.
Deponia Doomsday
Best comments
Wow, there are so many disadvantages, that’s why I love rating systems is because everyone can slap ± with the wording – “Because the king decided so”. Now sit here and think about what I stupid fool did wrong, where and who I insulted, and didn’t I eat someone’s dog in the process of this terrible insult?.
I know that responding to comments after 4 years is bad manners, but it just so happens that just now I got to this game and decided to see what other players thought about it, and your opinion coincided with mine. By the way, the prophet who writes the commandments in stone ironically speaks on this topic in the game. Something like: “I wrote three commandments here, but there was something left unsaid and everyone asked for continuation, so I decided to write another one, I’ll call it commandment three and a half.”.
It’s a pity that almost no one will see this comment.
great series of games from a great studio. I would also be happy to see a sequel to The Night of the Rabbit.
I never doubted that “Deponia” would be continued – there was too much of a troll song at the end of the third part about the fact that “this is the end, definitely the end, and there will be no continuation, don’t even hope”. IMHO, it came out a little ambiguous. On the one hand, this is the same “Deponia”, fun and crazy, and in general the approach to the design of quests “in the style of Rufus” is unique in its own way and will not become boring for a long time, but on the other hand, I agree with the commentator above, the whole game is a complete trolling about the fact that the ending of the third part is the most correct, bear with it. And this part essentially contributes nothing to the overall plot of the series, and in general, in the end you get confused in all this pile of time paradoxes, and you lose the thread of the story. As a result, for the series it may not be the best part (personally, I like the second one the most), but if we compare it with the state of things in the genre as a whole, then I agree with “amazing”. Well, let’s wait to see what happens next. I don’t think this is the last part – Daedalik won’t cut down his most successful series.
I put it off for a long time, but I finally got through it. And this is the moment I noticed. it feels like the authors specifically made this game to respond to the outcries about the inappropriate ending, thereby showing what could happen if this ending was changed. The story must have an end, for Deponia it is the death of Rufus and if this does not happen, then the story cannot end correctly, as a result of which all these time paradoxes appeared. It seems to me that the script of this part talks about intervention in it in order to create a good ending and how the story reacted to this (this is why the “fourth walls” noted above), and the singer appeared only at the beginning, singing specifically about the end. After searching a bit, I didn’t notice a similar idea on the Internet (probably I searched too little), they are mainly discussing this part as a full-fledged continuation of the story, albeit created for the sake of fans. It turns out, in a sense, a message – don’t look for unnecessary sequels, but just enjoy a good story from beginning to end. It’s a pity that almost no one will see this comment… six months have already passed… But I hope that those who read it will look differently at the script of this game and many other works..
After another 4 years.
I saw your comment and it’s damn right. I was always indignant at the ending of the original trilogy, I cried, begged, I almost wanted to make a sacrifice.
But then I calmed down. I thought and realized… that I would ask my friend for an opinion. And he answered: Rufus would not be happy if he got his. He would continue doing anything. And would destroy Elysium. And Goal. That’s what the story was about. And changing the ending would be strange and inappropriate.
I remember in the first part it was necessary to make a hole with one thing in another thing. And I tried everything on this thing, except for the right thing. I couldn’t resist and looked into the passage. Then it was very disappointing, because there wasn’t even any riddle there.
I don’t want to get into an argument about who is right… but regarding the prehistoric part, if you combine the opening video + the penultimate scenes + credits… well, like it or not, some kind of analogy can be drawn… To be honest, these time loops/pants/holes completely confused me))
That’s why I stopped commenting on SG altogether. Now I’ll take a minus for this comment and once again prove the inconsistency of such a rating system.
Oh, I didn’t want to argue, I just like to unravel these games over time) In any case, logic fits poorly into this game, so if they want to make a sequel, then of course they will find something to cling to.
Well, in general, they summed it all up quite well, considering what little star happened in the plot. But inconsistencies still cannot be avoided. For example, where did the old Goal come from if she either falls down or is sent back to Elysium. But there definitely weren’t two Goals. Rufus, who climbed into the back seat, in some way closed the loop and prevented the second Goal from appearing in the plot and, in general, all the plot endings from the moment we appear in the shower next to her father (including the part with the freezing and rescue from the explosion). The dinosaur episode shouldn’t exist at all. It is there to make it easier for the player to understand the development of events, but it could not happen. They even say themselves “why are you leading this story if we can’t get out of here?”. That is, the hidden Rufus actually couldn’t get there, because in any case he would have to fall down, and with his broken bones, his chances of survival are certainly low. This leaves one Goal, two Rufus (the first from the main trilogy and the second half-dead), and the elephants, who eventually return home. I wanted to keep it to a couple of lines, but that’s where it went :/
And with the ending, it seems to me, this was exactly the case when the comedy should have been left as a comedy. They went through this and it was all in vain. This is exactly the moment when I’m more happy with a template happy ending.
Me too, just in case, I didn’t want to get into an online argument))) I completely agree with the last thought! 😉