Is Duskfade worth buying?

Yes if you grew up on PS2 action-platformers and want something built for fun first. Combat has more depth than the genre usually bothers with.

How long is Duskfade?

About 8–10 hours for the story, and around 15 hours if you collect everything.

Which difficulty should I play?

Master Clockmaker if you want the combat system to matter. The default path is easier than the fights deserve.

Duskfade Review: A PS2-Soul Action-Platformer That Nails the Feeling

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Pros

Movement has Jak-and-Mario momentum: double jump, rail grind, grapple, glide
Combat is involved for a platformer — lock-on, perfect dodge, air combos
Almost every boss mixes a fight with a platforming phase
Four biomes stay visually distinct, with a collect-a-thon that invites backtracking

Cons

Late stages rarely test the full toolkit
Story is heartfelt but a little cliché
No true endgame gauntlet after every tool unlocks

This page is a condensed take on the launch review video — not a scene-by-scene recap.

What Duskfade is going for

Weird Beluga is a 13-person Spanish studio making only its second game. The brief is blunt: build a 3D action-platformer that feels like the PS2 shelf (Jak and Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Sly, Astro Bot), then give it modern lighting instead of trying to invent a new genre.

Zirian leaves Tick Town after nightmare creatures — Inkies — drag the world into eternal night. His sister is taken by Despair. With the clockwork bird Cuckoo he crosses the world to cut the Clock Tower’s four chains. The plot leans on family and loss more than time travel. It is a little cheesy. It is also more interested in its Cloudie-filled clockmaker world than most games in this lane.

How the world is structured

Tick Town is the hub. You do not pick isolated stages off a menu. You walk four biomes, each a straight chain of connected levels — for example a coastal run that goes forest, beach village, islands, then an underwater academy.

Collectibles are the usual collect-a-thon mix: Upgrade Gears for shops, antique coins for Nico’s cards, Music Boxes with rhythm memories, kittens for skins, dyes, Rainbow Ingots for Minutero recolors, Clock Hearts for health, Temporal Cores for ability energy, and Star Shards as the common currency. Some pickups sit behind tools you do not have yet. A teleporter pad lets you return to any cleared level and shows completion per stage.

Each biome hides a temporal chamber (new combat tools, switched on the D-pad), a midway boss, a finale, then a chain to sever. Challenge rifts — purple rings you phase into — stash extra platforming or combat rooms.

Combat and bosses

The developers told the reviewer the fighting has a light Souls influence. In practice that means lock-on, light/heavy strings, air combos, specials, dodge, perfect dodge, and counters — not a Devil May Cry clone. Enemy tells are readable. For a platformer, the system is the surprise.

Bosses are the other surprise. Almost all of them mix a real fight with a platforming phase, often forcing the tool you just unlocked. Some are biome mascots. Some belong to Despair. The final fight on Master Clockmaker is the one encounter that actually asks you to learn every swing.

Kingdom Hearts shows up in the HUD and in two color skins (World Hopper, Shared Memories). The movement itself is closer to Jak plus 3D Mario: a little floaty, still precise, fun to chain into rails, grapples and glides.

Difficulty, length, looks

There are four difficulties. Master Clockmaker is the one that makes the combat kit worth learning. Story length sits around 8–10 hours; a full collectible sweep is closer to 15. Visually it is Unreal with a CG-cartoon finish — forests, libraries, volcanoes, canyons — closer to modern Kingdom Hearts than to the default anime UE look.

The one real knock

Once every tool is unlocked, the game rarely builds a stage that uses all of them at once. Challenge rifts help a little. A late gauntlet — or the unused Tick Town door that looks like a coliseum — would have been the missing exam. Until then, Duskfade is still the rare new 3D platformer that understands why those PS2 covers used to work: it is fun, distinct, and easy to pick up without being empty.

If that sounds like you, start with the beginner guide or the full walkthrough. Switch 2 performance and a second take live in the Switch 2 review.