Introduction
Chaos on Deponia is a point and click adventure game that is the second game in the Deponia series. It was developed and published by Daedalic Entertainment. It saw an initial PC release in 2012 before getting an Xbox and PlayStation release in 2017. It then saw a Switch release in 2019.
Review
Picking up immediately where the previous game ends, we see Rufus getting into his usual shenanigans, all while he was trying to get up to the floating city known as Elysium. But on his way to save Goal from the clutches of Cletus, he ends up making a few careless mistakes, landing them in hot water, in the floating black market of Deponia. When he finally finds Goal, he ends up fragmenting her mind into three separate pieces and then has to convince each and every one of them to agree to the surgery that will fix her mind and make it whole.
The story has wit and charm galore, just like the first one. The dialogue is funny with a lot of tongue in cheek jokes, there’s a lot of violent humour that will make you laugh because it comes out of nowhere, and the gags that the game has are almost second to none. When broken down into the grand scheme of things, the story doesn’t run too awfully long, but it helps set the tone for what the next couple games in the series are going to look like. I expect them to take a much darker turn eventually.
After the opening bit of the game, the grand scheme of the story kind of becomes bland when it comes to getting Goals minds back together, as I said. But each of the pieces of Goal all have their own storyline to them, which end up being a barrel of fun. When I wasn’t stumbling around trying to figure out the puzzles, I was enjoying all the silly dialogue options I could choose, and the things you ended up doing. Like fighting Goal in an arena because you had to show her you’re tough. Or trying to become part of a resistance group because one part of her mind thinks it would be wildly exciting. Some of the characters you meet along the way don’t get enough screen time though, and they definitely deserved more.
Unfortunately for the puzzles after the opening bit, they were honestly pretty convoluted. Now I’m not the best at point and click games, I’ll admit it. I’m not smart enough to pick up on the hints that you need to combine this item with that item and hand it to this person to do that thing. But it’s when you have a bunch of puzzles all jumbled together that I start falling apart, and the game has a lot of those right off the bat. During the opening part of the game, I had a walkthrough right beside me just so I could get through. When I became too stuck I looked at it. I don’t enjoy doing things like this in game, but what choice do I have? I’m not going to struggle for 15 hours then call it quits out of anger. But luckily after that, you only really had to deal with one big puzzle at a time, so it got a bit easier. Though I still struggled once or twice.
There are a few minigames that you end up doing now and again, that you have the opportunity to skip if you really want to. Some were fun, some were infuriating. Like one where I had to catch a platypus in a whack a mole styled minigame. The animal would move like a knight from Chess, but when I had things set up to catch it, suddenly it changed how it moved. It didn’t make sense! Or using three dolphins to capture a sub, but they could only rotate or move once a turn, so I was left yelling a lot when I couldn’t get it right for a good 30 minutes.
There’s a couple moments in the game where the animation will turn into a full blown CGI cutscene. I always loved watching these when they came on, as they are beautifully animated and voiced over. Might I also say that the game feels like it works even better only because the way Rufus is voiced. He’s such a numbskull that breaks everything and doesn’t do anything by logical standards, but yet manages to still get things to work for him. So he doesn’t sound like a complete idiot, but he’s also not beaming with intelligence. I love it, I truly do.
Rating
Pros:
- Perfect Voice Acting
- Great Dialogue
- Witty Humour
Cons:
- Opening Act Is Huge And Needed A Walkthrough
- Minigames Are A Pain
Summary
I absolutely loved Chaos on Deponia. It’s been a few years since I played the first one, but I remember why I enjoyed the series so much. I can’t wait to sit down with the next two, and it definitely won’t be many years between, because now it has its teeth in me! For any enjoyers of point and clicks, I cannot recommend this enough!
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Game & Developer Information
Developer/Publisher Website: Daedalic Entertainment
Developer/Publisher Socials: Twitter
PSN Store Links: £9.99/€12.99 Europe / $12.99 North America
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