[Spoilers] What's ACTUALLY wrong with Deponia Doomsday

[TheEqulizar]

The first 3 Deponia games are some of my favorite games of all time, and while I did enjoy Deponia Doomsday, I don't think it was a perticularly good game. You're lured in with this promise that maybe, just maybe, you'll get a happily ever after where Rufas lives and him and Goal can be together. I get it, people were upset, I was upset, but I didn't think the "Main Series" had a bad ending, it achieved the effect the developers wanted from the start. The reason the main series' ending had that effect on its players was because we had become attached to the characters, we had gone all this way and done all these crazy things with the hope that our easily relatable, lovable idiot, could get his happy ending, and he didn't. The big problem with Deponia Doomsday was that it failed to cause that same attachment, and their big ending, although being the exact same ending as the last time, didn't have the same effect.

From the start, or once Rufus wakes up in Kuvaq, the game feels rushed. The game is incredibly fast paced in comparison to the games in the main series. Think about it, all 3 games followed this formula where you've got this big area (Kuvaq, The Floating Black Market, and Porta Fisco) to take your time in, explore, unlock new areas, and descover all of these great characters; and then they have these oh ♥♥♥♥ moments, where you're moving from place to place, continuing your journey, and there's usually some suspense attached because you care about these characters, and you don't know what curveball they're gonna throw you next.

Deponia Doomsday doesn't have a big open area like that, instead they have a bunch of smaller areas with substantially less discovery. From a game design standpoint, Deponia Doomsday feels less like a web, where you can branch out and work on multiple things at the same time, and more like a chain and you're quickly moving from link to link. If you can't find the solution to the puzzle, guess what, you're ♥♥♥♥ed. Might as well clicking everything on everything right? If I had a dollar for every time this game made that joke, I might be able fund a good 5th Deponia game. Anyways, the point I'm making is that even from a design standpoint, Deponia Doomsday fails to create the same kind of environment where you want to take a second and actually care about the characters you're interracting with. Instead, a lot of the time I found myself agitated, and rushing through the dialogue and scenes (which in manny cases I've heard or seen multiple times, because of the timetravel mechanic), trying to move onto the next thing. This is a point and click after all, not an action game, the developers should try to create a world where the user wants to take their time and become immersed, because the action of pointing and clicking is never going to be that great, no matter how many click as fast as you can, or shoot portals at moving targets that are coming at you mini games you throw in.

Now onto the story. A big part of what made the other Deponia games great was the characters inside of it. You had 3 games of character development, and by the time you got to end of the third game you could pretty much guess how the charecters were going to act ahaid of time, directly attributing to why the main series is so funny. Its also a big part of the reason that Goodbye's ending had so much punch. In this game they threw most of that away. No more Bozo or Doc, and Cletus was barely in it. Instead you get incredibly boring McChronicle, who doeesn't add anything to the game other than convienently bringing in an element of timetravel, and some elephant guys who are pretty much the games only antagonists, even though you're both working towards the same goal. Speaking of which, Goal was only in about half the game, and she didn't even know who you were for most of that time. There was very little interaction with her, which is bad because the whole game is about Rufus getting the girl. It also takes away from the ending, where Rufas gives his life for Goal, again, but if you haven't played the other games (which thankfully I went back and played in preperation for Deponia Doomsday), you would have no idea why he loves Goal so much, and vice versa. As a whole though, Deponia Doomsday goes to Rufas as the sole source of comic relief far too oftern, where in the other games, that relief was supplied by his interactions with others. There are only so many times you can go back to Rufas being an idiot for combining one object with another object, or breaking the 4th, before things start to get stale.

At no point in the story did I feel like anything I did had any consequence, because from the beginning they establish this idea that if anything goes wrong, everything will just start over. From the scene with Toni's mom onward, is when the game stopped becoming lets get the happy ending Rufus deserves, and started becoming oh ♥♥♥♥, lets just get back to where we started, and I think the game really suffered because of it. Things get so ♥♥♥♥ed up so quickly, between messing up timelines, the fewlock's chasing after everyone, and then the pink elephant people, that you know they aren't going to leave it like that. As I was playing the game it left me the player feeling like nothing I did mattered at all, which being that the game was literally one giant time loop which essentially didn't happen, really makes me wonder why Daedalic even made this game. It feels like a cash grab or maybe they really did just make this game to try to justify the last game's ending, but I can't say for sure. I'm also not sure why they chose timetravel to be the theme of the game. You have a planet filled with trash (which is the perfect place for a point and click, where you have to combine items to make better items), and giant space city which just fell from the sky, you have an army of badguys, and a bunch of people who want to find a way off the planet and onto utopia, and instead you make a game about time... I don't get it.

In terms of the overarching story, Deponia Doomsday is basically a spin off/prequel, and adds just about nothing. The only actually important parts of the game were the little bits of Goal's monologue, and how she walks off towards some settlement on Deponia after things get "fixed". Who is she talking to? What happens next? There are also still some plot holes from the third game that weren't adressed at all. Couldn't they just clone another Rufus, it's not like Hermes' lab was destroyed in Porta Fisco? Really, if Daedalic made this game because they truely wanted to make another Deponia game, they should have made it about Goal, trying to Rufus back to like. They could have even had a bit about her trying to find Rufus's body, theres so much to work with. Instead they made an ok game about time travel. It's just a little disapointing.

[TheEqulizar]

TLDR: They designed their whole game around this ending, and it didn't work becaused they forced the scenerio where this ending would fit again

[Dragon Tein]

+

[Balthasar's Pinko Blasphemer]

Wow, I more of hated Goodbye's ending because the lack of resolution rather than "Rufus doesn't get the girl" glad to see something so well thought of instead of just "Rufus doesn't get the girl."

[WoM]

For me, it's a different kind of Deponia. The first 3 are still "the complete journey" and the 4th one acts like some kind of extended epilog that fleshes out the universe.

I liked the different pacing, I liked the fact that you get to visit some wilder parts of the universe, and after the personality split and the cloning, time-travel seems like a fun gimmick to explore.

It is true that secondary characters are more... secondary in this episode, but I enjoyed the faster paced storytelling, took it as a welcome change. To be frank, I don't like when, in a series, each game feels exactly like the previous one.

[Alex]

Some kind of extended epilogue that fl-U-shes out the universe...

Deponia really broke loose at the end of third part. Either the storywriter left, or got disappointed with a title, or something, don't know. But it surely has its reasons. And the only way to get out of 'sticky' title is to continue it, grabbing some money along the way :) So I just hope creators some day find a solution to this crisis. These are series that can be continued almost forever if needed, so dropping it would be no fun.

[Kyutaru]

They brought back Rufus once.

They can easily do it again.

Don't believe that just because we last saw him falling to his death that the end waits just like that. We have seen the Utopians, there's probably a game where they go to that planet like was foreshadowed.

The series isn't over that easily. Rufus might easily hit a flying helicopter thing on the way down and be saved.

[Asuune]

Even if he does die, they can clone Rufus again. He's died SO many times.

[Flinz]

Originally posted by Balthasar's Pinko Blasphemer:

Wow, I more of hated Goodbye's ending because the lack of resolution rather than "Rufus doesn't get the girl" glad to see something so well thought of instead of just "Rufus doesn't get the girl."

You are right. Goodbye Deponia had legit bad ending because of ending was really lacking with very rushed feeling spiced with lie there won't be next Deponia. How story ends doesn't really matter but technical side was weak.Doomsday doesn't suffer from bad ending at all since that's pretty much you know what to expect considering theme and events of game. Game was too intentional towards this ending. Just as Rufus said, what's the point with anything if there isn't real consequences for your actions.

Problem with Doomsday in my eyes is that it doesn't bring anything to the whole and rather plays it's own adventure. It's fine but doesn't really help original story at all. While time traveling can work for humour I'm personally starting get bored by it since so many game/movie/tv serie have been using it. Usually it just breaks story. For example Life is Strange was doing good until last episode where they started messing things with overcomplicated timetravel stuff. What I mean is that time travel generally isn't good for any story that tries to keep it together. It's just too messy. I know they intentionally made it like this with Doomsday. That's why ending is fine, game is good but it's not really feeling sequel to original Deponia story.

Doomsday might be better as game but to be honest I like original trilogy more because it has working story. It's shame since Doomsday had chance continue where Goodbye left. Instead we get rather bitter sounding overextended joke about previous ending. It would be fine if complaining was only about story but bad ending rarely has to do with story itself but how it have been told.

[TheEqulizar]

Originally posted by Flinz:

Originally posted by Balthasar's Pinko Blasphemer:

Wow, I more of hated Goodbye's ending because the lack of resolution rather than "Rufus doesn't get the girl" glad to see something so well thought of instead of just "Rufus doesn't get the girl."

You are right. Goodbye Deponia had legit bad ending because of ending was really lacking with very rushed feeling spiced with lie there won't be next Deponia. How story ends doesn't really matter but technical side was weak.Doomsday doesn't suffer from bad ending at all since that's pretty much you know what to expect considering theme and events of game. Game was too intentional towards this ending. Just as Rufus said, what's the point with anything if there isn't real consequences for your actions.

Problem with Doomsday in my eyes is that it doesn't bring anything to the whole and rather plays it's own adventure. It's fine but doesn't really help original story at all. While time traveling can work for humour I'm personally starting get bored by it since so many game/movie/tv serie have been using it. Usually it just breaks story. For example Life is Strange was doing good until last episode where they started messing things with overcomplicated timetravel stuff. What I mean is that time travel generally isn't good for any story that tries to keep it together. It's just too messy. I know they intentionally made it like this with Doomsday. That's why ending is fine, game is good but it's not really feeling sequel to original Deponia story.

Doomsday might be better as game but to be honest I like original trilogy more because it has working story. It's shame since Doomsday had chance continue where Goodbye left. Instead we get rather bitter sounding overextended joke about previous ending. It would be fine if complaining was only about story but bad ending rarely has to do with story itself but how it have been told.

I agree that Doomsday doesn't feel as much like a sequel and more like a spin off of the original three games, thats why I tried so hard to emphasize main series, and also that it doen't bring anything to the table in terms of overarching story. Doomsday's a story about timetravel, which I believe is because the developers wanted a game that ended the same way and didn't change anything, and timetravel is all they could come up with. The problem there is that the game stops being an adventure about a trash planet and its people, and becomes a story about timetravel for the point of justifying the previous game's ending. Personally I don't even think the ending needed to be justified, I just wanted more Deponia, and that's not what we got.

That being said I enjoyed the game, although it was very repetitive and got stale at parts, because it at least held onto some of the themes from the previous games, and Rufus is one of my favorite characters of all time; but if Deadalic makes another Deponia themed game about timetravel, I don't know if I'd even play it. I just want more Deponia.

[nivakis]

I am also disappointed in this game and I don't even have it. I played it at a friend who bought it. I personally think that the game was unnecessary as it adds nothing to the story, as previously mentioned, it just loops to the ending of deponia 3.
For that price I would really love to see the series move forward and not let me stay at the same place/time as the other 3 left me: To the death of Rufus...

Basically, I think I can go on with my life without ever buying this game, because:
D1 -> D2 -> D3 -> D4
....................^ <- |

Just like it never existed...

[...]

:'( Little sad thought, but then the game really give the feel that Doomday really not a part of the complete series, surely some guy comment say it a spinoff and i am fine with that idea
With or without it the complete series is to be never forget

[Flinz]

Originally posted by Really:

:'( Little sad thought, but then the game really give the feel that Doomday really not a part of the complete series, surely some guy comment say it a spinoff and i am fine with that idea
With or without it the complete series is to be never forget

Doomsday is one intended big joke about how Rufu's fate can't be changed. Understandable that some fans don't want to see Rufus gone but I still think writers missed largest point about Goodbye's ending. Story wasn't bad but ending felt very unfinished and wasn't smooth at all. It felt clear setup for sequel that they kept denying before making Doomsday just to mock how people felt ending wasn't good.

Otherhand best way to make your story to lose most credibility is add messy as possible time travel stuff into it. By the end destroyed spacetime continuum, endless loops/paradoxes and infinite realities and made sure Doomsday can't be taken seriously as sequel. Hopefully next time (bun not intended) they actually focuse again on story of Deponia, with or without Rufus.

[Calsetes]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

They brought back Rufus once.

They can easily do it again.

Don't believe that just because we last saw him falling to his death that the end waits just like that. We have seen the Utopians, there's probably a game where they go to that planet like was foreshadowed.

The series isn't over that easily. Rufus might easily hit a flying helicopter thing on the way down and be saved.

Well, he was there at what I'll dub "the end of time" telling them the story about how he fell to his death, along with Old Rufus, Wedding Goal, and the Utopians. Why he seemingly disappeared in the credits sequence is beyond me, but he's still there. Hell, he's probably still hiding in the back of their time machine that exists and didn't get broken at some point along the way. as well.

Time travel!