Dustforce review: who knew sweeping up leaves could be this tough?

Dust-busting platformer Dustforce is a relatively old game, having first been developed by Hitbox Team in 2012 for the PC platform. Dustforce, which has you playing a janitor with a cleaning implement of doom, was published on consoles by Capcom  earlier this year, and we’ve finally gotten our paws on the Playstation Vita version.

In Dustforce, you get to pick one of four different janitors to clean up the world with. Insidious dust, leaves, and goo have settled across all sorts of environments, and it’s up to you to get rid of them! You are dropped straight into the tutorial, where you are taught to double jump, run along walls, and sweep up all those pesky leaves.

Dustforce isn’t quite your typical platformer, in that you aren’t judged by the amount of shiny rings you collect or the number of enemies you beat up. Instead, you’re assessed according to your level completing, the finesse in which you dusted, and your speed. Completing a level perfectly awards you with a key that can be used to access a locked level, although the less capable (like myself) can choose to haphazardly complete more levels to qualify for a key.

Each level in Dustforce has dust scattered along it to guide you to an ending point, where you’ll have to defeat dusty critters in order to finish. Enemies in the game are benign critters or objectives driven mad from getting covered with dust (or leaves or goo), and you beat them by dusting the dirt off of them. Later levels will involve a lot of intricate wall climbing, a la a Chinese kungfu master, though you do get a special area-of-effect ultimate move that can be used when you fill up your dust-o-meter.

Dustforce is not an easy game, though. It is more art than entertainment, and movements in Dustforce can get awkward, being more suited for gliding along a line of leaves than inching closer to the edge of the platform. This gameplay suits the aesthetic of the game, as the ease at which you get to restart a level, level objectives, and soothing background music encourage seamless, uninterrupted hours of sweeping up leaves.

Except that it’s not so for the uninclined. While Dustforce is forgiving, in the sense that you don’t take damage and the only enemy you face off against is yourself, it’s hellishly difficult to wall climb or glide in midair if you’re like me and not all that handy with platformers. The game’s lack of explanation doesn’t help either.

Dustforce has a very minimalist aesthetic, and this means there are little to no tooltips or further explanations beyond its comprehensive tutorial. Each playable janitor is equipped with different tools; the first two are your standard broom-wielders, the third has a pair of pom-pom dusters, while the last is an old dude with a vacuum cleaner. The problem is, the game doesn’t tell you that each janitor has his or her own characteristics, and it can get a little annoying when you’re trying to cross a level that needs a particular character.

Still, Dustforce makes for very zen gameplay if you can get the hang of it. The game’s minimalist aesthetic and background music make for a quiet, meditative experience—that’s if you can actually play it well. If not, you’re going to dislike sweeping up leaves in the game as much as you dislike sweeping up the yard.

Dustforce is available for the Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita via the Playstation Network, and for the Xbox 360.