Duskfade: the fluidity reminds you of Jet Set Radio Future, the real lineage lies elsewhere

You are right about the sensation and right to say it is slightly out of context. Both at once, and that is interesting.

What evokes Jet Set Radio Future here is the dynamism: a character who never quite stops, a chain of movements that reads like a sentence, and a stylised art direction with bold colours. That grammar of continuous movement does belong to Smilebit's game.

But the lineage the studio claims is another, and it is explicit.

A love letter to 3D platformers

Weird Beluga, published by Fireshine Games, presents Duskfade as a declaration of love to the 3D action platformers of the great era. So we are on the Jak and Daxter side of things rather than the urban grinding side.

The difference matters. Jet Set Radio Future was a game of flow: you glided, you held the line, the city was a track. Duskfade is a game of traversal and combat: you jump, dash, grapple, glide, and slash. Movement is a means of reaching things, not an end in itself.

Hence the misleading kinship: the fluidity is the same, the objective is not.

What the game tells

The setting is nicely found. A mysterious Clock Tower has plunged the land into eternal night, and Zirian, accompanied by his mechanical Cuckoo, must rescue his sister from the claws of Despair by restoring the fabric of time and uncovering the secrets of the Master Clockmakers.

You cross realms shaped by those clockmakers, ethereal forests, underwater realms, sunlit dunes, cloudy heights, each full of secrets. The studio announces a coming-of-age story, with heart, loss and a cast of characters each embodying an emotional hurdle.

That is more narratively ambitious than the genre average, and it is also the risk: a platformer aiming to move you has to hold its writing, otherwise sincerity turns to mush.

What sets the score

And you, which do you prefer: a flawless remake of a game you love, or a new and imperfect game in the same spirit?

It rewards an art direction that works immediately, a complete movement vocabulary of jump, dash, grapple and glide, and a setting that invites exploration. It also accounts for the fact that this genre is judged almost entirely on control precision and camera quality, two things no store page can prove and which have buried plenty of promising platformers.

A practical plus, it is available in French and announced as Steam Deck compatible, which suits this type of game well.

If you were looking for a successor to Jet Set Radio Future, it is not here, and the wait continues. If you were looking for a 3D platformer with real style and a genuine sense of movement, you are in the right place.

The discussion carries on over on our Discord, where we relitigate scores for far longer than is reasonable.