Dex is a european styled RPG through and through, only in 2D. All the hallmarks are there: emphasis on exploration, starting up very weak and becoming an unstoppable god at the end, very questionable moment to moment gameplay, all the elements that should be very familiar to you if you ever played games such as Gothic or Two Worlds or any european action-RPG from the 2000s.
Good news is, the game does a fairly good job at what it needed to do right, namely exploration (and reasons to explore) and character building. The game gives plenty of varied ways to improve yourself, while also having to make decisions on what you want to improve on as some sacrifices will have to be made, and it all feels nice when you're at a level where you're comfortable buying whatever you want and punching whoever you feel like. Side quests and the layout of the city are good too, it's big enough to feel plausible but not so big that you can't remember its layout (and the game will ask you to remember where things are from time to time), and the side quests are all varied and interesting enough to stand out from one another, not having many of them in the first place probably helped with making them more fleshed out.
The bad is, there's no going around it, the action gameplay. It's fairly inoffensive with enough health items and using stealth in the first few hours, but at its best it's very basic. At its worst you won't be able to even see the enemies being able to see you and you'll have to engage in such a boring game of taking two pokes and then guarding that even the guys at From Software would say that it's a little excessive. Leveling up and getting implants does make combat easier, almost to the point of just needing to mash the attack button, but it's not really a positive when the game playing itself is preferable over having to interact with its combat.
I would recommend Dex. It's a game that will definitely be an acquired taste, but if you're into smaller games, cyberpunk, and/or european rpgs, there's a pretty solid, likeable game here, despite or maybe also because of its very small budget.
Good news is, the game does a fairly good job at what it needed to do right, namely exploration (and reasons to explore) and character building. The game gives plenty of varied ways to improve yourself, while also having to make decisions on what you want to improve on as some sacrifices will have to be made, and it all feels nice when you're at a level where you're comfortable buying whatever you want and punching whoever you feel like. Side quests and the layout of the city are good too, it's big enough to feel plausible but not so big that you can't remember its layout (and the game will ask you to remember where things are from time to time), and the side quests are all varied and interesting enough to stand out from one another, not having many of them in the first place probably helped with making them more fleshed out.
The bad is, there's no going around it, the action gameplay. It's fairly inoffensive with enough health items and using stealth in the first few hours, but at its best it's very basic. At its worst you won't be able to even see the enemies being able to see you and you'll have to engage in such a boring game of taking two pokes and then guarding that even the guys at From Software would say that it's a little excessive. Leveling up and getting implants does make combat easier, almost to the point of just needing to mash the attack button, but it's not really a positive when the game playing itself is preferable over having to interact with its combat.
I would recommend Dex. It's a game that will definitely be an acquired taste, but if you're into smaller games, cyberpunk, and/or european rpgs, there's a pretty solid, likeable game here, despite or maybe also because of its very small budget.