People often say that imitation is the highest form of flattery and with Heaven Dust, the game “inspired” by Resident Evil, the mimicry is there but is it flattering to Capcoms flagship franchise? Or just plain insulting?
When Javier was selling the game to me, he told me that “Heaven Dust is a love letter to classic 90’s survival horror games and all gamers who really love video games.” It took me a few days to realise that he had just pasted this description from the Nintendo website but an additional tidbit of information that pricked my ears up was that this game was heavily inspired by my favourite series of games: Resident Evil.
To say “Inspired by” is a serious understatement though, you wake up in a mansion that has been inhabited by Zombies and you have to work your way through rooms by solving puzzles finding various shape themed keys and generally surviving.
Oh and if you get bitten you can heal yourself with Herbs, you can even mix a red and green herb together to make a super herb that heals you all the way back to full health.
OH AND ANOTHER THING, Even the promotional art for the game contains nemesis a big monster who looks eerily familiar…
See what I mean?
Thing is though, Heaven Dust is actually quite good. The isometric gameplay does give it a bit of fresh taste that is a little different to classic Resident Evil, even if this is basically the only difference in the game…
The game is also really quite fun to look at with the graphics taking a far more cartoony approach fitting to the indie style of the game. It just makes seeing the little Zombie Sprites fun to look at as they shamble around until they meet the sharp end of your bullet and it never overstayed it’s welcome in the brief runtime that I had with the game.
I have also read that the game features multiple endings and I have found that Heaven Dust is short, sweet and engaging enough that I want to pick it back up in order to see how big the variance between the endings really is.
No matter how much I enjoy it though, there is the constant niggling feeling in the back of my mind of just how similar this is to Resident Evil and my worry is that once Capcom catch wind of it there is a real chance this game may be pulled from stores.
With this in mind though, I do advise you to pick up Heaven Dust because it’s a super fun zombie romp that doesn’t take itself overly seriously and you will be able to finish in a weekend and have a blast doing so.
I give Heaven Dust a