Goodbye Deponia

In 2016, I bought Deponia (first game of the series) as part of a Daedalic bundle, and at a 90% discount. That game was definitely an impulse purchase as point and click games are not the type of games that I normally play. Back then, I recommended the game, but just barely, as it had some puzzles that made no sense. Eight years later, I bought the rest of the series, also on an impulse and at a deep discount.

Goodbye Deponia is the third game of the series, and basically, if you liked the first two games, you may like this one too. The puzzles in the beginning (and also near the end) were a bit too linear for me. It felt like just going through the motions -- there were a long chain of obscure puzzles/events/actions, that can only be done in one order, that is used to slowly move the story along. Also, some of the mini games were just silly and annoying (not sure why). The puzzles do get better, especially when the story line breaks into separate paths (purposely being vague). And as with the previous games, the story line and humor are just as wacky -- so don't take it too seriously.

There are also a few non-sensical puzzles/solutions with the game. However, as this is the third game of the series, most players should be able to figure it out with a bit of thinking like Rufus, and a lot of trial and error. In fact, the game even points out how common is trial and error used. I just wished that they made the game more forgiving in regards to reaching the solution. It is really annoying when you actually figured out the solution, but accidentally left clicked instead of right clicked, or doing it slightly out of order, etc. -- you wind up moving onto something else on the list to try.

For me, this game was a bit better than the first one, but not as good as the second one. I would still recommend it though. Well worth it at a 90% discount.

Wawee, 3rd game down the hatch.
so here are my two zlottis
art-wise I like how every Deponia game feels better in its art form than the one before it while still keeping the same theme and feeling.
the game story feels a lot longer and a lot more overarching, this is both a plus and a minus, in some regards it gives a much greater feeling, like youre actions happen simultaneously and your decisions have greater weight, however on the other side it also means a lot and i do mean A LOT of the puzzles feel almost like the only way to solve them is to try every combination on every element, imagine having a lock that requires 3 numbers between 1 and 3, so you try 111, 112, 113, 121, etc'
now imagine you also need to have the right combination while also holding either an apple, a banana or an orange, so you try every combination with every fruit, now imagine you ALSO need to be standing on the right color either blue red or green while doing it, you get my point? there isnt a natural way to really know some of these puzzles which kinda left me a bit disappointed, this wasnt a HUGE deal with the last two games but because this one is so BIG it becomes a problem when the game goes into that phase.
it also doesnt help that some puzzle require you to go through pretty lengthy animations before you can land on any solutions.
not to say it couldnt be a good thing, but we needed more of a "hint" on what things could be used for or a better way to learn game mechanics.
which kind of segway to my 3rd point, the humor, which for the most part is good, however there are moments where it either works against the game or against the player, Rufus makes a joke about everything but very rarely will give the player an idea on how to use an item, this kind of causes a lot of frustrations with regards to what i said above, it also doesnt help that the dialog sometimes is so lengthy and so meaningless and so repetitive that you find yourself kind of just wanting to skip it since it just doesnt inform you, the player, of anything useful or amusing.
like you could have a dialog tree with 4 options that might read something like this:
do you know where the fish?
have you seen the fish?
fish?
if you were a fish, were would you go?
and all the answers would be more or less the same leaving you feeling like you basically wasted time but on the other hand sometimes new dialog open when prev dialog are exhausted so you kind of locked to this kind of torture, if i ever start skipping dialog or go find a walk-through i take it as the fault of the devs to teach me how to play their game.
I couldnt shake the feeling while playing this game that more teaching mechanics needed to exist.
and i dont mean outright telling the player.
in the 1st god of war you use ladders to go up things, but then you come to a room with a wall, in order to teach the player they can climb these walls they put a ladder on it, you see the ladder doesnt lead anywhere other than a wall but you climb it anyway and poof now you know u can climb walls, thats what i mean by teaching mechanics.
2 jokes? ^^"
there were 2 jokes in the game that kind of took me off guard like "oh, they really went there"
one i was like "ok, i mean its dark but i guess it fits the game theme and the world theme"
the other one i couldnt really find a justification for and if you finished the game than i assume you know which one i meant.
characters: its still kind of hard for me to say if I like Rufus or now, every game Rufus goes through a pretty meaningful growth at the final phase and than at the beginning of every game it is as if it never happened, which kind of sucks, i really wanna see Rufus become the hero he really wants to be and be the person he wants his friends to see him as but that also requires him to change his attitude towards them, however instead it seems like Goal's role is to force everyone to like him by giving them the naruto speech which, again, can work but at some point it becomes really boring to never see the character grow in these games and on the other hand its kind of a testament that the entire world is changing 180 degrees on him and the guy is still the same child you started with. its hard to argue with Bozo when he said the world would be a better place and his "friends" would be happier if Rufus would just die
Goal: idk, i feel like Goal role in the story has completely been diminished to Rufus's side-kick and hype woman, i dont have much to say about her here because she really became a 1 dimensional character in this one.
Toni: I love Toni, my fav character in this series, complete badass who wants to do good by everyone and help where she can, she is also the main reason why I realllyyyy cant connect too much with Rufus because, agaiinnn, he hates her only because he is an asshole and his inability in 3 games to see that makes it very hard to feel sorry when bad things happen to him even when the game wants you to feel that.
Bozo: sad that his role in this one is pretty much to be a game mechanic and..well... thats it, its like he has a collective amount of 10 minutes screen time and he does nothing in them, i know he was never a big part but at least in the 2nd game he felt more like a presence rather than a tool.
Doc: kind of the same with Bozo
characters in general: so here is where i will say the 2nd game actually is superior and where this game kind of became too big for its own good?
in the 2nd game you had a lot of characters but i still remember most of them because they were your entire game, the barkeeper, the resistance, Bozo, Doc, Donna, the goons, the pharmacist, the platypus club guy, it just felt like a much more of a living world.
in this game however you have (what it feels like at least) 3 times more characters but they each fill maybe just 2% of the overarching world, there also a couple that you have zero interaction with and that have zero progression, they might as-well be statues which i get it, you put so many characters so you have to cut your interactions with them to a minimum but than they dont feel like characters they just feel like pit-stops, you deal with them once and thats it, now they are just the background noise.
overall its a good game and i do recommend it even with all its faults.
the story is still captivating and its a step up in a lot of ways.
if you want a point and click game that breaks a lot of the molds, this is the one :)

As a conclusion for a trilogy, it was great. It was the most complicated one so far, but it really feels more polished. I honestly did like the story and the ending everyone complains about. It’s a really nice ending to a fun, charming adventure (yeah, ignore the fourth game).

Playing this again after 10 years !? My my time do fly.
I remember bits and pieces as I go along, it has some great moments (fave is the wash cycle) but in terms of puzzles I did find it the weakest, but it makes up for that in absurd fun.
Can recommend, even nowadays it’s quality can stand up to other games.

Deponia is a game that throws a whole range of different emotions into the mix at once.
From the first game on, I've been feeling all sorts of good things,
especially when Rufus meets Goal and he just wants to be with her on Elysium to win her love (of course, love is the top priority).
I was even a bit jealous that Rufus and Goal wouldn't be together
I love the way this game is styled. The character animations are great and the environment animations are top-notch.
All the characters have a unique feel to them and they're all drawn so beautifully.
I took tons of screenshots – there's almost two thousand in total, to be honest!
The devs at Daedalic have done a great job. The story is even a little bit unique and works really well in the game's world (in my opinion).
Too bad Rufus will never be with Goal – at least not in this reality or whatever world they're in – but maybe in some alternative timeline or something, he'll meet her someday.
Doomsday…

The story line is good, but three clones of Rufus make it a bit tougher. Goodbye Duponia has pros and cons when I compare with predecessors. Though, I liked it. When I got lost at some points I had difficulty to find help from any walk-through source since all are mixed with deprecated info. Anyway the game is good for children, if you can catch it on sale, I recommend it. By the way, it requires lots of patience.

I have to admit that the story has some casual racism and very dark humor will surely will not pass this day in age but that's the POINT the character is an arshole and a slowly changing arshole who is again slowly changing his error of his way. never have I been in the edge of the seat playing a compelling character.
The the whole plot just reached sky high like elysium level high, my god its a roller coaster of emotions and the cliff hanger just makes me wanna play the last entry even more. Huzzah, time to add a new comment in the last entire till the survivor is released