3.5/5 ★ – SlashStriker's review of Desta: The Memories Between.

Desta is a narrative-focused strategy game by UsTwo, the developers of Monument Valley, centered around characters playing a mystical game of dodgeball to work through their relationship issues. Odd premise, but have no fear, it’s all a dream! The game is focused on the titular Desta, who is faced with confronting family, friends and ex-romantic partners for the first time in ages after abruptly leaving town following their father’s death. The time spent in the game is spent in Desta’s mind as they work through how to best approach rekindling relationships from the security of their childhood bedroom. Gameplay begins with short conversational segments between Desta and the other party who is the source of their current anxieties. You are then thrust into strategic combat situations on a isometric map referencing a key location to the relationship in question. Combat is turn based, and focuses on holding and throwing the dodgeballs randomly placed around the map. During your turn you can choose to move your character across the grid or throw a ball a set number of times based on the characters’ stats. During the enemy’s turn they will follow the same rules and move and throw any balls you left on the field. Each character has a health bar and will be removed from play when hit a set number of times. When all characters are removed from either side the game ends. In each chapter of the game, after a few small battles against grunt enemies, you will come face to face with the person on the other side of your worries and engage in a multi-phase boss battle where health carries over from phase to phase. While controlling the available pool of dodgeballs is the core of combat, it is heavily affected by the special skills each playable character and enemy has, which are often ways to expand movement and throwing capabilities. There are also randomly dropped perks and alternative abilities granted to the player in a very loose rogue-lite system that reset following defeat. These systems are very forgiving and allow for level skip to avoid too much repetition. The game is difficult, but far from unfair, and the small level of randomization can lead to some battles feeling trivial based on builds and the enemy pool. Desta features a gorgeous art style, as expected from UsTwo, with both environments and character portraits featuring striking, beautiful designs. The character portrait art style might not be for everyone, but I personally enjoyed it. Desta also comes packed with a fantastic lofi inspired soundtrack helmed by Mansur Brown. I really feel like the soundtrack adds significant weight to scenes and combat and highly recommend playing this game with some good headphones. There is voice acting throughout the game with regional dialects on display, which I personally appreciated. Performances were quality across the board, though the conversations could feel a bit abrupt in shifts of tone, likely by design due to these conversations happening entirely in Desta’s subconscious. I personally played in on my phone and believe the touchscreen controls are probably the way to go with this one, though Desta is currently available on several platforms. The game also features a robust post-game for those looking for more content after the credits roll. I would recommend Desta to artsy indie game fans or strategy fans looking for a light treat between larger games. I played this game on my iPhone as part of my Netflix subscription.