Dex

Dex is a side-scrolling 2D action RPG set in a neon-soaked cyberpunk city called Harbor Prime. You play as Dex, a young woman who wakes up with no idea why a powerful corporate AI called the Complex wants her dead. From that premise the game spins out a surprisingly layered conspiracy narrative, built on faction allegiances, shady fixers, and a handful of genuinely well-written characters who remember what you did for them three quests ago. For a game made by a small Czech studio, the worldbuilding ambition is real and mostly lands. The RPG skeleton is the strongest part of the package. You distribute points across stealth, hacking, strength, and combat skills, and those choices tangibly redirect how missions play out. A high-hacking build lets you ghost through corporate facilities by flipping cameras and turrets; a brawler build turns the same zones into messy corridor fights. There is also a "cyberspace" layer, a neon wireframe dungeon you jack into to solve certain objectives, which adds welcome texture even if it overstays its welcome by the third or fourth visit. Side quests range from genuinely interesting moral knots to fetch-job filler, and yes, there is some padding in the mid-section that will test your patience if you have low tolerance for "go collect three things" structures. Combat is the weakest link and it never stops being that. The 2D brawling feels functional rather than satisfying, animations are stiff, and enemy AI has a tendency to stack on top of each other in tight corridors turning fights into button-mash choke points. Stealth is more mechanically rewarding but also more inconsistent, with detection cones that occasionally behave like they are running on their own private logic. If you come in expecting Hollow Knight-level action, you will bounce off hard. Where Dex earns its Very Positive rating is in its writing and atmosphere. The main story asks real questions about digital consciousness, free will, and corporate control without telegraphing its answers, and the ending choices carry actual weight depending on how you played. The pixel-art environments are dense and readable, the synth soundtrack does genuine work setting tone, and Harbor Prime feels like a place with history rather than a backdrop. For a game released in 2015 on a clearly limited budget, that sense of place is an achievement worth acknowledging. The honest pitch is this: Dex is for players who prioritise narrative and build experimentation over tight combat, and who find the retrofuturist cyberpunk aesthetic more appealing than exhausting. If you bounced off Shadowrun Returns because it was too static but found Katana ZERO too twitchy, Dex sits in a comfortable middle ground. It is unpolished in places that matter, but it rewards patience and a willingness to engage with its world on its own terms.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

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