When comparing Dust: An Elysian Tail vs Crawl, the Slant community recommends Crawl for most people. In the question“What are the best games on Linux?” Crawl is ranked 49th while Dust: An Elysian Tail is ranked 85th. The most important reason people chose Crawl is:
Crawl has one lone hero enter a dungeon with objective to find the dungeon boss and strike it down. However, other players wish to take that glory as well, and will use all means possible to take the soul and spot in the story of the hero for themselves. Whoever players the hero, must struggle trough the dungeon, killing monsters and gaining money and experience to get new equipment and grow stronger. All the while other players will take control of monsters and traps to kill the hero. Monsters will make attempts cooperate to get the hero, but to get the soul one must strike the last blow and prepare defend themselves when roles change, one cannot be too cooperative with the temporary allies.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Gorgeous visual aesthetic
Hand-drawn graphics are pleasing.
Pro Very emotional and funny
Cut scenes are deep and expressive.
Pro Spoken storyline
No need to read, just listen to the narration.
Pro Great combat system
The combat system is smooth and entertaining.
Pro Nice soundtrack
Pro Unique gameplay, blend of cooperation and betrayal
Crawl has one lone hero enter a dungeon with objective to find the dungeon boss and strike it down. However, other players wish to take that glory as well, and will use all means possible to take the soul and spot in the story of the hero for themselves. Whoever players the hero, must struggle trough the dungeon, killing monsters and gaining money and experience to get new equipment and grow stronger. All the while other players will take control of monsters and traps to kill the hero. Monsters will make attempts cooperate to get the hero, but to get the soul one must strike the last blow and prepare defend themselves when roles change, one cannot be too cooperative with the temporary allies.
Pro Local (couch ) 2-4 asymmetric multiplayer
Crawl has built in support for local 2-4 player asymmetric multiplayer with 3 out of the 4 playing co-op against the main player.
Pro Replay value
As the game is played, different monsters are unlocked and dungeons change for each playthrough with different bosses making the game stay interesting as time goes on. Available items change each play-trough as well, players cannot choose same play-style each time as different weapons require different tactics.
Pro Retro graphics
The art style of Crawl is reminiscent of 8bit games of yore and yet are still detailed enough to have very different designs for the different monsters in the game.
Cons
Con Saving Issues
You can only save at fixed places, and sometimes it takes multiple tries to save a game.
Con Cheesy
Both character design and dialogues are incredibly cheesy. This may work well for kids though.
Con No online multiplayer
Obviously the game is designed around multiplayer play but sadly there is no online multiplayer included.