Heaven Dust Review

Heaven Dust stars an unwilling hero who wakes up in a mansion that houses a secret laboratory; where scientists were researching Heaven Dust. This is a drug that could offer immortality. And as expected things, go awry. As you explore, you realize that it has been overrun by zombies. In order to solve the mystery and save your skin, you’ll need to kill zombies, avoid deadly traps and solve a myriad of puzzles.

Heaven Dust is a 3D isometric survival horror game where players will explore the mansion and its nearby areas in order to get to the bottom of the mystery. Early on, you’ll find a Beretta firearm that will be your only source of survival against the hordes of the undead. When killing zombies, some of them will drop coins that can be used at various vending machines found throughout the areas. Due to the camera angle, the developer added auto-aiming which makes things easier.

While you do find ammo the normal way, you’ll also come across gunpowder (mostly available in vending machines) and bullet shells. This will allow you to make bullets on the fly. One important detail, our little hero only has six inventory slots on him meaning you’ll have to be warry as to what you carry. Thankfully, akin to the original Resident Evil games, there’s a magic box where you can store items and recuperate them in different boxes.

Interestingly enough, the game offers three different endings giving some replay value. The game also caters to both speedrunners and completionists. The game has an achievement for those fast enough to finish the game under 30 minutes; but gives a lot for those wanting to take their sweet time and discover the lore of the game or find a few hidden things.

The game looks pretty good; the map is surprisingly big and connects various areas surrounding the mansion, which is your starting point and a place you’ll revisit a few times after finding specific key items that will open up new areas. You’ll explore a prison, lab, exteriors; and each environment is unique with also a dark color tone to represent the theme of the game. The soundtrack is also a bit minimalistic, but has clear Resident Evil (1996 version) inspired tunes. The only voiceover, so to speak, is the zombies as they moan and roam around trying to snack on your brains.

Heaven Dust does have a few nuisance; the first main issue is the amount of backtracking you’ll do. Given our protagonist’s limited inventory, you’ll constantly have to backtrack to the magical box in order to either recuperate a reusable item such as the battery or a missing piece of the puzzle you’re trying to solve because you really didn’t/couldn’t expect the puzzle. The other is the jogging movement; you can’t really properly run so slow running and constant backtracking makes for the worse combo.

Heaven Dust is a great homage to early Resident Evil games and solid enough to stand on its own. Plenty of puzzles, exploring, shooting zombies and even three endings for players to enjoy. If you thought backtracking in RE (1996) was a chore, it’s 100 times worst here. While magic boxes are placed strategically to avoid going too far back, there’s still plenty of backtracking to do; either because you need health items or key item to complete puzzles. While light on scares and horror, Heaven Dust remains one of the best survival horror games I’ve played. Definitely recommend it.