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A fantastic debut game by AdHoc Studio
By Ameer Ammar
All of the charm that Telltale once had and so much more.
Dispatch feels like it came out of nowhere, I had only half-registered this game's announcement back in 2024 and never looked at it again. Until right around launch day however, a couple of my friends here recommended it and the sell was "the directors of The Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands are working on it", considering those are two of my favorite stories ever, it was a no-brainer. and god was I surprised.
First off, Dispatch's writing and story are impeccable. The script here brings together a group of criminals and sets Robert, the protagonist, to lead this team and turn them into superheroes. Every single member of the Z-Team is memorable and gets their moment to shine, they are also all hilarious. Dispatch managed to make me laugh countless times throughout its ~8 hour runtime, It's a similar kind of humor to The Boys without being overly crude, its the right amount of silly being combined with some truly heartfelt moments that had me on the edge of tears. This is a Telltale-style game so the story that each player experiences will be different and I was mainly surprised by how much choices actually change things, Telltale often employes an "illusion of choice" where things didn't truly change much but Dispatch adds entirely new scenes and removes others depending on your choices, by the end, it really did feel like my Robert was my own, which was a true hero. for others, he was more of an anti-hero, you really do shape the story and I loved that.
There's the romance aspect which has gotten a lot of attention online and it's done great, choosing between Invisigal and Blazer was a genuinely hard choice but I went with Invisigal and the writing is just so tastefully done, it doesn't feel like the usual RPG romance but it feels like a real relationship between two people who get into issues and arguments but also very clearly have love for each other, I loved it.
Dispatch was downright incredible animation. I'm talking up there with some of the best animated TV like Arcane. The colors pop and there's this certain dreamy feel to all of the environments, There's a purple hue in the night scenes that engulfes the city and it gives this nostalgic cozy feel to the atmosphere and environments that really gets me. Every single character is instantly recognizable, the designs are so unique that each member of the Z-Team is instantly recognizable & memorable, its genuinely genius level character design and these characters are brought to life by fantastic voice acting, Aaron Paul as Robert Robertson III brings a special performance in specific here, I haven't really seen Aaron Paul in anything outside of Breaking Bad & Invincible but he brings a unique, relatable voice to Robert that feels completely different from anything he's done before, Robert is a true hero without his suit and he sells that completely. Everyone else on the cast delivers a stellar performance and it really speaks to their talent that a group of YouTubers managed to bring out some of my favorite performances this year especially Jacksepticeye and Moist Critical, both are hilarious in their roles and did a great job. My favorite character aside from Robert was easily Invisigal, Laura Bailey is a treasure and she continues to deliver iconic characters in video games.
Gameplay wise, I would say this is the one part where I think Dispatch stumbles. I like the Dispatching mini-game itself, there's a lot of character banter done here but the hacking minigame was just not fun and it showed up far too often for my liking, I honestly was wishing there was a setting that allowed me to skip this mini-game in specific and not because it was difficult, its super easy I just found it tedious and dialogue usually does pause during it, so you lose that aspect as well for engaging with it.
Aside from that minor flaw, overall, Dispatch is a fantastic story game that is honestly a no-brainer for fans of Telltale-style games and fans of superhero shows like Invincible and The Boys.
FINAL VERDICT:
Dispatch - 9/10 - MUST-BUY