Dreamscaper Review
When was the last time you remembered having a dream? I don’t mean that in the sense that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to have hope for the future, I mean when was the last time you remembered the nightly phantasmagoria your brain produces while you sleep? On the rare occasion that I do remember one of my dreams, they’re such outlandish creations that I can’t imagine they’re anything useful or insightful. That doesn’t stop some from saying they’re a peek into our hidden desires or solutions to our problems. Maybe that’s true, I’m certainly no expert. Last week saw the release of Dreamscaper, a roguelite in which that idea is a reality.
In Dreamscaper, players are Cassidy, a young woman who has recently moved to the city of Redhaven and is having quite a few problems. To cope with these problems, Cassidy enters the fantastical world of her subconscious every time she falls asleep. There she fights against nightmare monsters and embodiments of her negative feelings. As she descends deeper into her own mind, she will find the power she needs to conquer her worries in the waking world and grow stronger in the dreaming world, as well as uncover the troubled past that drove her from her hometown.
The most obvious and most noteworthy thing about Dreamscaper is the dream world of Cassidy’s subconscious, and more specifically the unconventional weapons and abilities players are able to use. In the early parts of the game, players will wield baseball bats, snowballs and breakdancing, but as Cassidy learns to dream bigger, players will find themselves brandishing magic scythes, calling lightning from the sky, and and playing explosive guitar chords. The game’s special abilities, known as Lucid Attacks, are where this creativity shines. Not only is there a tremendous variety of these lucid attacks, but each one has a unique application. On one hand, the Kilonova attack does incredible damage in an area, while the Static Field attack creates an electrified dome to protect the player. Almost every weapon and ability Cassidy can equip is bombastic and I had a ton of fun with them, with combat yo-yos and laser eye blasts holding a special place in my heart. A larger portion of these than I would like are references to other media, including weapons clearly inspired by Earthbending of the Avatar franchise and Cloud’s infamous Buster Sword from Final Fantasy 7. This annoyed me a little, as do all such references, but I found these easier to stomach because Cassidy’s subconscious draws on an in-game video game and her life in general, so it makes more sense for these fragments to appear.
While Dreamscaper hits a home run with Cassidy’s dream arsenal, the foes of the subconscious are much less consistent. The non-boss enemies in Dreamscaper are mostly generic shadow creatures of a few repeated shapes. The most common foe is a sword-wielding shadowy mass, with a glowing head and no legs. This is a sight players will need to get used to, as it’s repeated across the levels. Similarly, there is a spherical turret enemy that, while not changing shape, can fire in a few different ways and a generic slime blob. I know character design isn’t easy but these enemies didn’t feel impactful or remarkable at all, which is a problem for a game set in the human subconscious. I would have preferred enemies that immediately evoke the core idea of its threat on a gut level. One enemy design actually does this perfectly: introduced in level three, there is a brute enemy that’s understandable at a glance, while also looking otherworldly. Standing half again as tall as Cassidy, these burly enemies have no armor and a massive weapon, instantly conveying to the player that they’re in for a long fight, unless they’re not light on their feet and the massive club connects. To top it off, its head is crowned with glowing horns, enhancing the unreality of the creature.
The design inconsistency continues with the game’s end of level boss enemies, though to a lesser degree. Before moving on to the next level, players must confront an incarnation of one of Cassidy’s most powerful negative emotions. These have a strong visual design, but the mechanics of the fight don’t quite measure up. As an example, the first boss is Cassidy’s Fear. Fear takes the form of a massive lurking fish, able to sink deep into normally shallow pools of water. When submerged, the Fear’s four massive fangs poke above the surface like a squadron of shark fins. Finally, its tail is an anchor. I think this design is tremendous because just using visuals alone it evokes the feeling of Fear. It can vanish and suddenly reappear in a moment, it can lurk just below the surface to constantly menace, and it can drag you down like a dead weight. Unfortunately, while the design is immaculate, the fight is uninspired and stale. Fear will swim around as sea mines inexplicably appear. Once triggered by the player, these mines will detonate near Fear and cause it to be temporarily beached where it can be attacked by the player. After giving the player a few moments to hit it, Fear will engage in some standard video game boss attacks. These fights feel like such a missed opportunity because the visual designs are so strong and the mechanics can’t reach those same heights.
Dreamscaper is in a bit of an awkward position. I like most of it thanks to creative visuals and gameplay ideas and, though it needs a bit more polish, especially for the Switch version, I think it’s definitely worth $25. However, nothing exists in a vacuum, and Dreamscaper exists alongside Hades, a roguelite with relationship development on both the PC and Switch for $25. I think if you don’t own Hades, you’ll be better off buying that rather than Dreamscaper. However, if you’ve already gotten everything you want out of Hades or just don’t want to buy it, Dreamscaper would be an excellent purchase.
Buy this game at full price
It’s worth every penny they’re asking
