Dreamscaper Reviews

Fun game

pretty cool rougelike. How the dreaming theme is implemented is just genius

Unskippable cutscenes. Clunky gameplay.

Dreamscaper is a roguelike which plays like a blend of The Binding Of Isaac mixed with Hades. Unfortunately it does not compare well with either of them. All the pieces are in place: The combat is well built upon with melee, ranged attacks and spells as well as blocking and a dodge roll, there is a large variety of weapons and skills and there is even a story to uncover concerning a regular (though propably depressed) young woman going through reocurring nightmares, while trying to make friends in a new city. The stage is set and all the pieces of a good game are in place. And yet, there is a handful of issues which sour the experience, especially since its inspirations are so well made - Dreamscaper just comes short in comparison. For the combat, there are a few big issues. First of all, the visibility and feedback are absolutely terrible. Because of the color palette and visual design of environments projectiles will consistantly blend with the environments. This is particularly jarring in the first area which has bright blue projectiles flying slowly over snowy terrain, but for some reason the issue persists through other environments. This is a shame because the visuals are otherwise great, despite being fully 3D the graphics have a handpainted feel to it. The issue of feedback is exacerbated because some projectiles are too small and difficult to see (stage 3 bomb-lobbing enemies for example). This is partly due to large environments and relatively large zoom distance. On top of that, it is often hard to see whether an enemy is stunned by your attacks or not, and sometimes whether they are dying or not. More thought and care should have been put into this and sound design - if enemies have death grunts, they are often very difficult to hear, their attacks are difficult to discern as well. While the music is good, it is clear that sound design could have been much better. A standout example is the 'perfect attack' window, where you can increase the damage of an attack by chaining attacks at the right time. There is a visual flash but no sound cue. The music is quite loud in the mix by default, but more care should have been put into making important sound cues stand out. Similarly, enemies do not have any sound identity. There are no growls, few distinctive attack sounds, lacking sound cues for dodge timing. Mostly, they're just faceless automatons - and it's a shame. Another issue with the combat is that it has a bit of an identity crisis. It's trying to strike a balance between slow, methodical combat and fast, hectic battles with large amounts of projectiles on the screen. The floaty movement and animations, while fitting to the theme of being in a dream, do not lend themselves well to a faster gameplay style. I don't want to dunk on the story too much, since I'm not that far into the game, but I feel like it starts too slowly, and the interactions with most characters are a bit toothless. It's all mildly enterntaining, and there is a feeling of melancholy to the main character, but it's not very exciting. The themes and topics of the game are very dear to my heart, and yet when playing Dreamscaper I don't really feel anything. Don't get me wrong, Dreamscaper is a very compentently crafted game. Maybe it just wasn't for me.

Very cool, cozy roguelite. Great game :)

is good game, maybe repetetive enemy, but attack is fun and spell is fun, ffuck the small dash it suc

I haven't finished but i have reached the fifth boss From what i played think is good game if you want grindy cozy action dungeon crawler rougelite The main highlights of this game are the artstyle and the combat due to great weapons, lucid attacks and abilities The main problem it is slow grindy meta progression and repetitive enemies 7/10