Juna - The Dreamwalker Reviews

How about a modern "Links Awakening" with some "Alundra" thrown in? Another reviewer stated this and it fits nicely. It seems like this is a "custom-everything" Gamemaker project. The love and detail on display shines through despite the game's faults (are these subjective? I can never tell anymore...) The music is orchestral and uplifting though I can't decipher if it's Gamemaker stock or not... doesn't matter as long as it sounds great! In the World of Juna, the quantum foundation of existence is clearly skittles. This can be seen in the tasty rainbow scatter that rips apart your foes. As to whether or not Juna is herself made of skittles I cannot determine... perhaps it is only the force she is opposing? I'll confess that I started out loving this game and gushing over its aesthetic, visuals, charm, creativity and puzzle-logic. I greatly enjoyed at least half of what I played. By the time I threw in the towel I was cursing it. This doesn't mean the game is bad but rather that it needs more time to be perfected. I think the potential here is enormous and the developer's forthright responses to bugs is very appreciated. Whats more, they are working on a higher resolution version of the game with redrawn graphics throughout. Bugs and crashes are numerous and I encountered one that corrupted my save file. Many of these have been fixed as of writing this. I would caution those playing to make save backups in a separate folder with dates or whatnot in the event of a corruption. Performance suffers major slowdown on certain screens despite the pixel graphics. Perhaps this is a Gamemaker engine problem, or it may be my bogged down 2017 laptop (which chugged on these frequent screens). These aren't exactly modern graphics so I suspect that something is handled very inefficiently in Gamemaker (this is not a criticism of the deliberate graphics). Without spoiling anything: In one particular dream sequence there is a jumping mechanic that is required to progress. This jumping mechanic is "speedrun-glitch-skip" logic in my opinion so I consider it unreasonable to expect the player to do this. This same mechanic is used in a later dungeon in any even more frustrating way. I made it to the seventh dungeon and had to call it quits. I could have consulted the developers walkthrough again but I am stubborn about these things on principle (to a fault) and don't consider progress worth it if a walkthrough has to be consulted more than a few times to continue... guess I won't ever be playing the La Mulana games then! ;) For those more flexible regarding guides and who are more patient than I, there is a lot of creativity and ingenuity on display in this game! It is clearly a labor of love from the developer and I think it is worth ironing out whats here... I just hope they consider making the game a little bit more accessible with its cryptic sections. Perhaps portions of the walkt-hrough could be incorporated into the game as collectible pages that keep pace with whichever part of the game the player is in? Go try it out if you are like me and are craving more Zelda-Likes on steam. This game needs more attention, it could become one of the best with some ironing (just my opinion). Thanks!

If you like Links Awakening, you must play this game. Dev. is very responsive and has made numerous tweaks, usually same day, based on user feedback. I also feel this game would be great for speedrunning as there are some fun sequence breaks possible. It has the look and feel of a good Amiga game but much more responsive and fast paced. You can transform into almost any other object or creature in the game and there are loads of hidden mechanics and interesting physics puzzles, much more so than Links Awakening. The game is big, and depending on your problem solving abilities could easily take 50 hours or more for a first completionist playthru.

This zelda-like is incredible. It invokes a feeling in me I didn't even know I could still feel. Its like links awakening mixed with minish cap and it somehow works incredible well. The mechanics are very unique as well (you can become literally anything using a magic rod). It has 8 regular dungeons and 8 "dream" areas and even a large zelda "field". This game is worth it easily at full price and I cannot recommend it enough (even with some of the crashing issues).