Dreamscape (PC) review "Maybe the only game I've played where the MVP is an elderly flower armed with a Tommy gun."

I had expectations going into Dreamscape. I know we're supposed to check those before starting a new piece of media, but I'm only human and can't ignore the fact that I've played my share of games from developer Aldorlea. Given my experiences with their titles, I've come to expect their offerings to consists of loutish male protagonists and leading ladies with large breasts, plus a clumsy romantic subplot involving the two. I expected that setup enough that I put off playing this one for some time.

Dreamscape, however, pulls a narrative one-eighty. It first introduces Erin, a modern-day college student on her way to visit her boyfriend, Terry. The dude shows off his new toy, a pair of headphones that allow its wearer to see their dreams. Skeptical, Erin dons the device, and both she and Terry tumble into an alternate universe deep within their psyches. Erin doesn't come out on the other side wearing bikini armor, and Terry remains a somewhat clueless dude. To his chagrin, though, he ends up a prisoner in his own dream world, and only his girlfriend can save him...

This one plays like your standard RPGMaker fare. You guide Erin on a 2D screen, enter turn-based RPG battles, and select your usual commands: Fight, Skill, Item, and Defend. This time, though, encounters aren't random. Instead, you bump into foes on the main screen, with some wandering about and others remaining stationary. The latter of those two block passages ways, so many of them must be defeated to advance. The good news is none of these foes respawn when defeated, and the campaign provides enough experience and various other materials that you need not fear being unable to grind. Items practically litter the world that grant permanent stat boosts, so exploration in itself becomes just as important as garnering experience.

Because you inhabit a dream world, the places you visit are both varied and inventive. For instance, one hallucination takes you to a cave filled with cheese, while an old man hanging out at the hub area dreams of Whitechapel during Jack the Ripper's reign of terror. And yes, if you're not careful, you'll become one of his next victims. From there, you search through haunted castles, pyramids, snowy fields, and a toy maker's shop in an effort to locate Erin's partner.

Erin might be your typical lady, but she's handy with a sword in the dream realm. Even still, her prowess isn't enough to take out every enemy alone. Recognizing this, she teams up with a strange assortment of party members that hark back to the old Oz novels by L. Frank Baum. Straight off, Terry's cat Athena gains a voice and offers offensive magic to compliment Erin's melee skills. It isn't long before the two of them meet a viking mouse oddly named Peeboo and eventually team with an elderly flower woman called Clochette.

Even with your strange ensemble, this adventure proves both difficult and engaging. The first parts involve placing the headphones on Athena and entering a lush forest, where you learn to break boulders and catch mice. Yes, even people in the dream land have dreams you can enter, as placing the item on various animals and NPCs takes you to side dungeons, full-blown campaign beats, or even just tiny chambers full of loot. In some cases, you run afoul of adversaries that wear you down easily, such as cyborg teddy bears inhabiting the aforementioned cave.

Exploration is absolutely key to this quest because it doesn't hold your hand. Most RPGs consist of a series of cutscenes, with dialogue sequences either dropping hints or outright telling you where to go next. Dreamscape doesn't have time for that. You explore dreams until you can go no further, eventually locating equipment that allows you to break various types of impediments or unlock doors. From there, additional routes and places to explore open up, providing both new goodies and fresh problems to solve.

In a way, this game is like an old-school piece. It doesn't spell out the order of operations for you, but leaves you to tinker, experiment, and discover. Granted, you don't have the benefits of Nintendo Power or game-obsessed friends who know the ins and outs of this one, so you rely on your wits or occasionally an online walkthrough. In one area, you come across tiles possessed by poltergeists that automatically kill you. No one in any cutscene tells you how to get around this obstacle, and the storyline doesn't turn it into a plot point or anything. Instead, you turn back around, check out other places, eventually find a handful of crosses that you can equip, and test a theory out. Sure enough, the crosses expel the ghosts, allowing you to advance in that dungeon.

In other words, this adventure is like another Simon's Quest or Legacy of the Wizard, but with a more intuitive means of progressing. You don't come across obtuse puzzles with weird, random solutions like hitting just the right brick in the middle of nowhere or kneeling next to a rock wall with a certain item.

By today's standard, some of these features are unconventional in regards to progression and unfortunately come across as quaint. For one thing, you don't typically get much story- or world-building dialogue. Mostly, chatter consists of comments between characters, with Erin expressing repeatedly how desperate she is to find Terry, Peeboo and Athena bickering because they're both a mouse and a cat, and Clochette offering to make tea. Mindless speech is easy to ignore, but the lack of player guidance combined with next to no shortcuts leaves you with a game world that requires tons of irritating backtracking. If you find a dead end that requires a new power later on, you'll have to pad all the way back through previously visited, cleared-out real estate to get it again. Getting there might require you to enter a dream, find an NPC, enter his dream, then claw all the way back through a dungeon where most of your opponents are already dead.

And speaking of opponents, they do wear you down quickly in this one. Yes, you earn cash during your quest, but vendors exist few and far between. Plus, most shopkeepers don't carry an infinite supply of healing items. Restoration comes down to a spell that barely patches you up and food items lying about that permanently vanish when grabbed. Your only recourse lies with a woman in the hub who heals you for free, but getting to her means you'll need to walk all the way back to where you left off afterward, and doing so gets tiring quickly. You especially do this in areas that have tough enemies, such as the final dungeon and its massive snakes.

And yet, it's still somehow worth it because Dreamscape stepped outside of Aldorlea's comfort zone and called back to old NES adventure affairs enough that it represents a nice break from conventional, modern RPGs and gaming in general. It's the kind of title that reminds us where we came from while defying expectations, showing that sometimes choice simplicity is all a piece needs to stand out.

Staff review by Joseph Shaffer (November 12, 2025) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.