Dreams: Chapter 1

So close to greatness

Reviewed by Shawn from afro-ninja.com

Dreams: Chapter 1 is just one of those games that unfortunately gets looked over for some reason or another. RPG is always a hard genre to tackle with flash in the first place, and if there’s as much as one little thing that people don’t like about it then it gets passed by quickly.

Dreams: Chapter 1 introduces us to the Hammerhead Bros, Zeke and Hunk, on their way to meet the Seer. The Seer wants to contract them to investigate the desolate clockwork tower, and leaves them with no other information than to ‘find the source.’ Setting off on their journey the bros quickly find that this tower certainly isn’t desolate, and that they’re going to have to bust some heads to get to the top. The battle system in this game is incredibly unique, mixing some standard RPG elements and adding its own. The fighting is turn-based, but during your turn you switch between your two characters and attack in live-action. When your turn timer is up it switches to the enemies, where each one gets a single attack in order. Pressing space at the right time during their attack will let you avoid it altogether. The genius of the battle system though is how your two characters can interact- Zeke can run around and smash stuff with his hammer, while Hunk must remain in place and choose to fire either bullets or bombshots. When controlling Hunk the view changes to the first person perspective, something rare to find in a flash game. Bullets do standard damage while bombshots lodge into the opponent- which can be followed up by Zeke running to the enemy and smashing them, causing an explosion and mass damage. What’s also nice is that you don’t have to mess with any magic attacks, magic points, potions, or anything else of the sort. After the fight your characters are healed for you and you continue. The battles don’t randomly occur every five seconds either, but instead at predetermined places in the game.

The graphics, although a little rough at times, are very detailed and nice to look at. All the areas are fully-drawn, colored, and shaded. And some of them are pretty big too. Extra effects are added like fountains in the background, and small ripples when your character walks through water. There’s a lot of music tracks playing at different points in the game, so no worry about listening to the same loop over and over. They’re all fitting to an RPG game but there’s no option to turn the music down/off if it’s not exactly your thing

With so much praise so far, where can this game possibly go wrong? For one, there’s various things in the game that can confuse players if they don’t pay attention. The introductory story moves kind of quickly and doesn’t give you too much information to go on. We know we’re the hammerhead bros, and we’re on a mission, but that’s really it. During the game we don’t really find out any information either, and after beating the final boss you’re treated to an ending cinematic that (in my opinion) makes no sense whatsoever. I don’t understand who I’m fighting, why I’m fighting them, or why anything is happening. Instead of getting closure at the end I’m told I just have to wait for the next part. It’s fine to leave things open-ended, but I wish I could have had a little more insight.

Moving around in the game and the battle scenes themselves could have been a bit more organized. When moving around the playing field the camera zooms in and out with Zeke. Not a bad effect, but at times I think the camera zoomed in a little too close. I had to start moving around just to get a better look at things. There’s no formal introduction to the battles either, they just kind of instantly happen. Zeke also has a ‘worm’ on his back that can be charged up with the mouse button, and used to propel himself through enemies while attacking. We’re not quite sure why Zeke has this ability, and the game never tells you that you have to simultaneously attack with the hammer while doing it. Lastly, moving around in some areas seems a bit buggy, when you enter or exit a location the camera kind of jerks around for a second or tries to show a random part of the area.

Dreams has great production value, and really is a fun game, but I just feel it has too many loose ends to be considered a true classic. With a little bit more emphasis on the story aspect and some tune-ups to the engine itself this could become a dominating game in the Flash RPG scene. I’m certainly looking forward to the next part but please, let me know what’s going on this time.

Click here to play Dreams: Chapter 1

Graphics	Sound	Gameplay /Control	Presentation	Overall
8.5	9	8.9	7	8.8
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