Isle of Reveries

Overall I had a lovely time, despite it occasionally being a bit janky. It's quite authentic to it's inspirations, which can cause some awkward friction, but also brings their spin on a lot of what's great about them.

Initiall review for this: If you liked the old hand-held zelda games, this will absolutely be a hit. (Written as of ~50% of the way through the game)

I like it

Very good Zelda-like game. The developer has a real grasp on designing tight dungeons with thoughtful puzzles. The story is serviceable but the overworld is fun to explore and collect the extras in. For any fan of Zelda this is a great buy.

Game is a top tier Zelda-like and hidden gem. There is a lot of content packed into this game with collectibles and upgrades all over the place. The first stretch of the game is somewhat linear then it opens up a lot and gives you the freedom to fast travel around the map with relative comfort. Due note that this game has a lot of puzzles, and the dungeons in this game are much more puzzle heavy than those in the average Zelda game. One interesting aspect is the fact that there are a lot of upgrades and tools that are off the main path that are not required to win the game but add comfort and flexibility. Overall 19 hours to get the credits to roll for the standard ending, there's still a handful of things to root out though for the perfect ending which could take a bit longer depending on how fast I am able to track down loose ends. Highly recommend to any Zelda fan, it's far more Zelda than Mina is in terms of game structure.

A solid retro zelda-like. I had some minor issues early on, but the developer has been rapidly patching the game, which has fixed some problems I had, like jumping gaps being very tight. Good music, good enough story, pretty much every area has places where you need to return later with new abilities. I appreciated that there are a few extra collectibles, so that you can get all the upgrades without necessarily needing to find truly 100% of items. This is especially good considering that there's no built in tracker for missing things.

I was pretty excited to try this game, it looks like it would scratch the retro itch pretty well, but it just leaves me feeling frustrated. It's not a hard game from what I've seen so far. Enemy patters are easy to identify and intuitive to overcome, healing is plentiful, if you didn't grow up in the era of this kind of game it might be more fun for you. However, this feels like more of an interactive art project than a retro game to me. I only have 1 major complaint, but as silly as it might seem to some, it completely destroys the fun of game for me. You have the ability to jump, you have the ability to swing a sword, but you don't have the ability to do both at once. If you're on one side of a pit or body of water, and there is an enemy on the other side of the pit or body of water, you cannot jump over the pit swinging, because as soon as you swing your sword the character instantly lands to perform the grounded attack animation, and you fall in the pit. Retro games, especially this style of retro game, are all about multiplicative gameplay. This is a huge miss for me, and immediately made me want to stop playing.

A lovely, meticulously crafted game. Everyone who loves traditional, old-school Zelda owes it to themselves to play it. I write this review after beating the game and having done probably 95%+ of the optional content, aside from a few collectibles I couldn't be bothered to comb the map for. The easiest way to describe this game is if Nintendo had made a secret fourth Zelda on the Game Boy Color after Link's Awakening, Oracle of Seasons, and Oracle of Ages. There are no Soulslike elements, no open world that gives you all the tools at the start, no choosing which dungeons you want to do in which order. It is only trying to be a faithful Zelda experience, and in that regard it succeeds admirably. Maybe this strict adherence to well-trodden ground would be a knock against the game if the Zeldalike subgenre were as crowded as Metroidvanias and Soulslikes, but there are so few pure Zeldalikes that I love the commitment to the traditional experience. It fulfills a desire for a type of experience that even Nintendo themselves have left by the wayside. If you've played any of its inspirations, you know what to expect here: A linear progression of puzzle box dungeons, each containing a new tool that is required to complete the current dungeon and open up the next piece of the overworld that will lead to the next dungeon. Most tools serve both a combat function and an exploration/puzzle solving function. The overworld is full of secrets, NPC sidequests, and collectibles. There is a town that acts as a bit of a hub area and forms the locus of most quests with some very light town-building elements. The difficulty is about on par with Zelda, with the dungeon's puzzles being somewhat more difficult and requiring some degree of lateral thinking. I only had to resort to walkthroughs maybe 2-3 times, and they were all solutions I could have figured out with a bit more patience and experimentation. The combat is, again, exactly like Zelda. I can't think of any real negatives here, assuming you're on board with a classic Zelda experience that isn't trying to push the genre forward. I had a few nitpicks about quality of life stuff and some minor bugs, but the dev has already addressed those with patches. This is a lovingly made game that the dev clearly poured their heart and soul into, and there were even a few heartwarming moments. An easy recommendation to any genre fan. One final note that the game runs perfectly on Steam Deck (as expected) and this is the best way to play the game for the full nostalgia blast GBC experience. Kudos, desertcucco. I hope this game finds success and you're able to continue catering to this underfilled niche with future games.