[b]My Playtime:[/b] 30h (100% achievement, finished the game)
[b]My First Playthrough:[/b] 17.9h
[b]Grindy Achievement(s):[/b] No.
[b]Optional Achievement(s):[/b] Yes (23 achievements).
[b]Difficult Achievement(s):[/b] No.
[h1]Intro[/h1]
[b]Sweet Lily Dreams[/b] is a turn-based [i]RPG Maker[/i] game with a focus on dungeon-delving. You'll play in a party of 10 to complete ~12 dungeons with various core mechanics and some minigames.
[b]Pros:[/b]
- Touch-based encounters
- Minigames that are unique in some dungeons
- Optional quests to be taken
- Straightforward gameplay where you just need to focus on clearing the dungeons
[b]Cons:[/b]
- Too many poison-inflicting enemies despite the lack of curing options
- Enemies are too bulky in the middle half of the game, even in the easiest difficulty
- The collisions can be hindering you exploring some areas
- Menu sometimes not responding due to the mouse controls
[b]Specs[/b]
Intel Core i5-9300H 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
[h1]Should you buy this game?[/h1]
[b]No.[/b]
[i]Although I liked the dungeon-delving elements, the enemies starting in the middle half are making the game unbearable.[/i]
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[h1]In-Depth Review[/h1]
[h3]Visuals[/h3]
Most of the assets are customized ones; some also look like slightly modified [i]RPG Maker[/i] assets that look like their 3D counterpart. The menu is also overhauled, taking advantage of the mouse control to make everything easily accessible from the screen. However, despite the good mapping, I found the collision to be too cumbersome. It was hard to walk into forest-themed dungeons, which take up most of the dungeons in the game. That being said, I'm impressed that it manages to bring up different variants of forest areas without making them look repetitive.
[h3]Story[/h3]
If you have played [b]Kingdom Hearts[/b], the story loop might look similar: you will be going from story to story and following their storyline. The story is usually some folktales that are familiar in the Western world; I recognized some of them, although I don't know the full story to confirm whether it stays true to the original source.
Aside from the folktales, there is also the main story. However, I found this to be too shallow except at the end of the game. The ending doesn't feel rushed since some foreshadowing was dropped before the main event is happening, but I found the conclusion to be weak. I could feel that the developer tries to put some emotions into the story, but it wasn't strong enough for me to understand. Moreover, the sequel hook made the epilogue becomes even weirder to me.
[h3]The Game[/h3]
[b]Gameplay[/b]
As I said before, [b]Sweet Lily Dreams[/b] is focusing on dungeon delving. There isn't much to the story, so you can just jump into the next dungeon right after you finish the previous one. However, the progression is still linear. Most dungeons can be finished just by exploring the area right away, although some require you to do small tasks before you can beat the final boss. These types of dungeons usually can be finished by checking the quest log and following everything that was written there, although some can be quite vague, forcing you to talk to everyone you can find to proceed with the quest.
Most dungeons have a different theme. Despite housing numerous dungeons, most of them revolve around a certain theme, or maybe minigame. Some have a specific type of minigame that you have to solve, both optional and mandatory, while some have a specific design. For example, the Hypercubex, the second dungeon, was designed around moving rooms, while the Russian Forest was designed around trees that can move you to different maps through their tunnels. I like how the game makes the design always fresh and interesting.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=262542629
However, these dungeon designs come with a fatal flaw: they tend to be confusing. Don't get me wrong, I liked when dungeons are made to be confusing, but not when I had to deal with enemies in the place. Enemies might have a touch-based encounter, but they respawn once you move to other screens. This makes it hard to explore when you are faced with a dungeon design that requires you to move between a lot of screens. My concentration always breaks whenever I have to go into battle, especially since they can take a very long time to finish.
[b]Combat[/b]
Despite having a touch-based encounter, enemies walk very fast, so it can be tricky to avoid them. You can always try to get out of their sight, of course, but some of them will stand by in the main path to force a battle. Although I don't mind them in the early game, they can be annoying at the end game, especially with their bulky HP. It can take a long time for a battle to end, even at the easiest difficulty. Heck, sometimes I even think that the random enemies take longer to beat than the boss in the area.
Moreover, there are too many poison enemies. I don't mind status ailments, but I hate when enemies do poison, which won't be cured after the battle, and there is no way to remedy it without using items. There might be items that can cure it, but as someone who doesn't like to use items, I ended up save-scumming to bypass them instead. And yes, it took me longer to finish a fight because of it.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=334937519
Lily, one of the characters in your party, can be useless. You are forced to assign her to a certain elemental type, and enemies can be healed or took 0 damage depending on their element. This makes her to be useless in some battles unless you teach her some spells, although the game never seems to take her inability to recover MP without using items into account. All party members can only recover MP by using items or leveling up, making it hard to make a magic-based character to kill enemies. That being said, I ended up realizing that magic-based characters are way more powerful than their physical attackers, which might or might not be because of their lack of MP recovery.
[b]Length and Difficulty[/b]
I finished the game at 17.9h in my first playthrough. I tried to collect everything and did all sidequests, and since some achievements are only available in the New Game+, I ended up replaying the game for that. That being said, there isn't anything worthwhile in the New Game+ except for the "Publisher Notes" feature, which conveys the development process of a particular scene. To be honest, I still find it to be useless, especially since these kinds of things can be done by an afterword or some sort.
The game has 3 difficulty setting that can be switched anytime through the options. I played it in the easiest difficulty, and although the first half of the game is easy, the middle half feels like playing in normal difficulty, especially with the enemies' bulky HP. The game isn't fun to explore anymore, and I hated being in combat because of this.
[b]Issues[/b]
I hated the mouse controls. Although I used it several times to check some items in my inventory, the cursor was annoying. Sometimes it can disable your keyboard input, sometimes it can force your selection to a certain location whenever it was hovering over something, and sometimes the menu itself wasn't even responsive, moving your party around when you just want to click on the menu to save.
[h1]Conclusion[/h1]
I liked the dungeon designs. I liked exploring the dungeons. I liked the simplistic combat system. However, despite all that, the bulky enemies are just ruining all of the things that I liked about the game, making me want to finish it as quickly as possible. It seems as if it wasn't tested in the middle half of the game, and that makes me sad. The game has potential, but I had no choice but to not recommend it because it wasn't fun to finish once the issues show up.
