DREAMWILD

Beautiful game hindered only by the strange decision to make it a fast paced roguelite.
To get the negatives out of the way first: Game is insanely unbalanced.
The first area has frustrating enemies that seem almost anti-fun, and I have a feeling this plus the lack of direction will end up gatekeeping a large amount of people.
Combat with no upgrades is also very annoying, since more prominently enemies have iframes that can cause you to waste attacks, and less prominently the game has the master sword mechanic where being above a certain amount of HP makes your sword a gun instead.
Thankfully the sword itself hits like a truck if you actually use it to melee which is nice, but I'm of the opinion that enemies really just shouldn't have iframes, or the attack rate of the sword should be reduced + an accessibility option to hold left click should be added instead of forcing the player to discipline their attacks. One could say that the player learning to play around the iframes is skilled, but one could also say it doesn't matter when your 30 damage light beam two shots everything, No ?
However, staying in the area then getting even a single attack upgrade pretty much flips this instantly. When I chose to just get enough Gubbins to buy upgrades and came back instead of exploring or seeing what's out there, I pretty much one shot everything and could never take damage ever again. Additionally, once you progress past the first area, the enemies are far more reasonable and I would even argue underpowered until you get to the "final" level.
Additionally, the game has an expectation for you to like the protagonist and deuteragonist, but I finished a regular run of the game way too quickly and witnessed basically two conversations between them. I think it's a massive sin that this game was designed this way instead of some other kind of traditional action rpg, because there's pretty much no space for the deuteragonist to be cute when I stop sugarcoating it after 3 upgrades.
There should be way more story and way less Quake Dogfighting Simulator.
As for the good, psychedelic visuals and soundtrack make it very worth getting over the first bump. The game is actually fun once you make it out of the first level. The game could use more things to uncover, but there is an okay amount to find.
Also, for some reason, they just give up with this pixel-y vibe in cutscenes. Don't tell me that a higher resolution will mess up the pixels if you remove the shader yourself....
TLDR
combat sucks at the start, upgrades are op. add more story. make dreamwild prequel where you walk instead of ignore the environment while Thé à la Menthe plays
everything else is good and beautiful and sound good your ears
remove that annoying ahh eyeball enemy from the first area or at least make him spawn with a slow spawn animation near the player so he doesnt push gubbins and other enemies 560 meters away

Despite not beating it yet I really found this game fun to play. I sucked at the start but then started to slowly get better at it. It's easy to grind out the first area for Gubbins to get upgrades before proceeding to newer Dream Wilds (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that's the name of the game!) I love the world and character design so damn much and the music helps the vibe of the game. It feels like one of those old PC games back in the 90's or early 2000's you'd find randomly and get obsessed with. Thank you Karbonic for making these amazing games and I hope to see more in the future.

Really fun, great way to kill time, with a great art style and story. The game has nostalgic qualities, feels like playing a Ps1 game. What I like most about the game is the lack of direction, I didn't know there was items for the longest time (other than the eye and potion.) This really plays into the nostalgic feeling, you're simply dropped into the world and figure it out. Oh, and the potion is clutch for getting any items from the floating platforms, (Right click after pressing shift to change the potion to green to jump way higher.)
The surfing and combat quickly become addictive as you reattempt worlds, definitely the highlight of the game. Shop and point storage is a great mechanic, saves time on future runs or great to "save" progress if you need to leave.
Hopefully the development team adds more to the game!

¡¡My, oh my!!
Mercy, for first impressions, I'm in love with this game! the visuals and soundscape interweaves together to form a connexion that i've been pining for, all this time!! bloody chap in the castle isn't lying, the binaural beats are an obsession. consider my ocular and auricular senses, sated!
The game features a castle as it's hub, convo with characters, heal, store currency, that's where you'll be spending time and access game functions outside of combat. the characters in the castle are likeable, too, even with their repeating text dialogue. as a whole, the castle reminds me of oldschool isometric games like Sanitarium. that's a win in my small ol' book. i find myself just hangin' and runnin' in the castle as Aurumn. mood! and oh, Aurumn and Goutha are my favourites ofcourse!!
Now, in the more desultory territory, the gameplay is exceptional at making you feel lost, and maybe unjust, in my experience. i hold the presumption that is the default, intended, cursory view. notably so in the beginning, as a new run starts you off in the Dreamwilds, rather than the castle. the combat itself is unfun in the beginning, when Aurumn himself has no upgrades to wield. the roguelite elements is a bit lackluster, too. to note, you can store currency (that you lose on death otherwise). that's all there is to the name. but it does feel good as you gradually improve your maneuvers in combat (i still suck as of writing). it results in some time and slight patience to get used to it all.
Overall, love, love!! i love this game, despite the flaws. give it a try if you think you're willing to put up with it's eccentrics.

Very fun and interesting. Bunny hopping and strafing is very fun once you learn how to do it properly. Movement is very well done however two problems is the grind for gubbs isn't enjoyable, and the game isn't very good at teaching you how to play properly. (I had to read two guides to figure out what the items do and how to b-hop properly since it's far different than a source game. Having to hold W and buffering jump inputs to go fast)
Things that should be changed I think is making enemies in higher levels drop more gubbs per kill. The desert area and the purple war area have much much higher difficulties yet they're on par with the aero zone with how much gubbs you'll usually get. Another thing that confuses me is the I-frames creatures get? It doesn't really increase difficulty just acts like a minor annoyance that makes killing stuff feel more sluggish than it should. Finally the final boss and both of her phases. The first phase is REALLY GOOD I love the race against the giant leviathan to kill the hearts. Could use some more tweaks and some more explaining but it's amazing. The second phase however... Very poor, it's a small area in a game where you've been b-hopping at mach 6 up until that point, and the best way to beat her is to just hop in a circle and spam projectiles at her. The second phase needs major touch ups since it leaves the ending of the game feeling boring. Despite how cool the first phase was.
Secondly, for new players. The tutorial isn't good at teaching new players. I struggled with b-hopping in my first few hours and didn't even get to most of the info boards in that area because of it. I wish there was practice enemies you could spawn in to get a feel for fighting the enemies in the first area along with a video showing players how to b-hop. Because if you can't b-hop properly you literally cannot beat the game.
All and all it has a LOAD of problems but it's like a dish that has perfectly cooked pasta noodles that feel amazing but the sauce is like kranch for some reason. 7/10

Quake-like movement is built into the game and is a soft requirement for making any significant progress. Certain elements in the tutorial room are impossible to reach without strafe jumping, and enemies move way too fast for holding down WASD to be viable. If you're a fan of boomer shooters and psychedelic visuals, I would highly recommend the game.

Neat lil game worth a neat lil playthrough!
Good movement tech, fun enemy variety, rewards you for getting good at the b-hopping and provides some really stellar visuals, especially at the boss fight. Cool lil game <3