Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow is a 2.5D puzzle platformer made by developer Frozen Line and publisher Ravenage Games. The game is clearly inspired by previous 2.5D puzzle platformers like Limbo and Little Nightmares. Daydream involves plenty of fantasy and magical realism as you journey through the mind of Griffin as his younger self with your stuffed bear companion Birly and an unnamed female archer.

The problem with Daydream is that it is a beautiful game that’s also a complete mess. The team at Frozen Line is composed of two 3D artists and a programmer and it shows. Daydream is full of some, quite frankly, amazing visuals and graphics while running very well even at high resolutions. However, it is incredibly apparent that no one at Frozen Line is particularly skilled at storytelling, level design, or game design. That lack of experience shows throughout the game and what could have been an amazing experience falls apart.

Story

Let's start with the story, everything I mentioned previously about the story and what you are doing as Griffin within his mind is never mentioned in the game. The entire premise and characters' motivation is NOT WITHIN THE GAME. It is only in vague descriptions in press releases, the official website, and the Steam store page. Essentially the story is for some reason never stated you are journeying through griffins mind as his younger self presumably as some type of healing or discovery process but that is not clear.

You are simply dropped into the game running from a scary black hand and you travel through various locals from there. The in-game story itself is only told through an option in the menu called ‘Dream Story’ with fourteen sections consisting of only a single sentence each. In addition, these story pieces, the only story available in the game mind you, are only unlockable by finding secret hidden easter eggs in each level, and a lot of those are really hard to figure out or easily missable! The story is also just essentially just a paragraph talking about Grifins's life and mental health journey vaguely.

What makes this lack of in-game story even more annoying is that there are multiple well-made action cutscenes in the game that separate levels, each at a perfect point to put a cutscene that expands on the story in any way. It's not even necessary for dialogue, a simple show not tell cutscene or even a still image of a memory of Griffins' relating to the trauma that influenced the level would have been perfect. For example after the spider level, a cutscene, or even a drawing of a young Griffin being scared by a spider as a kid would have done loads to show that we are in Griffin's head in a world that is affected by his mental state. Instead, we’re left with a game with essentially no story, even though there's plenty of room for one.

So much of the game just doesn’t make sense, there is some simply incredible world design from the spooky spider level, to the mansion in disrepair, to the beautiful farmland, to the ancient ruins, and none of these areas are explained in any way whatsoever. Also, last but not least, a quarter through the game you meet a new companion to help solve puzzles, some random archer woman, and I have no clue who she is, why she's helping you, and what her role in the game's story is. She’s probably the woman mentioned in some of the unlockable easter eggs, but she just randomly shows up.

Gameplay

The next and main downside of Daydream is the game design. This is where most of my issues are. The almost complete absence of the story of Daydream could have been forgiven if the gameplay was as good as the graphics but simply, Daydream is just not a fun game to play.

Daydream is a 2.5D sidescrolling puzzle platformer first and foremost. To solve puzzles in the game you platform, move, and interact with objects, or command your companions, Birly and random archer lady to interact with objects. However, all of the mechanics to interact with puzzles, from ordering companions to interacting with objects to even moving around and platforming, are incredibly finicky, hard to use, and annoying.

To start off, you just move incredibly slowly, even when you’re running. Platforming is a nightmare and hard to control or even aim as you can simply walk off the map on most levels and a lot of the time it's hard to see how close to the edge you are. If you pick up an object you have to hold the button down to carry it for long periods of time. When you control a companion getting them to actually do what you want to sometimes is impossible, and Birly’s AI in particular can cause a lot of issues.

This brings us to the actual problems with puzzle design and game design. Daydream starts off with some pretty simple puzzles to get you comfortable with the controls and they do tend to get harder after that, but the puzzles are widely variable. Some puzzles are incredibly simple and boring, some are actually interesting mind benders, but a fair amount are more a puzzle of how to get the controls to actually work to solve the puzzle. By and large, the puzzles aren’t that fun because you have to deal with the game's annoying controls to solve them.

As a side note, in many of the game’s puzzles, you are never introduced to what you can do with the game's mechanics, for example, the archer companion is introduced and tutorial as a companion that you control to shoot targets to make things happen, except out of nowhere to solve one puzzle you have to tell them to go to a platform, then you have to throw an object to them which they then pick up and throw again. So many of the game's puzzle-solving mechanics are unclear or just never given a tutorial and it's up to you to figure out how to use them.

In another, you have to chase a spider into a trap with fire so that the trap doesn’t kill you. Until this point, you have only used fire to protect yourself from spiders webbing you, and you have to notice that swinging a torch will make little spiders run away from you, and then put together that you have to herd one spider that's off in the corner into this trap. There is absolutely no tutorial or beginner puzzle on using fire to herd spiders where you want them, and the puzzle is never used again.

Aside from the puzzles, there are sections of the game that just feel like they don’t belong or were mashed together. My prime example is that out of nowhere on one level you just fly a glider through various obstacles with some aggravating controls, no puzzles or platforming involved. Overall the gameplay, mechanics, and level design of Daydream are just simply aggravating and a pain to use.

Audio and Visual

The sound design and graphics of Daydream are where the game excels. I can say Daydream is one of the best-looking games around. The graphics are incredibly detailed and some of the best-stylized art I’ve seen in a while. There are some incredible vistas and world design. There are however a fair amount of clipping issues throughout the game, mostly involving the character models' interacting with the environment which only makes the previously mentioned mechanics issues worse. When it comes to sound, Daydream has some incredible tracks that suit each different local incredibly well, and when the game wants to get spooky the music tracks work perfectly to build the tension. The sound and visuals don’t really make up for the rest of the game though.

Replayability

The only reason to replay Daydream is to pay closer attention to the game’s visuals. Technically you can go back to a specific level, and you have to if you want to read the full story if you missed unlocking it, but that requires playing through the entire level again, not going to specific checkpoints with a level. And of course, it isn’t fun to replay a puzzle game that has bad puzzles and annoying mechanics to solve those puzzles.

What It Could Have Done Better

Daydream actually has a lot of promise as a puzzle game. Visually it is amazing, and there aren't any glitches or programming issues aside from some minor clipping. I can see where it could have been an amazing game, it just needs another year of development and a complete rehaul of the mechanics, story, and puzzle design from people with experience in those roles. The mechanics are a pain and the puzzles aren’t fun because they're either too simple or too hard and you have to use the bad mechanics to solve them. The game has so much promise it just falls short in so many areas that it’s just not fun to play.

Verdict

Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow is a beautiful painting that hides a decrepit cesspool of mechanics, puzzles, and lore beneath its visually appealing surface. The only positive of my time with Daydream was traveling through the picturesque landscapes of the various locales within the dream world, every time I got to a new puzzle I would dread having to deal with the terrible mechanics to figure out what bizarre leap of logic the designers wanted me to make to figure out the puzzle. That's not even accounting for the aggravating platforming controls that you have to deal with. In the end, I can only say don’t be deceived by the cute visuals, or breathtaking screenshots, Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow is not a game you want to play.

Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow releases on June 14th for PC via Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store. It will also release later this year on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.