Dreamscaper is an action-RPG roguelike developed by Afterburner Studios and published by Freedom Games and Maple Whispering Limited. The game has an addictive and challenging gameplay loop, connected to relationship mechanics and purchasing upgrades, grouped together in a package that doesn't completely gel but works in individual ways.
The story of Dreamscaper follows a woman named Cassidy, who has just moved to the city of Redhaven. Every night when she sleeps, Cassidy awakens in a dream world that is teeming with monsters. It's here that the player can uncover Cassidy's memories and learn more about her past. Once she wakes up, she can explore the town and meet new people, and the player can help forge her future relationships. As the player descends deeper into Cassidy's dreams, they will learn the source of her fears and why she has dungeon-shaped nightmares.
Dreamscaper consists of two halves: exploring the dream world and spending time in Redhaven. The dream world is broken up into levels which consist of interconnected rooms. Cassidy needs to defeat all of the enemies in a room before she's allowed to travel to the next one. There are also special rooms that don't contain enemies, which instead include shops, upgrade stations, puzzle rooms, and treasure rooms. In order to progress to the next level, Cassidy needs to defeat the boss of the floor. Once the boss has been defeated for the first time, it can be skipped on subsequent runs.
The gameplay of Dreamscaper is akin to that of Hades, with Cassidy collecting a growing arsenal of power-ups and weapons to take down enemies. She also has access to block, dodge, and parry moves, which can also be upgraded. Dreamscaper has a fast-paced gameplay loop that rewards skill and precise timing, along with a willingness to shake up the player's tactics mid-way through a run in order to make the most out of new items. Like most procedurally generated roguelikes, there is an element of luck to each run, and a good selection of items and power-ups can make things easy. Dreamscaper gets more challenging with each floor, and the player has the ability to up the difficulty before each run in exchange for better rewards.
Once Cassidy inevitably loses a run, she wakes up back in the real world. It's here that the player can spend the different currencies they have acquired in the dream world in order to purchase new items that will appear during a run, permanent upgrades for Cassidy, and new room types for each stage. This gradual unlocking of progress is what makes Dreamscaper so much fun, as Cassidy slowly becomes stronger with each run or will have more options when it comes to attacks. This means the player is constantly tipping the odds in their favor, while never being guaranteed success.
Where Dreamscaper stumbles is with its story and characters. There are residents in Redhaven that Cassidy can interact with who work in a similar fashion to the Confidants from Persona 5, and spending time with them will unlock buffs in the dream world. The problem is that all of the residents of Redhaven are boring people with normal lives and problems. This is true of Cassidy herself in a lot of ways, as her real-life situation is a stark contrast to the fast-paced action and nightmarish enemies that appear in the dream world. The contrast just doesn't work the way it could, leading Redhaven to become a series of shops with overly wordy NPCs.
The visuals and soundtrack of Dreamscaper are also a mixed bag. The boss designs are great, but the regular enemies leave a lot to be desired, as they show a surprising lack of imagination for living embodiments of nightmares. The rooms themselves are a mix of gorgeous nightmarescapes and boring streets & outdoor areas. The soundtrack is also inconsistent in Dreamscaper, as some of the songs wouldn't be amiss in a lo-fi ten-hour YouTube coffee house mix, which doesn't match the exciting battles that are happening on-screen.
Dreamscaper is a game of contrasts and not all of the elements are cohesive. It combines the incredible gameplay loops of Hades and Persona 5, but wraps them in a slice-of-life package that doesn't quite fit them in properly. Weak characters and story aside, however, Dreamscaper is a great roguelike and worth checking out for fans of the genre all the same.
Dreamscaper is available now for Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam. Screen Rant was provided with a digital copy of the Switch version for the purposes of this review.