Others - Completed - Dreamcutter [v1.1] [Ten Pennyfingers]

Note: This review is strictly for the Nintendo Switch cartridge version.

If you thought that buying the cartridge for the Switch would mean you get the full uncensored version, you're sorely mistaken. I got hoodwinked by this, so I'm leaving this here as a warning to anyone who was thinking of purchasing the Switch cartridge version. All scenes are either censored, or cut out entirely. So unless you find censorship acceptable (I certainly don't), this isn't worth it.

An underdeveloped, boring-ass game that's as forgettable as the piss you took a few hours ago.

I've gotta start out with the clusterfuck that is this title's story. It's all fluff and no substance; I pretty much went through the entire game not knowing what the hell was going on because it was never explained in the dialogue. The plot consists of some shapeshifting goth chick stuck inside a dream world where I'm assuming she has to battle her self-consciousness and come to terms with her lesbianism or some shit like that. Three fourths of the game is spent fighting "The Doubt" (which sounds like a phony reject from MGS3's Cobra Unit), and the final portion is spent on some other chick who I half believe to be a succubus that really wants to pet the MC's kitty. Yeah it's retarded, but I've gotta come up with something since the game spends 95% of it's story time (and interrupting gameplay) spouting intellectual-sounding bilge that contributes nothing meaningful or entertaining to the story. Oh, and the titular "Dreamcutter" is nothing more than a bargain-bin equivalent to the Terror Mask from Splatterhouse. It's neither witty nor badass, and is usually the one spewing pointless bullshit at the player.

That joke about the protagonist being a shapeshifter is no lie either. All the story scenes in the game swap between a bunch of different art styles at random, some of which being very different than others. One moment, the protag is relatively thin and unassuming, next she's made out to be some cutesy anime girl, and then she becomes thicker than an all-ice-cream milkshake in clothes that are way to small for her current size. This goes for everything else in the story scenes, and it pisses me off how the game can't just stick to one style. My guess is that the devs designated three or four different artists certain story scenes and jury-rigged them all together to save on time/money.; The half-assery shows.

Oh boy, and now I get to talk about the game itself. As soon as I started the game and pressed jump, I knew I was going to be in for a bad time. Your character jumps up extremely fast and then falls like they're on the fucking moon. What's more is that the game feels unnaturally fast for no reason; Swinging off hooks and grinding rails sends you zipping across the screen at a speed that would make Sonic blush. This would be fine if the game was built around it, but Dreamcutter instead chooses to be a precision platformer where a hit from anything in the air (whether it be spikes or an enemy) will lock you out of your fucking controls. More often than not, I found myself falling into pits or hitting spiked walls because I didn't have enough time to react to jumps I was supposed to make or enemies I was supposed to slash. Animations also feel unreasonably fast, like the devs turned the speed on them up to x2 or x3 during programming and forgot to set them back to normal afterwards.

This issue leads perfectly into the combat. Dear God, the combat. That animation problem I mentioned? Yeah, that applies to enemy hitstun and attack wind-up. The end product is that enemies are (more often than not) able to hit you through your fucking attack combo. You can't even attack enemies with the options the game gives you without getting interrupted and eating damage yourself: That is some absolute bullshit.

The move set you have to deal with enemies is extremely limited as well. You get a two-hit combo (that enemies can interrupt), a mid-air swing (which is actually half-way decent), and a grounded/mid-air launcher (that doesn't even fucking work since enemies don't get launched until they're dead). The combo can be upgraded to three-hits (which provides a bit more DPS but is mostly negligible) and you can also buy this midair spin move that lets you pogo off enemies, but the timing is so strict on it that it's pretty much a useless piece of shit. The game tries to implement a Devil May Cry style combo system to spice things up, but fails to realize what made it fun in the first place. While DMC relies on mixing the many moves you're given to achieve a high combo, this shitload of fuck devolves into spamming the attack button on the same three enemies you encounter throughout the entire game.

For the sake of brevity, some other things I found incredibly frustrating were:

• Money farming, as always. Buying all the upgrades requires you to do this, and we all know how fun grinding is.
• Every stage ends with destroying this flying purple orb that spawns an endless stream of enemies right on top of you. Could the placement of the enemies be any worse?
• After falling to a pit, the game can straight up respawn you on top of an enemy. Enemies can also move and hit you during cutscenes, where you can't do jack shit to defend yourself.
• A hub world for absolutely no reason. The game would have been better with a Mario-style world map and the item shop being accessible with the click of a button. You also respawn back into the hub world after completing each level, forcing you to run back to the right door to the world that contains the next level.
• In the first world, dying at the very beginning of a level will transport you back to the final checkpoint of the last level, even though you already finished it. Was there no "beginning checkpoint" programmed into these stages?
• Challenges for lewd art are locked behind a paywall of coins. Why in the ever-loving fuck do I need to pay to unlock the challenge for the H-content? Isn't it enough that I've gotta go back and replay a stage all over again with some stupid-ass stipulation?

H-scenes are pathetic in this title. You get one or two still images that last for five seconds after completing a world. I legit thought I was skipping the scene with how fast it went but, nope, they're that short. They look nice, I'll give them that, but it sucks that you only get 5-6 stills throughout the entire game that have the same varying art problem mentioned before. Extra art can be unlocked by completing those stupid fucking challenges, but most of them are just pictures of the MC in skimpy clothes or in the nude. Bonus note, said scenes also plug other games that are published by Shady Corner, which speaks volumes about their business practices.

I put myself through the hell of 100%ing this game, and doing so revealed a note from the developers saying that the project "didn't have a lot of funding and was made by an extremely small team". Well, it fucking shows with how half-assed the game is. Terrible story, shit gameplay, and H-content that barely got me aroused. Do yourself a favor and don't play this nightmare.

Decently good mechanics and OK but variable art style/quality. Main problem is certain levels slow down the game to a snails pace which does not work with the flow of the movement or combat at all. Stage 4 level 2 in particular is an autoscroller which is antithetical to the movement style of the game. There is no point to the mechanics that slow down the game except to pad run-time and increase annoyance.

Positive points:

- Excellent gameplay, well above the standard.
- I enjoy games where adult content is a secondary element, a kind of bonus, and the focus is on gameplay development.
- Speaking of pixel art, it's incredibly beautiful.
- I liked the story initially.
- Some boss fights are good and enjoyable (especially 4 and 5).
- Even though I'm not a fan of lesbian content, I found the romance part really cute and well-written.
- The music is AMAZING; the trap beat in stage 2 or 3 is addictive. It's the H game with the best soundtrack I've ever come across.

Negative points:

- There are few enemies, and it's repetitive from start to finish. The repetition of the mini-boss was also disappointing.
- I found the bosses in stages 1, 2, and 3 too simplistic, lacking any challenge.
- The dialogues were quite tedious and, most of the time, skippable. By the middle of the game, there were so many dialogues that it felt like a visual novel.
- The art seemed disproportionate; at times, the protagonist looks slim, while at other times, she appears "chubby," causing some awkwardness.

Overall, I would give it an 8 because it's a game made with a lot of care and attention. It's definitely worth buying.

Mechanically basic and level flow does not lead to satisfying gameplay. Scythe is awful. Levels are bland or feature lovely ideas such as the slow auto scroller with no checkpoints. Art is alright but gameplay and story are just uninteresting and unfun.

A game with high potential that didn't stick the landing...

As a platformer, the physics are tight. The level design for the first three levels feel good. The weapon's hitbox is huge.

For level design, it quickly wears out its welcome. There are are exactly three enemies (with reskins for increased difficulty: the moving brawler, the shielded tank that throws things, and the flyer which gets projectiles at higher difficulty). All non-boss levels end with the same process of rapidly slashing the purple orb.

The sparse erotic content is dosed out slowly, one per world completed. This would have been ok if there had been a lot more than 5 worlds. Substantially more than half is rewards for finishing various challenges, none of which are mentioned (but still achievable!) in Story mode.

Boss design is consistently on-point. Easily the best part of the whole game.

As a whole it smells like creative block and handing it over to someone else who phoned it in. In world 4, you get a heavy-handed plot excuse for why your intelligent weapon leaves you and platforming without the hover ability, followed by a grating autoscroller and a new mechanic that's unexplained and used only for this level. All of world 4 also has fairly sparse art. The 5th and final world is a remix of the first three.

I don't think it's appropriate for my rating to factor in my opinion about the plot of the game. I would have taken off a star for the plot. A character is introduced as a love interest, and then ignored. Another character is introduced as the main antagonist, but their motivations are flimsy, and their defeat hollow. The MC's desires are explicitly ignored in the only (and thus canon) ending.

[Review of v1.1 on 8/18/2023]

Dreamcutter is a fun game. I just wish there was more overlap between games I enjoy playing and games that satisfy my fetishes or sexual interests.

That's not to say those games aren't out there, but Dreamcutter has a bisexual, primarily lesbian lean to its main content. Nothing wrong with that, but I like seeing women catch a nine-month commitment to the womb more than seeing two women engage in heavy petting. There's one scene with an anonymous male character -- heavily implied to be some sort of subconscious manifestation -- and then that's it. Dreamcutter dives headfirst into primarily F/F from then onwards.

There are some unlockable pinups that skew both ways, of course, but you have to complete challenges on certain levels in order to unlock them. I'm not really in the mood for it, but maybe someone else will be.

Despite not being my cup of tea, Dreamcutter is a solid platformer. Give it a try.

As of 0.3 (played with the local client on Linux through Wine and a DS4 controller):

• Movement and combat feel great and the animations are fluid and responsive.
• Platforming aspects feel natural and satisfying (jump distance, walk speed, responsiveness, etc.), except the double jump which could use some fine-tuning. Good variety of platforms, pads, obstacles, etc.
• Level design is mostly linear but with a few areas out of the main path for extra coins. Good mix of horizontal and vertical design. The levels aren’t too long and provide sufficient checkpoints.
• Enemy variety is just a tad on the low side; hope to see new patterns from them in world 3. So far novelty comes mostly from the new platforms and protagonist moves, which is fair for early game content.
• The moveset is limited for the time being but feels good and I like how the scythe can also be used as a traversal tool for jumping, grappling and gliding, as well as ranged attacks.
• The story and smut are a little sparse at first but the premise is intriguing, and you can make dialogue choices that have a meaningful impact on how conversations go (though no impact on how the story itself progresses, as far as I can tell).
• The smut is limited to VN-like scenes between platforming levels – no defeat/capture animations, game over scenes nor any enemies so far that are visibly designed to have sex with the protagonist.
• Personally, I like the character portraits in dialogue better than the sex scene artwork so far. Not sure if they’re made by entirely different artists or just use a different style, but the physiology and textures aren’t consistent between the two. But I actually care more about the story and gameplay at this point, so I’m not too bothered by that
• The writing is pleasant, both in dialogue and sex narration, with few typos. The text typing noise can get a little irritating after a while, though. Hopefully it can be turned off in the future.

Review as of initial release:

• it's a traditional 2d platformer with melee combat, and a central hub where you can buy upgrades for your character
• the art is pixel art for gameplay, and 2d art for dialogues/nsfw scenes
• the big plus is imo the gameplay - it's fast, responsive, and hitting enemies feels great despite the very basic moveset
• the use of the scythe as a weapon you can throw and use as a platform is very intuitive and works well
• I haven't found any bugs in the few hours I've played
• the boss is a bit lackluster but functional
• the story is almost non existent at this point

Overall, I was impressed by the gameplay and would have finished the demo even if it wasn't a nsfw game. My only complaint is that the actual sex scene I saw was kinda coming out of nowhere (there's another one I missed). I'll be sure to follow the progress this game makes!

Really nice concept and story, can't wait for the next updates!
No bug detected so far. Hope also for more CG.
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I don't know what to write more to reach 200 char, but it was fun to play