A VERY grindy but engaging take on some classic rpgm tropes.
Getting the bad out of the way first, this game is incredibly grindy. You will be forced to walk to your room in one building, walk to a job in another building, and then even walk to a bath in another building several times just to advance the plot. You will also be forced to rewatch the same scene 2-3 times just to progress to the next scene. You will be forced to do a job every day that begins with 4 slow interactions and eventually becomes 10 slow interactions. Moments like those left me feeling like my time as a reader/player wasn't being valued.
The combat is also incredibly grindy and frustrating. I don't want to fight 30 of the same goblins and rats to progress through a mine. That's not fun gameplay. The spells are also pretty boring--you can either waste a turn debuffing a creature that'll die in 3 turns anyway, you can choose to cast an ember that does slightly more damage that your attack, or you can just spam attack for 3 turns. It's not very fun for 5 combat events--let alone the 30+ you'll be forced to do in a row once you enter a combat area.
For the good, the author is very good at building intrigue and trickling in breadcrumbs at a tantalizing pace. There were many times where I kept telling myself, "Okay, one more day and then I'll call it quits for now. I just want to see where this conversation is going... Okay, maybe one day again." And there are characters with amusing conversations and interesting stories to where I kept coming back to them just to see what they say.
The worldbuilding is just different enough from the typical world of magic that I'm interested to see where it goes. The eroticism isn't much yet, but the models are nice enough that I'm again interested to see where it goes. There's a lot of potential in this game.
Overall, Dreaming One looks very promising, but the repetitive mechanics of the game really left a sour taste in my mouth.
