While puzzle platformers have been around for ages, they still occasionally find new ways to surprise us. LIMBO and INSIDE, for example, provided creepy challenges within their silent worlds. Little Nightmares cemented itself as a classic with its creative puzzles set within a truly terrifying setting. Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow from Frozen Line first grabbed my attention with its clear inspiration from the latter, so naturally, I had to check it out. Would it be the game of my dreams or an underwhelming nightmare?

Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow is a melancholy tale about a young boy named Griffin. He embarks on a journey through scary environments with his best friend, a teddy bear named Birly. Griffin is frequently pursued by a menacing, oozing skeletal hand that attempts to grab him as he makes his travels. It quickly becomes clear Griffin is not really in some fantasy world, like in The Darkest Tales, but rather a whimsical representation of his life. There are many monsters and challenges Griffin will face, all based on his inner fears.

It’s a great premise, I’ll give it that, but Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow fumbles in its execution. It does have some pretty deep themes, but those aren’t really apparent until the very end. It’s also creepy at times, but nowhere near as sinister as it could have been. That’s one of the biggest things holding Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow back: it has some good ideas, but its theme and general tone seem to be all over the place.

It’s worth mentioning that Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow has two different endings. There’s a “good” ending and a “bad” ending. The ending you get depends on whether or not you find all of the hidden dragonflies. A few of them are pretty easy to find, but others are really well hidden. I really enjoyed hunting them down, and highly encourage anyone who plays this game to seek them out. Both endings have poignancy in their own right, where the good ending is more bittersweet than happy. Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow has its faults, but I will say that the ending to the story was profound enough to make me appreciate its somewhat vague narrative much more than I anticipated.

Now, the biggest thing holding Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow back is its gameplay. Simply put, the controls are dreadful. Jumping feels ridiculously floaty, and even just moving Griffin around the screen can be really frustrating. Grabbing and interacting with objects is unreliable, at best, typically only working about half the time. Then there are the chase sequences, which are all aggravating disasters. Without a doubt, the chase sections were my least favorite part of the game, largely thanks to the aforementioned terrible controls.

Along the way, Griffin will meet up with a young girl who can shoot arrows. You can direct either Birly or the girl to go to a certain area or interact with something specific, but it’s not always clear where or when this will work. Often times I found myself spamming the button around the objects I knew one of my partners needed to interact with, just in the hopes the icon would pop up. Even then, it’s not always a guarantee they will actually go there or do the action when prompted.

Most of the puzzles are fairly easy to figure out. Nearly all of them involve you and one of your companions activating some switches or pulling some levers in order to progress. However, there are a few that had me scratching my head for a moment, playing around with things until it clicked and made sense. None of the solutions to the puzzles were too abstract to figure out without a walkthrough, which I always appreciate.

Visually, Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow can be hit or miss. Some of the environments are very simplistic or overly dark, while others are wonderfully creative and fantastical. The character models are clean and slightly cartoonish, a fitting style for this type of game. That said, the character animations themselves are stiff, and there isn’t a ton of enemy variety. Also, the game is hampered by bugs, pop-ins, and framerate dips for some bizarre reason. The sound design fares better. Its soundtrack does fit the overall tone of the game well, even if it’s not terribly memorable.

Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow is a game I wanted to love, but its poignant ending wasn’t enough to fully sway me. Unfortunately, it just has too many issues with its gameplay to make it an enjoyable experience. It has some great ideas, but ultimately, it stumbles because it can’t decide what kind of a game it wants to be. Diehard fans of the genre might be able to overlook its frustrating controls, but most will get too annoyed to enjoy it. Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow is more of a nightmare than a dream.

 

Graphics: 6.5 While it does have some beautiful cutscenes and level designs, the character animations are incredibly stiff, and it suffers from bugs, pop-ins, and framerate drops.	Gameplay: 3.0 The controls are beyond aggravating. Jumping feels incredibly floaty, grabbing things often doesn’t register, and even simply moving your character can be frustrating.
Sound: 7.0 The soundtrack fits the tone of the game well, even if it is fairly basic.	Fun Factor: 6.0 There are some interesting ideas in here, but it doesn’t quite go strange or dark enough to make it stand out. I will admit that the ending(s) will definitely stick with you after it’s over, though.
Final Verdict: 5.5

Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on PC with an i7-9700k, RTX 2070, and 16gb of RAM.

A copy of Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow was provided by the publisher.