Fragile Dreams tends to get mislabelled as a survival horror game, which is one of the many reasons detractors tend to score it so low. Yet, while it does have elements of the genre, it was clearly designed to be a lot more than that. At first glance, it has awkward controls and clunky combat, but part of me feels this was done intentionally to drive the player to focus more on exploration and engagement with the environment. It's a visually gorgeous game, set in a hauntingly beautiful post-apocalyptic Japan akin to Nier: Automata, where nature has overgrown throughout most urban environments. You navigate this world, filled with terrifying spirits pulled straight out of Japanese mythology, though those encounters are few and far between.

Throughout your journey, you are accompanied by a variety of companions along the way, and the handful of NPCs you interact with all bring something interesting to the table. But the game's real heart shines through the memory items you find, narrating the tales of various survivors and their experiences throughout the cataclysm that wiped out most of the human race. Some tell individual stories, while others are spread across several items. These, along with the game's main plot and character interactions, are what makes Fragile Dreams such a fantastic title; it's not just an interactive experience, but a very emotional one as well.

I always have trouble trying to sell this title to people because it's very hard to put into words how deeply it touched me. I really wish we had more games like this out there, and I'm very thankful I got to experience it.

as pierremenard says, this game is much more kiyoko kawanaka's--who was behind level design and "project management" for kero blaster--than it is pixel's, and it should be treated as such (not to downplay pixel's contribution since this was made with the kero blaster engine and all, with a 7 mb filesize in 2021!!). titled after a kenji miyazawa poem which could be translated as "spring and chaos", which thematically feels pretty fitting, the game attempts this dreamy philosophical fable atmosphere that can be seen as v loosely influenced by his works, but with some heavier subject matter and a more comparatively violent mystery/thriller bent it. some modestly effective stuff on the fear of suffering and of the faces we show to those we love, though its kind of dry to get through for the majority of it.

BUT it has a kind of fascinating turn in the last third that keeps me from writing it off too hard. especially taken with some really thought provoking use of a silent protagonist, not simply to let you imprint yourself onto chihiro but to call to attention to how his true feelings are themselves masked. you can see his voice in "unremarkable" flavor text, in his thoughts before sleeping, in dialogue choices, but conversations are ambiguously one-sided to us. its one thing to watch the opposite lead deal with his own despair with life and difficulty in recognizing who he himself really is, but its another to also imbue the character we play as with a "specialness" that would seem to remove him from more dramatic and legible expressions of turmoil. he makes a good foil to the opposite lead in that way; it keeps his own issues internal, only found within associations between details, because i think that is how he would like to keep it. to me his own mask is one of assuredness that a self-insert hero would seem to carry, not having to be the other person, like any other, with problems and fears of his own he is running away from.

but he does outwardly express himself at times even within the game's limits, with uncertainty and love alike, and that it comes from his mute self makes it feel louder. everyone's existence is unique especially to themselves, and us taking on chihiro's is notable as feeling less like inhabiting a shell and more like playing within the rigid space of how a person possibly, subconsciously, wants to be portrayed--or maybe how they inherently see themself in a sense--overcoming the mask little by little as cracks show. sharing a specific state of mind. i honestly dont know if ill feel this way on closer inspection, and its not like chihiro is so intricately carved out as a character or anything, but i do think how the systems, both specific to the game and taken for granted from how games have been, shape how you perceive him is so interesting to me, as someone who thinks a lot about the way a player character can be revealed through the language of a game.

on the whole its really not amazing, holds interest just enough despite being kind of lacking in its character drama. however i think its worthwhile for how mysterious it gets largely in the way ive mentioned, even if im blowing smoke and its too illegible for its own good. its at least doing more with its metaphorical world than just the obvious "space between life and death" thing so there is at least more going on than you might expect from the start. if kawanaka does something in the adventure game style like this again, i would be excited to play it, because there is certainly things here i would love to see built upon.