I want to preface this review by saying that if this game gives you hope, gives you a reason to keep going, that is a tremendously good thing. I want you to hold on to that feeling for as long as you live.

I, however, had a very different experience with this game.

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Re;Dreamer presents a basic premise: guy suddenly becomes girl, hi-jinks ensue. Though not a very creative one, it's a simple and effective way to start your story.

It’s a free download, so there’s not much criticism I can give on any department, really. Art is great (though it is non-original), writing is good and fun, sound usage is exceptional, and the gui is easy on the eyes.
There’s a sort of guidebook in the game, detailing all sorts of things ranging from characters to locations to the history of the world, etc.

But other than that, I don’t have much to say about the game directly.

Were it not for a certain thing about this game, this review would not exist.

Where Re;Dreamer differs from other stories of this nature is in its real attempts at genuine characters. The main character slowly reveals themselves to be more than they may seem, I.E, a trans girl. This is something that interested me, as most gender-bender games are mostly "for the lols" as one might put it, and so I gave the game a try.

And giving this game a try put me into a state of mind difficult to put into words.


There's a specific moment in the game I think about every once in a while. If you choose to have no-one by your side, the MC, now inhabiting this new reality, of which there is no escape, becomes increasingly incoherent and unintelligible. This ends with them dying, the final words of narration on screen simply stating:

"Despite everything, it's still you."


For such a grim ending to use that quote, of all quotes, it's... I don't know what to make of it. Is it hopeful? Is it pessimistic? Is it trying to say something?

Why am I looking so deep into this game?


At some point in the mom-ally route of the game, the main character realizes they're trans. It's presented as this huge discovery, pulling forth memories from their childhood, thoughts they'd had over the years, etc.
And then they say this one line:
"I am literally living every trans girl's dream right now."

And then... nothing.

Because I closed the game at that point.



I mentally could not continue.




How does that line make you feel? A trans girl magically transforms into the literal girl of her dreams and then simply… lives happily ever after.

No buildup, no real getting to know the character and their transness, no nothing.

Just “Oh I’m a girl now” to “This has vastly improved my life, actually, I don’t know if I could have lived otherwise.”


Is re;dreamer good trans representation? Unfortunately, I cannot answer that question. Not due to any absence of information, overall confusion, or general unwillingness to care enough to think about it.

I do not know, because Re;Dreamer is not a game about a trans person becoming themselves. It is not a quaint and heartfelt story about a trans person discovering themselves for the first time, inspired by a real event. It is the trans representation equivalent of fast food.

It is, in my eyes, the absolute epitome of trans escapism.

“Why am I looking so deep into this game?” you ask? Because, as a work of art, it hit me very hard in a very personal way.


On the surface, Re;Dreamer is a game about a guy who suddenly becomes a girl, hi-jinks ensue, but it's as if there's something within, something, or someone, begging to be understood, to be accepted, to be happy, because, in my eyes, it is impossible to read Re;Dreamer as anything but a game about someone who desperately, more than anything, just wishes to be a cis girl.

No matter how I look at it, that is the conclusion I reach. I find no joy in this character, no piece of myself, nothing. Despite the countless words of backstory and reflection and pain and character she is given, Zoey is an empty husk, and she always will remain so, because Re;Dreamer is not trans representation. It is a game about a trans girl who becomes a cis girl, and such a story is never going to make me, a trans girl, feel any happier or more understood, either by others or within myself, ever, because, to put it simply: Zoey stops being trans.


I apologize if I seem overly hostile. By the many people I’d seen speak of this game, developers included, I (perhaps mistakenly) believed the story would go a different way than it did. I am, however, not going to refrain from speaking about this game in this light, because this is how people still talk about this game, and it makes me a little sad.

As of tomorrow, it will have been exactly half a year since I played this game, and while I’m sure there is a lot more to it than simply those two routes, I do not think I am mentally prepared to revisit it, ever.


Allow yourself to wish for the impossible, to dream, but never forget to live in the moment. To remember that, although things are rough, although your biggest wish, to be yourself, seems so unlikely as to be impossible, that you are you, that you are loved and cherished.