When it comes to major video game releases in the modern era of video games, we usually see a worldwide release applied to all of them, which makes sense. There are still plenty of games that are exclusive to certain regions, but for the most part, these games are released in every market in every territory, which is starting to slowly become the norm, as it should be. Of course though, as one would expect, worldwide releases were much more uncommon back in the day, and while a lot of video games would be released in multiple major territories across a certain amount of days to years, there have been a lot of games that have been released exclusively in a certain region to never be let out of said region, whether it be in North America, Europe, or more commonly, Japan. Over the years, however, a lot of these games that were once previously exclusive to one region are now being rereleased worldwide to other regions as well, which is honestly fantastic, as more people should be able to play these titles that once had a very limited audience. One such title that was gifted the mercy of being redistributed overseas after almost 30 years of release would be Psycho Dream.
Before this game was rereleased for Western territories, I had known about from watching one or two YouTube videos on it, and from what I saw, it looked cool enough, but definitely something that I wasn’t going to jump on as soon as possible. Eventually though, it saw a rerelease for the NSO service, making it available to play for the first time for Western audiences… even though some of the text is still in Japanese. So, I decided to check it out finally over alternatives to see how it actually was after all these years of knowing about it. And how is it actually? Well, I can tell you one thing, it is pretty basic, but it can still be a good time. It isn’t really all that complex, and you can beat it in less than an hour, but it provides a good enough time when you do get into it that you don’t feel like your time was wasted.
The story is actually pretty complex for a SNES game, which you obviously wouldn’t know if you can’t read Japanese text, but upon looking it up, you can see just how much more interesting the story is then the game itself, the graphics are pretty good, having a unique style to them, and plenty of impressive animations for yourself and all of the enemies, the music is… definitely music, with there being several good tracks, but nothing that really stuck out to me, the control works well enough, even if there were several instances of weird physics when it came to crouching and jumping, and the gameplay is what you would expect from a 2D action platformer, but with a bit of unique flair to it.
The game is your typical 2D action platformer, where you take control of either Ryo or Maria, one of them being a swordsman and one being a butterfly angel warrior, so it is pretty obvious which one you should pick from the beginning, go through a set of six stages, take out as many of the disgusting gross creatures that will attack you as you can, with each of them having pretty good designs, gather plenty of health, points, and powerup items that will give you much more versatility and protection over your foes, and fight plenty of big, disgusting bosses that will put your dodging skills to the test, each of them also having very good designs. For what it’s worth, despite having a set up that is extremely similar to many other games at the time, it does somewhat have its own unique charm, and again, it is good for the short time you have with it.
The game’s setting primarily takes place in many places in Japan, and while the types of locations is pretty typical, they are designed in a way to where they stand out from other levels of other games when you compare them side by side… that is, except for the final level, which looks like it was ripped from both Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Contra, and shoved together. Not exactly sure what they were thinking with that one, as it is the least visually interesting out of the six. Aside from that, the game also differs with how many times you can upgrade yourself with the powerups you get, with each character having about four separate levels of forms. Take those couple of elements, coupled with the special nuke attacks that you would expect from this kind of game, and you have yourself a game that is familiar, yet enjoyable at the same time.
That being said though, if you are someone who isn’t too into these types of games, then there is nothing that Psycho Dream has to offer you that you haven’t seen already. It can be fun for a good amount of time, but I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if plenty drop the game shortly after trying it out just because of how much it doesn’t really try. And speaking of not really trying, the game is extremely repetitive. The developers of this game are also the ones that made the Valis series, and based on what I have played of those games, I can definitely see that, but while the original Valis (or at least the remake) was able to stand on its own by having animated cutscenes with voice acting, energetic music, and colorful visuals that keep you wanting to play, Psycho Dream doesn’t really have that, and instead it just has you constantly walking from left to right, slashing at things, with little to no difference in challenge. Again, it isn’t bad, but it definitely can get boring at times.
Overall, despite it’s very interesting story and unique visual style, Psycho Dream is about as generic as action platformers get, and while it certainly isn’t bad, I must stress that, it really isn’t a game that you need to jump on the absolute millisecond you can. I guess I could recommend it for those who are fans of the Valis series, but for everyone else, there are plenty of other similar, and much more enjoyable, titles from the system that you could enjoy. So now that we got that out of the way, how about we get other BETTER games ported over to Western territories from Japan now? Like F-Zero Climax? Or maybe more of the original Fire Emblem titles? Or maybe… just maybe… we could finally get Mother-
Game #369
Before this game was rereleased for Western territories, I had known about from watching one or two YouTube videos on it, and from what I saw, it looked cool enough, but definitely something that I wasn’t going to jump on as soon as possible. Eventually though, it saw a rerelease for the NSO service, making it available to play for the first time for Western audiences… even though some of the text is still in Japanese. So, I decided to check it out finally over alternatives to see how it actually was after all these years of knowing about it. And how is it actually? Well, I can tell you one thing, it is pretty basic, but it can still be a good time. It isn’t really all that complex, and you can beat it in less than an hour, but it provides a good enough time when you do get into it that you don’t feel like your time was wasted.
The story is actually pretty complex for a SNES game, which you obviously wouldn’t know if you can’t read Japanese text, but upon looking it up, you can see just how much more interesting the story is then the game itself, the graphics are pretty good, having a unique style to them, and plenty of impressive animations for yourself and all of the enemies, the music is… definitely music, with there being several good tracks, but nothing that really stuck out to me, the control works well enough, even if there were several instances of weird physics when it came to crouching and jumping, and the gameplay is what you would expect from a 2D action platformer, but with a bit of unique flair to it.
The game is your typical 2D action platformer, where you take control of either Ryo or Maria, one of them being a swordsman and one being a butterfly angel warrior, so it is pretty obvious which one you should pick from the beginning, go through a set of six stages, take out as many of the disgusting gross creatures that will attack you as you can, with each of them having pretty good designs, gather plenty of health, points, and powerup items that will give you much more versatility and protection over your foes, and fight plenty of big, disgusting bosses that will put your dodging skills to the test, each of them also having very good designs. For what it’s worth, despite having a set up that is extremely similar to many other games at the time, it does somewhat have its own unique charm, and again, it is good for the short time you have with it.
The game’s setting primarily takes place in many places in Japan, and while the types of locations is pretty typical, they are designed in a way to where they stand out from other levels of other games when you compare them side by side… that is, except for the final level, which looks like it was ripped from both Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Contra, and shoved together. Not exactly sure what they were thinking with that one, as it is the least visually interesting out of the six. Aside from that, the game also differs with how many times you can upgrade yourself with the powerups you get, with each character having about four separate levels of forms. Take those couple of elements, coupled with the special nuke attacks that you would expect from this kind of game, and you have yourself a game that is familiar, yet enjoyable at the same time.
That being said though, if you are someone who isn’t too into these types of games, then there is nothing that Psycho Dream has to offer you that you haven’t seen already. It can be fun for a good amount of time, but I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if plenty drop the game shortly after trying it out just because of how much it doesn’t really try. And speaking of not really trying, the game is extremely repetitive. The developers of this game are also the ones that made the Valis series, and based on what I have played of those games, I can definitely see that, but while the original Valis (or at least the remake) was able to stand on its own by having animated cutscenes with voice acting, energetic music, and colorful visuals that keep you wanting to play, Psycho Dream doesn’t really have that, and instead it just has you constantly walking from left to right, slashing at things, with little to no difference in challenge. Again, it isn’t bad, but it definitely can get boring at times.
Overall, despite it’s very interesting story and unique visual style, Psycho Dream is about as generic as action platformers get, and while it certainly isn’t bad, I must stress that, it really isn’t a game that you need to jump on the absolute millisecond you can. I guess I could recommend it for those who are fans of the Valis series, but for everyone else, there are plenty of other similar, and much more enjoyable, titles from the system that you could enjoy. So now that we got that out of the way, how about we get other BETTER games ported over to Western territories from Japan now? Like F-Zero Climax? Or maybe more of the original Fire Emblem titles? Or maybe… just maybe… we could finally get Mother-
Game #369