I've seen a handful of games that are love letters to N64/PS1 platformers, and of them all I think Cavern of Dreams comes the closest to hitting the mark. It absolutely nails the look, especially with the blur filter on. The textures are big and chunky in exactly the way you'd want them to be. My biggest gripe with the game is that the controls feel a little clunky and often I'd bump up against parts of the game that felt like the asked for more precision than the game would give me. I was reading through the game designer's old tweets and I came across one that mentioned there was deliberately no combat in the game, and while I do think this is a really inspired choice, it means that there are basically only two ways to gather eggs: solve a puzzle or jump/bounce somewhere. Which isn't really bad per se, but it does get a little repetitive, especially when jumping and bouncing doesn't feel super fun.

My final knock against the game is more of a nitpick, and it's that I wish the music was better. The game's called Cavern of Dreams: it's clearly going for an otherworldly, dreamlike vibe. But in doing so the music fades into the background and I often forgot there was even music to begin with. When I think of classic late 90s/early 00s platformers, like Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie or Klonoa, I think of great soundtracks. I know that saying a small studio should make Mario 64-tier music isn't a fair ask at all, but it's saying something when I've put eight hours into a game, go pull up one of the songs on Youtube, and only have the vaguest sense of hearing it in game.

That being said, I still think this is a worthwhile game to play. It's not overly long, it's not a Rare-style collectathon, and even though Cavern of Dreams is styled on older games, it leaves stuff like health, lives, and game overs in the past.