Customer Reviews

Dream Chronicles

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

... close wins no awards. This should have been better; much better. There were a few horribly thought out levels and way too many invisible items to find (tap...tap...tap...repeat dozens of times - if it had only been just that frustrating). Details below.

The different levels in this game and its features run from 5 stars down to 1 star - and that's a real shame. At the start, I though this was going to be a winner. Puzzles should cause the player to have to think, but not be so difficult that they are more like work than fun. And by difficult, I'm not talking about solving the problems, but getting the items so you can work on solving the problems.

There are way, way too many places where the only way pieces of the puzzle could be found was by constant tapping until you hit something. The little glimmering "hint" feature is of little use. The biggest problem with finding things that were so well hidden is that you had to hit within a hair of the item. This meant having to saturate the area with taps - but just a hair to close to one another and the description screen would pop up that you then had to click again to get rid of. This was altogether very frustrating - again all in an attempt to find invisible items. Moving the small items around, as you are required to do many times, is equally as frustrating. You have to try multiple times to pick up the item you want to use and multiple times more to drop it where you want it.

The requirement to click within such a fine tolerance made some levels horrible to get through. That feature ruined the enjoyment of what should have been fun puzzles.

The graphics are very good, the music is better than average, the overall game design is fun to play. The details are just too frustrating and uneven. This was so close to being a 5 star game. The poor features are so annoying, though, that the entire game gets dragged down.

For anyone without a music background: Minor spoiler alert! Level 9 - the Piano Room. There are a couple of puzzles here and a whole world of frustration. First there is a lot of blind tapping to find a few of the items. Then, and this is a 1 star feature of this game, if you do not have an ear for music - quit right here. You have to listen to tunes, convert them to notes, memorize them, and go to a piano to play the notes - 7 times! EDIT 3/31/10 I have been told that in Level 9, you can turn the crank and watch to learn tune to enter. End of 3/31/10 edit. I am not musically inclined. I personally think there should be a kazoo section in a symphony orchestra (where's Spike Jones when we need him?). It was only by use of the faq by CasaNova73099 I found on gamefaqs that I was able go get through this level. End of spoiler.

That level 9 fiasco would have caused me to return the game had someone not posted some help (which should not be required for a game of this level of play!). Level 16 is also ruined by the invisible item problem. It has some of the best puzzles in the game, but the frustration of finding dark pieces in the dark is something that removed the enjoyment. Such design features are a sign of lazy design not cleverness of puzzle construction.

Before you work on a new game, Zoo, you should fix this one. The caveat in your manual that items may be small and hard to find does not equate with so small that you can only find them by constant tapping. Do you not have gamers from your target market test these before you release them? If not, why not?

Overall: There is a fun game in here, marred by releasing it without really testing it for playability.

Get it: if you don't mind tapping your way through level after level - and multi-tapping when there should be no need due to the stylus controls being so fine tuned as to be hard to use for small items.

Get it: if you have no problems with music or don't mind having to use someone else's notes to get through a level or two.

Don't get it: if you want a relaxing puzzle game that relies on brain work more than luck at finding stuff. There are some very fun puzzles, but not nearly as fun as they should have been.

I really enjoyed Dream Chronicles. The music and graphics are really nice. The reason that I only gave it four stars is that there is so much random tapping in order to find things! The small DS screen makes it difficult to see what you are looking for at times. The other VERY frustrating thing that I found is when the items are in your inventory the taps are sometimes totally unresponsive, so you may have to tap several times just to pick an item up. I won't spoil it, but I was very disappointed in the end of the game. I was also disappointed to realize that if you didn't find ALL of the dream pieces by the end of the game there was no way to go back and collect them. Other than these few things I thought the game was very good and I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys seek and find and puzzle type games.

This game was really fun to play and I thoroughly enjoyed it...until the ending. The ending happened so fast I almost missed it. It went by so fast I can't tell you what happened. It's almost like no ending at all. If you must buy this game, get it for the gameplay and not the ending.

I had no trouble finding anything in the game and was able to find all the little pieces of the puzzle so to speak.

The graphics were really good, but there was almost no music to speak of.

It's a quiet relaxing game that will take you roughly 5 hours to complete.

Because of the extremely short length of the game and the almost non-existent ending, I cannot recommend this game. I expected more than 5 hours of gameplay for the money I spent on this.

Reading the reviews on here, it feels like a lot of reviewers have only played Dream Chronicles on the DS, and not on the computer. That might account for a lot of the 'too much random tapping' complaints, because you do have that in the PC game too, at points.

I just got my game today and so far, I love it just as much as the PC game. To me, it's not annoying or head-ache inducing. Of course, I'm also playing it on the new DSi XL, so I don't have to worry about the small-screen complaints either.

If you liked the PC game, this is the exact same game, but for the DS, and for me, that was just fine, seeing as I'm a fan of the whole series, and can now take it on the go.

The game was fun as I enjoy hide and seek, but I was able to finish the game in less than 5 hours and I am no "gamer" so that was not nice for the money I paid. I would also like to add that the ending of the game was the worst dud I have ever come across, it's just over, period, no real ending, just boom, done, I would have liked to see all my work or a better ending to the story, or a line to the opening of the sequel, it left me feeling that I had a bad game, except I bought one for my sister and hers was the same. I suggest you wait and buy it used at rock bottom price.

This is one of those games that was ported from the PC onto the DS. I can't say that it made a very good port in my opinion. I found myself constantly moving the stylus around just to get closeups of each section of the room, and then almost blindly clicking all over the place to find practically invisible items. It would be much easier to see the things on the screen if they were on a bigger monitor rather than the tiny DS screen. The game on the PC is supposed to be quite beautiful from the screenshots I've seen, however, I a lot of that beauty is lost on the handheld. The same goes for the game's soundtrack as well, which also suffers a loss of quality. As for the story, it seemed like an interesting fantasy adventure and I would have kept playing, however, I just grew tired of the constant tapping and straining my eyes trying to find these hidden items.

Ultimately, I would suggest playing the game on PC over the DS. It's nice to have a portable version of the game, but I think it hurts more than helps it.

I thought this game was okay. I was disappointed with the short game play. I played this game in one sitting and took one evening to play. I agree with some of the other reviews that it is hard to find some of the objects and that you will be blind tapping. I think this is because the DS screen is so small and it is hard to see the detailed picture. This game is probably much better on the computer.

I didn't really understand the dream crystals or jewels that you find throughout the game. I didn't fully understand how this added to the game and nothing happens when you find them except that it adds it to the journal. The ending happens so quickly that I thought something went wrong. I even played the game over again (rather quickly) to see the ending again.

Overall, the game was disappointing and could have been much better. It was fun while it lasted but it has very little replay value. I played it twice and became quickly bored with it since it makes you find the same things and solve the same puzzles. Price was cheap enough so that is why I gave it 3 stars. If I bought it for full price it would have been 1 star.

Nice relaxing game. Pretty decent graphically, but the others reviews are dead on. You have to hit the screen with the stylus alot because it's so small just hoping you hit something. Other than that...not too shabby.

I enjoy the games where you have to find the hidden objects. There is just one part of this that has me stumped, but I am sure I can figure it out. If you like hidden object games, this is a good one.

When i have free time i like to play the hide and seek games. I have this game on my computer and i was very happy to find i could play it on my nintendo. Thanks..