You shouldn’t be here. Everyone hates you. They’re all ignoring you. Why are you even here? Thalia’s anxiety almost gets the better of her before she excuses herself from the party and takes a moment to regroup. Life isn’t going well for Thalia, her rent is late, she woke up from a horrible dream at nine in the evening, and she’s at a party she doesn’t want to be at. Making an excuse she leaves the party only to find her dog outside in her apartment complex’s hallways. He takes off running through the hall and Thalia chases after him. Trying to catch him she follows him into Oblivion.
She Dreams Elsewhere is a JRPG with light dungeon puzzle elements. Puzzles like finding keys in treasure chests to open locked doors and making sure I had a second party member to stand on two-floor bricks at the same time to open a door. The JRPG portion showed up in stats, item and menu management, and battles. The battles themselves were first-person with shadowy enemies against a psychedelic background. Along with standard attack, skill, defend, and item options, you’re also given a limit menu for when your Limit Break bar is filled, allowing you to unleash a devastating attack on all enemies.
Though the gameplay is classic, the aesthetic is not. Hand-drawn portraits in the menus against a 16-bit style overworld give She Dreams Elsewhere a very unique style. Most of the environments were grayscale with objects of note shaded blue. And while objects of note were highlighted, they weren’t the only things you could interact with. A surprising amount of flavor text was added to different objects in the game, making the world feel alive and helped fill out Thalia.
Traveling through Oblivion, a few friends from the party Thalia was at came to help her. Amia and Oliver, Thalia’s closest friends joined her in battle and helped fill out the roster allowing for a 3-person party. Once the party was full I was given the ability to perform a link-attack when the enemy was stunned. The link-attack was very powerful and dealt devastating damage to my enemy. Along with dealing substantial damage it also provided a myriad of status-effects amplifying my party’s stats and damage while stifling the enemy’s.
Along with the aesthetic and mechanics, the music also stood out as stellar. Tracks that both matched the mood as well as the environments Thalia found herself, I enjoyed every track that was thrown at me. The soundtrack was a mix of themes ranging from more typical ambient video game tracks (which still stood out as exceptional) to powerful hip-hop tracks. No matter where I took Thalia in She Dreams Elsewhere, it was accompanied by music that I was excited to hear.
She Dreams Elsewhere is one of those games that’s going to resonate with you. I was excited when I first saw the trailer and read the description for the game but having played through the demo, I’m almost giddy at the prospect of purchasing this title. The most disappointing thing so far is that She Dreams Elsewhere doesn’t have a firm release date, but I’m looking forward to playing it later this year.
