Dark Dreams RHN

Pretty rough with questionable level design and very slow platforming compare to your other works at the time(Mirage of Dragon & The Seal of the Curse) but I finally got around to beat it after starting over a year ago :)

Will it ever be released on consoles/Nintendo Switch? 🙏🏽

Fantastic looking game. The character close-ups are beautiful. I love the surreal nightmare-fuel aesthetics. The atmosphere and sounds are also great. It's a free game, well-made, and deserves attention.

As for constructive criticism: As others have stated, it does feel slow, which would be fine if the character had faster/more fluid/dynamic movements, it would balance the pace. But if you combine slow moving speed, with bland combat mechanics, with the neutral background tone, and with rather tedious obstacles, you will get a game that looks innovative but feels sluggish. It's why early 2D games on systems like Sega and Gameboy usually didn't combine all of those things into one game. They had a bright/colorful background and/or fast character and/or interactive environment and/or (most importantly) fun gameplay/combat mechanics. A lot can be forgiven if you enjoy moving the character or if you enjoy destroying obstacles in a side-scroll game.

To further exasperate the issue, the storyline isn’t quite captivating. More specifically, it seems too strange. While you have some leeway with making things a bit more nonsensical because it is a nightmare, if the game already feels sluggish and the player isn’t interested in the storyline, they may not find a reason to continue and push through the game.

IMPORTANT READ THIS!

If your looking for a boring and generally painful game to play this is it. Your characters movements are slow and terrible. things as simple as spikes are a pain in the ass to jump over. at the very start of the game your already doing nearly impossible platforming that's so long and tedious that I just said to myself "fuck it" and stopped playing. How someone can make such a cancerous 2D game with great art is beyond me.

overall

3.7/10 great art doesn't make a great game. This one is a perfect example of that. 

I absolutely adore the art direction and, although it's painful, the mechanic. But unfortunately it seems you can definitely stuck after the second boss if you explore back in the "village" to get the keys. I'm now at 1 health, 2 bullets, 2 rockets and no way to advance. Is this a case of starting again and avoid exploring or am I missing something? Thanks in advance and congratulations!