A Dream of Burning Sand

Full review at: https://thegamehoard.com/2021/04/08/a-dream-of-burning-sand-pc/ A Dream of Burning Sand’s simple story can balance emotion, world-building, and humor rather well, but its hard to remain invested in the tale of Nina and Amani when you only get bits of it between befuddling mazes and long periods of pointless walking. Areas are often far too large for how little you can do in them, their design makes it easy to get lost, and even when you’re running at full speed, just moving around a space takes far too much time. When you’re not running along a large barren stretch of land, struggling with dark dungeons, or trying to learn perplexing interior layouts, the fights still make things hard to stomach with how easy it is to get overwhelmed while barely having the means to fight back competently yourself. While the plot could have been appealing in a more condensed experience, A Dream of Burning Sand is unfortunately an experience dominated by tedium and frustration.

I think this 2D platforming RPG has flown under the radar, and deserves more attention. On first glance the graphics quality reminds me of Cave Story, a game I initially avoided due to its retro look. And like Cave Story's art, it grew on me. Music also grew on me. There are some songs that are kind of weird to my ears, in particular the London song. But, the various versions of each song that play at different times really warmed me up to the soundtrack. And by the end, I wanted a live remixed soundtrack with that skeleton or spider on the cover :D (Reference from the game!) Where this game really shines, in my opinion, is the writing. Technically very well written, and almost all of it is optional. So you can scour in-game books; talk to NPCs multiple times; even listen to the MCs thoughts, if you have the patience to stand still. And I wish there was even more dialogue. I believe the later stages have less dialogue, and not nearly as many MC idle thoughts. A shame. But, perhaps more importantly: there's the world. There is a whole lot of content to explore. Mazes of 2D caves, ruins, cities, and plains. And I do mean maze literally. There is a fairly complex 2D …