After several months of playing some rather mature, hefty strategy RPGs, it’s a nice diversion to go back and play Dream Tactics. This card-based tactical RPG has been sitting in my Steam account for a while, and the cheerful pixel graphics and lightweight story are very reminiscent of the GBA era, something the developers, Spectra Entertainment Inc, reference in their game summary. Despite this fluffy feel, the turn-based strategizing can be as challenging as anything in the genre. However, spikes in difficulty and issues with the clarity of card information and organisation cast a shadow over the dreamy landscape.
The narrative in Dream Tactics is not the priority, but it does enough to maintain interest and connect the characters together. The Dream World, where the game takes place, is under threat from an evil, nightmare-like force. The heroine of the story, Neru, joins with her friends and acquaintances to defeat the Dream Eater and save the world. To do this, the group must first collect enough Dream Fragments to access the Dream Eater’s realm. Each of these fragments resides in a different part of the dream world, and there’s not much more to it than that. There aren’t any sidequests as such, and aside from a few witty dialogue exchanges, there’s no depth to the characters, even if they remain bubbly and precocious.
The dream worlds are delightful, and Dream Tactics‘ GBA inspiration is very evident. Most of the world inspirations are pretty standard, though: the Crystal Caverns are what you’d expect, as is the moody realm of Ashguard. There are a limited number of dream worlds to explore, and while most have lots of twists and turns, they’re not expansive enough to get lost or spend significant time navigating. The sound effects and soundtrack are also pleasant and full of further nostalgia. Again, there isn’t extensive variation, but the various synth layers and simple melody lines suit the world themes and don’t get in the way when exploring.
The main adversaries of the Dream World, Pillows, are as cute and inspired as they sound. There are many Pillows to battle, each with unique abilities, but they’re all fundamentally soft, squishy cushions. The graphics do a good job of offering little touches to help differentiate them, from the balloon pillows that can ignore terrain obstructions to barrage pillows blasting you from a great range with oversized lasers. These details are enough to add character and help identify threats from a glance on a busy battlefield.
Battles are turn-based in Dream Tactics, with a card-collecting/deployment element for offensive and defensive strategies. Each player character has a default set of 15 cards which define their abilities and archetype in combat. Neru starts the game as an area-effect mage with the ability to create negative status effects. On the other hand, Luna’s deck contains lots of hard-hitting physical damage cards, alongside cards extending the range of these attacks and moving her around the battlefield. Characters start with simpler abilities, but these quickly expand into a complex system of interlocking skills, especially once movement-based tricks come into play. Most combats are duels to the death, but there are some variations, such as when the party is separated or when multiple waves of reinforcements appear. There are also timed chests present on some maps, and these contain unique rewards if you manage to reach them before their turn counter expires.
Characters have access to a pool of MP to play a card, and each card has an associated MP cost. These points restore after every turn and act as a cap on the number of abilities and actions characters can take in a given turn. Like other recent genre examples, if you play cards before movement, you usually forfeit the ability to move, which adds another wrinkle to the gameplay. There’s also a mechanic that lets you redraw cards that you don’t want in your hand, and given the small deck size, this leads to juicy strategy choices when you know you’re likely to redraw a useful card for a given battlefield situation. The fact that you can have multiple copies of most cards also plays into this. These redraws aren’t limitless, and managing their use and replenishment is key to the more difficult battles. I usually found myself stocking them up to help locate my health regeneration cards later in combat. Either that, or waiting until the enemy bottlenecks into a nice group, then finding and redrawing my most powerful area effect abilities.
There are a lot of cards to find, and Dream Tactics also allows you to construct your own decks from any available card, to an extent. Characters can exchange certain cards with each other using a Trade Point system. Not every card is available to trade this way, but the system allows for tweaking character builds more significantly than in other genre examples. Healing abilities are a good example. Not many characters come with their own card abilities, so I found sharing these cards among different characters sometimes helped in longer combats or with a split party.
All these systems have lots of depth and flexibility, but they aren’t always served well by the UI design and symbology. There are many symbols and effects to take stock of, and they’re not well explained. The card illustrations are not always intuitive, either. This is doubly frustrating when setting up decks and transferring cards from one owner to another. There’s no way to sort or organize cards, and in the late game with a large number of possible cards, this is a real chore.
There are several other systems and features in Dream Tactics. Occasionally, as you’re wandering, you come across trap dungeon areas. These sections of the map feature spinning razor discs or arrows that fly across the area and require good, old-fashioned d-pad dashing to reach safe areas and get to the next part of the level, or a switch to open a gate. The trap areas can get long and complex, and by the end of the game, they were not something I looked forward to. You can’t take many hits before the game forces you to reattempt a failed run, and runs do lose their freshness by the fourth or fifth time.
Items and equipment have their own systems, too. Rather than equip according to specific areas, the game allows you to equip as much as you can depending on two different types of currency. Like with the card system, it’s possible to create wildly varying builds as a result, and there’s enough equipment to find and collect to provide options for every character. Unfortunately, much akin to the issue with the card inventory, you can’t sort the equipment, and there’s no way of seeing abilities or summaries at a glance. There’s just a lot of scrolling and selecting before checking character statuses. It’s just a bit clumsy.
Dream Tactics isn’t the longest RPG, and there are no sidequests to distract you, but the difficulty spikes at end-level encounters and bosses make up for it. You need to have a solid understanding of your cards and characters at these points and know specifically what kind of build or synergy you want. If you don’t ‘see’ this in combat, they can prove to be frustrating. It’s not like you can necessarily level up or grind either: even though the game offers all of its world levels from the start, they’re all level-scaled. You might find new cards, equipment options, and characters to help you see a new strategy or combo, but you won’t ever be more powerful than your foes. They’re always at or close to your level, and because of this, one bad round or poor card choice can cost you in a long combat.
Dream Tactics is an enjoyable journey, and the tactical nuances and the promise of new cards and equipment kept me interested throughout. The aesthetics are pleasant too, and the little details and animation really bring to mind the glory of its retro inspirations. The dream does begin to fade with the boss battle difficulty, and over time, the sheer number of cards and equipment becomes difficult to sort and a frustration to manage. For those of you who like card-based systems and aren’t afraid of a clunky UI and spotty difficulty spikes, this pixel adventure might be just the thing to spend the evening with. Sleep well!
