Balthazar’s Dream

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Balthazar’s Dream is a Platformer released on PC in 2017, ported to Nintendo Switch in 2019, and later ported to PlayStation platforms in 2020. This game puts players in the role of a dog whose owner gets into an accident. The dog dreams about following his master’s ghostly form through an abstract world with dog-centric obstacles to get past.

The presentation here is lovely, with 2D pixel art visuals that convey a lot of personality, and a chiptune soundtrack that’s also pretty good. It’s really adorable the various dog references this game is constantly making, from deadly chocolate and grapes the player must avoid, a “scary” vacuum that boosts the players away after a little while, or a ball that gives the player a boost of speed to retrieve. Seeing these clever little gags is much of a part of what will propel players forward to see more of the game.

Having said that, there’s nothing here to justify the over 1.5GB of space this game will take up in your Nintendo Switch’s memory. I would have expected this game to require maybe one-fifth of that amount of memory, and I’m mystified how the file size could have become so bloated.

In any case, even if you think the space is worth it for the adorable presentation, the gameplay sadly isn’t. In short, the platforming here just isn’t very good, with hit detection being a bit spotty, your character not being responsive at times, and with the game’s unforgiving design making it hard to ignore these sorts of problems.

It’s a shame the gameplay here makes Balthazar’s Dream such a pain to play, because there’s a lot of creativity in its world and the presentation is just so appealing. Unfortunately, for all its positive qualities, Balthazar’s Dream just isn’t fun. Skip it.

tl;dr – Balthazar’s Dream is a Platformer with a lovely presentation that makes all sorts of clever references to the world of dogs. Unfortunately, none of that excuses the game’s 1.5GB file size, and even though the presentation is lovely, the gameplay is shoddy and simply not fun. Leave this puppy at the pound.

Grade: C-

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