Suicide Guy: Lost Dreams

Genre: First-Person Puzzle-Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Suicide Guy: Lost Dreams is a First-Person Puzzle-Platformer released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2023, and ported to PlayStation 5 in 2024, and ported to Xbox One in 2020. The follow-up to Suicide Guy and Suicide Guy: Sleepin’ Deeply, this game’s premise once again has you playing as the titular Guy who wants to force himself awake by committing suicide within the world(s) of his dream. What follows is a series of puzzles that has the player trying to figure out how to off themselves in each of the game’s silly situations, many based on popular films and videogames.

Once again, this game not only plays almost exactly like its predecessor, but reuses assets, and so once again I will be reusing most of my review of the first game, save for what few elements this game does differently.

The presentation here has a lot of personality to it, but this game is rough. The graphics feature simple 3D characters and environments, yet the game suffers from terrible pop-in, massive framerate drops, and an overall lack of polish that really makes this seem like an amateurish effort, despite that it’s clear a lot of love was put into this game. These visuals are backed by a soundtrack that often vaguely reflects the genres it’s spoofing, as well as the protagonist’s grunts as he struggles to move around the game’s levels.

When it comes to the gameplay, I have to credit this game with finding some creative puzzle ideas that help to add to this game’s variety, making each level prompt a question of just exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, although at this point I feel like this approach to design is really biting the series in the rear, as it’s often unclear exactly what your goal is in a given level, and the game seems picky about what it considers to be fatal. Surely jumping onto serrated razor blades from high above would be a potentially deadly thing to do in reality, but in the game it has decided that’s not how it wants you to die in this given level, so it doesn’t count. In other words, the puzzles can seem like less about figuring out how to do something than figuring out how the game wants you to do it.

And of course once again the platforming here is absolutely terrible. Your character barely lifts off the ground when you jump, and movement controls are loose in a way that will repeatedly make you miss jumps. And once again, all of the positive elements of this game are ones I feel have been done better elsewhere. Those looking for great First-Person Puzzle-Platformers have excellent choices like Portal Companion Collection and The Talos Principle: Deluxe Edition, and those craving a game where you’re looking for creative ways to kill yourself can pick up Reventure.

As such, while there are some fun ideas here, players interested in those ideas will find they’re mired in a lot of frustration, and those same ideas can be found in better First-Person Puzzle-Platformers. With this being the case, it’s hard to recommend that anyone buy Suicide Guy: Lost Dreams.

tl;dr – Suicide Guy: Lost Dreams, like the previous games in the series, is a First-Person Puzzle-Platformer where players take the role of a guy trying to wake himself by committing suicide in his various dreams. As with the prior games, there are some fun puzzle ideas here and a good amount of personality, but unfortunately the game suffers from massive performance issues, has some absolutely miserable platforming, and the puzzle design is frustratingly unclear. There are multiple better options in this genre, so go for one of those instead.

Grade: D+

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