Due to game reciving updates if anything in this review is striked off, that means it was changed.

Another six months passed since my man Arthur created his masterpiece Supernatural. This time it's proudly announced that the game is now made by a WHOPPING 2 devs. So it's either double the quality or double the failure. Regardless, it's progress. Maybe around 5th game there is gonna be something worthy created by the crew, and here is why.

Dream Cage is yet another run-of-the-mill anomaly spotting game. And not the good one either. See I like to split anomaly games into two categories:

1) Fun ones where anomalies are there to disturb you and create a spectacle, so they are relatively easy to spot.
2) Boring bastard ones where change is barely noticeable unless you have a degree in pixel hunting.

Dream Cage tried to be a mix, which I find respectable, since for the most part it's not forcing you to find obnoxiously hidden or barely noticeable changes to progress the story (unless you are going for the secret ending) but anomalies are nothing special. They are not fun to find, they don't impress you, most of them don't disturb you and it feels more like a chore than anything. Surely it's a subjective take, I personally like more interactive games where I don't spend decades circling the environment trying to spot miniscule differences, but even the most patient person would go crazy.

Mainly because you have three restrictions. Sanity, camera battery life and microphone threshold. Third only matters if you are a streamer. And comparing to two previous installment, it got worse. No more talking to the ghost. Make too much noise = death. And having things that hinder your progress so you don't just go through the game in half an hour is fine, but the way it's implemented is just terrible. You can see anomalies only if you use the camera, and when you use said camera it spends both your sanity and battery charge unbelievable fast, especially so if you are scanning for anomalies. So you'll be forced to farm items before you even commit to proper investigation.

What items you might ask? Well, to keep yourself from kicking the bucket you gotta pick up batteries and pills that spawn around the apartment, and it's so bizarre because items spawn right in front of you, just materializing with the glitch effect. This is somewhat justified with our protagonist having alzheimer's, but the sheer amount of stuff that can spawns is ridiculous. And you can't commit to mixed playstyle either, aka spot a few anomalies then go for items to replenish, because their spawn is random. Sometimes you need pills, it gives you batteries, or vice versa. Or sometimes it spawns nothing at all, so you either waiting or just taking an L and restarting the night. This time death has consequences. And talking about equipping, every time you pick up an item it plays out the same two unnecessary lengthy animations that cause motion sickness after a while. This gets old incredibly quickly. I wish they would be as swift as in say Outlast.

You know what also gets old quickly? Jumpscares. And some of them also affect your sanity. We are in 2025 and still receiving games where main scare factor is a thing going BOO loudly. So for majority of time you'll be walking around the apartment trying to remember dozens of things at once and waiting for items to spawn to keep playing the game while mildly annoyed by loud noises and tiring animations.

The redeemable qualities are sound design that does it's job at building tension properly. Visuals are incredibly detailed and diverse thought the nights, and game seems to be running better than previous installments. Thanks you Unreal Engine 5. I'm glad we are on "quality over performance" ark. I love playing game in less than 60 fps and relying on upscalers or third party software like Lossless Scaling to have playable frames. Where was I? Oh. Sleep paralysis sequences, they are well animated, tense and gruesome. Good reward for beating the night.hilariously enough tho, one of the best animations is spoiled to you right on store page, so it's even less things to see And game' price. It's cheap, you buy it, beat it, and don't feel too bad if it doesn't hit the spot.

If you guys wanted to create a game for those parasites that oversaturate their scared expressions for attention, you succeeded, but as an actual horror game it's way too flawed and generic to be enjoyable. Also It's trying to fit the trendy anomaly type game (duh). Which is not bad on it's own, but It somehow felt more unique when it was about a detective going through his cases.

FREE EDIT ON 08.02.2025

I made a 100% achievement guide - https://ad.gamersky.info/@steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3422762778

ANOTHER FREE EDIT ON 09.02.2025

Developers seem to address criticism in a responsible way by fixing certain issues and changing bad design decisions. After two patches rolled in they brought some bugfixes, camera movement is no longer motion sick inducing, scanning anomalies is faster and sanity levels don't raise as quick as it was before. Keep up the good work.