One of the fun things about video games are the imaginative worlds you get to explore. And for me, for some reason, when those worlds are labeled ‘dream worlds’ or just dreams, then it really fascinates me. Granted, I guess you can say that all video game worlds are dream worlds since someone had to dream them up. I think what intrigues me about dream worlds in video games is that when I sleep, I have some pretty vivid dreams. Most of the time they seem very real, so much so that when I wake up, I feel a bit disoriented for a second or two. I won’t go into some of the weird and crazy dreams I have, but I bet that if I wrote some of them down, I could write a really cool book or storyline for a video game! So since I’ve been thinking about this sort of thing lately, I figured I’d make a little blog listing some of my most notable played games that have dream worlds in them.

Super Mario Bros. 2
Maybe not the first game to have a dream world, but certainly the first prominent one. I guess Nintendo made it a dream world for a Mario game because it was very different from previous Mario games. That’s because it originally wasn’t a Mario game at all, and if you don’t know that story by now, you haven’t been on the Internet very long. I think Mario’s dream world is one of the reasons why Mario 2 is my favorite NES Mario game (yes I even like it better than 3). It’s because the game is so different that I like it so much. I think the Mario 2 enemies: Shy Guys, Mouser, etc. are much more creative and cooler from a design standpoint, and now they’re as much a Mario staple as any other ‘true’ Mario game enemy. The worlds were just so much brighter and colorful and you could do cool things like pick up enemies, pull up veggies, and ride flying carpets. And since the game is all Mario’s dream, the cartoony ending with Mario snoring was pretty mind-blowing for back in the NES days. Anyone remember how cool that looked? I thought it did.

Kirby’s Dream Land
Kirby’s games may not be someone’s dream, but the worlds he tromps around in are pretty colorful and imaginative. And they’re fun to be in, what with all the neat visuals and peppy music. I actually like Kirby games better than most Mario games, really.

Little Nemo: The Dream Master
No, it’s not about that clownfish! Back on the NES, Capcom made some excellent games cleverly disguised as kiddy licensed titles. But any old gamer can tell you that NES games like DuckTales, Chip N Dale’s Rescue Rangers, etc. were EXCELLENT games. Another one was Little Nemo: The Dream Master.

Little Nemo actually started out as a newspaper comic from the early 1900’s. It was about a young boy named Namo who went on adventures in fantastic worlds in his dreams. In the last panel, he always woke up! The artwork in these comics was just extraordinary. Since I like dream worlds, it’s obvious that I LOVE the Little Nemo comic strip. If you can find collections of them at Half Price Books or wherever, I strongly suggest you pick one up. That’s what I did. The Little Nemo comic was WAY ahead of its time, I think, and the guy who created it, Winsor McKay, deserves as much credit in cartoon animation pioneering as Disney does. You probably know Winsor McKay best for his silent black and white cartoon “Gertie the Dinosaur.” And if you don’t know, well, this is the Internet, you know what to do.

Anyhow, about 15 to 20 years ago, they made a Little Nemo cartoon movie (which actually wasn’t half bad, you should try and see it), and that’s what the Capcom NES game is loosley based on. It featured colorful worlds with excellent graphics, like giant mushrooms in the mushroom forest, a shrunken Nemo in his giant house, an upside down world, and a cool Nightmare Land (all based on locations from the strip). Another cool thing about dream worlds in video games is they let you do creative things gameplay wise. In NES Little Nemo, you fed candy to animals to make them fall asleep, then you could ride on them and use their abilities. Or in some cases, it looked like you crawled inside their bodies, like the frog, mole, or bee powers (yeah Little Nemo was also kind of weird). At any rate, Little Nemo was a cool NES game and actually kind of tough in places, too. It wasn’t no pushover! It would be cool if it came to the Wii Virtual Console someday.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
When the black and white, er, green and dark green Game Boy first came out, I really wasn’t that impressed with it. Most of the games at first were just crappy versions of NES games. The first portable game that really impressed me came later. Link’s Awakening is still my very favorite Zelda game. Link is shipwrecked and finds an island that ends up being a dream of a magical fish. Nightmares want to take over the dream island, so Link must wake the fish and stop the monsters. The dream world is one of the reasons why I like GB Zelda so much. One, it allowed for a little more silliness in places. Mario and Kirby characters show up in the game to liven things up a bit. And the game kind of had a bittersweet story and ending, too. If Link woke the Wind Fish, would all the friends he made on the island disappear? Would Link himself disappear? These little story elements made the game a little more intersting than the usual ‘save the princess’ schtick. I need to replay this game again sometime, it’s really fun.

NiGHTS Into Dreams
I’ve never played much of this Sega Saturn classic, so I don’t know much about it. I tried to play it once at a store a long time ago, and I couldn’t tell what I was supposed to be doing. Goals were a little unclear and the game just paled in comparison to its 3-D competitor, Super Mario 64. But in NiGHTS’ defense, I didn’t give the game a very good shake. I needed to play it longer to discover what makes it so special I bet. One thing that I did see, though, is that the worlds looked really imaginative. Good or bad, I’ll gladly take the opportunity to play the NiGHTS sequel on the Wii and maybe understand what the big deal was about the first game. And if the opportunity ever came up, I’d also gladly play the Saturn game more, too.

Klonoa
Klonoa games are some of the best 2-D platformers on the PSOne and PS2, and the GBA ones weren’t half bad either. Aside from having colorful worlds and imaginative characters, another thing I liked about Klonoa’s dream worlds is the presentation was strangely poetic. From the very beginning text that says…

“It’s strange…
Sometimes I can’t remember my dreams,
Though I’m sure I saw them..”

To the cryptic message after the ending of the first game that says “For your phantomile…” Klonoa games have always had an artsy and poetic air about them. They had soul. And while they’re cute, Klonoa games’ endings are usually surprisingly dark and sad. In the first game, Klonoa is dragged from his world by a dimensional portal, and it’s obvious that he does NOT want to leave, as he kicks and cries along the way. Because of this, the ending to the first Klonoa game is one of the most memorable video game endings I’ve ever seen. I like the Klonoa games so much so that I still use the name ‘Klonoa’ on some message boards and even my Xbox Live gamertag!

Eternal Sonata
I’m really looking forward to this upcoming Namco RPG. Mainly because the gameplay and battles look fun, but also because of the premise and story. Normally in games I don’t care too much about the story. Samus could be blasting Metroids to make it to her birthday party on time for all I care, as long as the game is fun I’ll play it. But the premise in Eternal Sonata sounds really cool. The famous 19th century pianist Chopin has a dream on his deathbed where people in his dream world with incurable mortal diseases can use magic. The references to music and the creative characters and locales in Chopin’s dream look really cool, and I can’t wait for this game to come out. I’ve already got it reserved.

Anyway, that’s all the dream world games I can think of right now. What are YOUR favorite dream world games?

Tags: Misc