Shape of Dreams Review Summary

Diverse Character Roster: The game offers a wide variety of characters with unique abilities and playstyles, providing players with many options to choose from and explore.

Stunning Visual Design: The game features visually appealing graphics, beautiful animations, and an impressive art design that players find memorable and charming.

Satisfying Combat Mechanics: Combat is described as smooth, fluid, and satisfying, with a good balance of weight and skill-based mechanics that make it enjoyable and addictive.

Variety in Builds: The game offers a wide range of build options, allowing for diverse and customizable gameplay experiences that add charm and depth.

Fun Co-op Experience: The game is particularly enjoyable when played with friends, offering a fun and accessible cooperative gameplay experience.

Game balance issues: There are widespread complaints about balance issues, including unbalanced characters, skills, and numerical values. Players feel that some characters and skills are overpowered or underpowered.

Multiplayer performance issues: Players frequently report performance problems in multiplayer mode, including FPS drops, lag, and connection issues. These problems are particularly noticeable in co-op and late-game scenarios.

Excessive grinding: The game is criticized for its grindy nature, particularly in terms of progression and in-game currency. Players find the grinding tedious and time-consuming.

Lack of variety and challenges: Players express a desire for more variety in challenges, achievements, and gameplay elements. The lack of innovation and meaningful challenges makes the game feel repetitive.

Frustrating boss mechanics: Boss mechanics are criticized for being poorly telegraphed, frustrating, and sometimes unfair. Players feel that boss fights lack clear hitboxes and can be overly harsh.

Character Progression and Customization: Players can customize and progress their characters through various systems such as skill trees, leveling, and unlockable abilities. The game offers deep skill customization and a variety of character builds.

Roguelite Mechanics: The game incorporates roguelite elements, blending them with MOBA gameplay. It includes meta progression, skill combinations, and essence mechanics, offering a unique twist on the traditional roguelike formula.

Variety of Builds and Playstyles: The game provides a wide range of build options and playstyles, allowing players to experiment with different characters and abilities. This variety enhances replayability and player engagement.

Cooperative and Multiplayer Gameplay: The game offers both solo and cooperative gameplay modes, supporting up to four players in co-op. It emphasizes multiplayer cooperation and teamwork, providing a fun and engaging experience in both PVE and group settings.

Comprehensive Progression System: The game features a detailed progression system with various elements such as gear upgrades, talent trees, perks, and meta progression. Players can unlock achievements and improve their characters through a well-structured proficiency system.

FPS drops in multiplayer: Players frequently report frame rate drops during multiplayer sessions, especially in later levels and during combat. This issue is exacerbated with more players and specific builds.

Optimization issues: The game suffers from poor optimization, leading to various performance problems. Players on low to mid-range computers and older hardware experience significant issues.

Performance on different hardware: The game runs smoothly on high-end hardware like the Steam Deck but struggles on entry-level and older computers. Some players report stable performance on well-equipped PCs.

Game crashes and stability: Several players have reported game crashes, particularly during saving and due to severe bugs. Some players experience freezes and black screen bugs.

Specific performance issues: Certain maps, builds, and enemy encounters cause performance issues. Players report severe frame drops and flickering issues with shaders.

Recommended for roguelike fans: The game is highly recommended for fans of roguelikes, roguelites, and action roguelites. It is often compared to popular games like Risk of Rain 2 and Hades, making it a must-play for enthusiasts of these genres.

Highly recommended game: Many reviewers strongly recommend this game, highlighting its appeal to a wide audience, especially those who enjoy roguelites and multiplayer experiences.

Suggested gameplay improvements: Reviewers have suggested various gameplay improvements such as adding an auto-use skill feature, auto-save feature, and other mod-like enhancements to improve the gaming experience.

Worth the purchase: The game is considered worth buying and is seen as a good value for its price. Reviewers mention that it is worth every penny and recommend purchasing it without doubt.

Try the demo first: Several reviewers suggest trying the demo before purchasing the full game. This allows potential buyers to test the game and see if it meets their expectations.

Community fair range: $20.00 - $25.00.

Game completion: 54.0h.

Story completion: 3.0h.

Session length: 3.0h.

The game is significantly more enjoyable and fun when played in co-op mode with friends, which is the key anchor for the game's fun.

Reported time to anchor: 30m.

Friction: The grind for upgrades and meta progression can feel slow.; Some bosses are very difficult to beat.; The game can become repetitive after a few hours..

Completionist Grinder: Grinding for meta-progression and unlocking all abilities, achievements, and cosmetics. Motivation: Unlocking and mastering all content. Stance: buy.

Challenge Seeker: Focusing on defeating bosses and progressing through higher difficulties. Motivation: Overcoming difficult challenges and bosses. Stance: buy.

Co-op Enthusiast: Playing in co-op mode, utilizing support mechanics and teamwork. Motivation: Enjoying cooperative gameplay with friends. Stance: buy.

Performance varies significantly across hardware cohorts, with lower VRAM configurations struggling more with optimization issues, while higher VRAM setups experience fewer but still notable problems, particularly in co-op and late-game scenarios.

Windows <8GB VRAM: negative. Players report frequent performance issues and freezes, even on low settings.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: mixed. Mostly positive experiences but with notable late-game and co-op performance drops.

Windows 16GB+ VRAM: negative. Significant performance issues reported, including frequent stuttering.

Steam Deck: The analysis of user feedback reveals several critical issues affecting the Steam Deck experience. The most prominent problems include severe performance issues, frequent game crashes, and significant frame rate drops. Additionally, users have reported difficulties with the user interface, particularly the small text size and navigation issues with controllers. There is also a strong desire for better controller support, including button remapping and improved precision. These issues collectively indicate that the game is not well-optimized for the Steam Deck, leading to a subpar gaming experience.

Linux and Proton: The game has mixed reviews regarding its performance on Linux. While some users report significant issues with mouse controls and overall performance, others have had a smooth experience. This variability suggests that while the game can run well on Linux, it may require specific conditions or workarounds to achieve optimal performance.

Monetization: The game is praised for not having pay-to-win mechanics or microtransactions. Users express a strong desire for additional DLC content, indicating a positive reception to potential future monetization through DLC. Some reviews mention gacha mechanics, but these do not involve real money, keeping the severity low.

External guides: The game has several notable issues that impact user experience significantly. The most critical problems include frequent bugs and technical issues, such as crashes and FPS drops, which severely affect gameplay. Additionally, the game lacks adequate in-game guidance and tutorials, making it difficult for new players to understand mechanics and progress without relying on external resources. Users also face challenges with unlocking characters and understanding specific gameplay mechanics, which can be frustrating. Despite these issues, the game is still considered enjoyable by some users, particularly when played cooperatively with friends.

Request for Ukrainian localization: Several players have expressed a desire for the game to be localized in Ukrainian. This suggests a significant player base in Ukraine or among Ukrainian-speaking players who wish to experience the game in their native language.