Review – Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland

Little Nemo: The Dream Master was way better than it had any right to be. A game based on an animated movie that came out three years earlier, based on a comic strip that came out at the beginning of the 20th century, The Dream Master was dynamic, looked incredible, and was frigging hard as hell. Being able to feed candy to dreamland animals and harness their powers was shockingly innovative and paved the way for Kirby adventures in the future. But then we never heard again from the IP, because, in the 90s, sometimes you could just have a single game and be done with it. After a crazy long period of nothing, Little Nemo again comes back into the gaming eye with Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland, a brand new adventure from DIE SOFT that, sadly, could not match my fondness for the original.

The titular Nemo again returns to Slumberland, but something is amiss. Nemo can’t remember almost anything about the dreamy world of his adventures, and there is some kind of corruption working its way through the land. In a play taken straight out of Super Mario Bros. 3, the guardians of each realm have been transformed into some kind of animal, and Nemo has to get back the magic scepters to restore their humanity. Moreover, if Nemo cannot remember Slumberland, then Oblivion will consume it entirely, erasing the land of dreams forever, for everyone. Nemo is up for the challenge, even if he doesn’t understand why, but it quickly becomes apparent Nemo is not alone in trying to retrieve these scepters. What bizarre mystery surrounds these circumstances and hazards? Nemo, with plenty of help, must discover the truth, or risk losing the comforting land of sleep forever!

Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland is a delightful bit of collect-a-thon baked into a very competent platforming adventure. Nemo has to explore different dreamlike biomes to figure out how to reach the boss character of each zone, defeat them, and return the scepter to the guardian of that land. Plenty of the landscape is barred or marred by spots of Oblivion, which will damage you if you touch it in any way. Additionally, there are “standard” hazards about (spiky floors, gumball machines that attack you) that you need to deal with either through avoidance or one of the many toys that Nemo discovers. Nemo can pick up and throw turnips from the ground, a great nod to another dream title (Super Mario Bros. 2). You quickly get things like a yo-yo or a bubble wand, and these have their own levels of power and execution depending on what else you have equipped.

Something that really surprised me was the level of customization within the game. Besides standard articles of video and audio shaping, you could also choose one of several cats to wait for you in your bedroom (the different sprites are rewards for Kickstarter backers). Nemo can find a ton of pajamas to wear that give him a different look and also have different abilities. Plus, you also find Little Buddies, which are sidekicks that toddle along beside you and add different bonuses (like being able to eat almost everything in your path). Believe me when I say that the animations of these plushie pals is one of the damn sweetest things I’ve seen in a game in a long time, and it gave me no shortage of joy to see them moving along with Nemo.

And yes, Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland really does look that good. While I’ll always have love for the original NES game, the choices of colors and shapes that make up Nemo’s latest adventure is an absolute delight. In spite of the pending Oblivion crisis, there’s this level of genuine child appeal to it all that keeps you laser focused on the game. Enemies are bumbling baddies that are perfectly matched for a young hero. You feel challenged, never threatened, by what’s in front of you. There’s cohesion in the lands while still being distinctly different. The characters have energy and degrees of detail that make them unique, from Flip’s teleportation to the Zelda-like display of finding a new item. It delights the eye time after time, and it reminds you that dreams should be relaxing and beautiful, not stressful and menacing.

The boss fights aren’t many, but they do have a superb quality that I definitely don’t associate with the original Little Nemo adventure. It seems that designers are really taking pains to make sure boss fights feel like more than just “bigger versions of the existing enemies,” and Die Soft did an excellent job of creating different waves of attacks with nuanced timing and reliance on different items and weapons in order to be successful. While they are far from the best and most challenging tasks I’ve ever faced, they’re pleasantly plump in time investment and learning curve, and it makes the conclusion of a stage feel more satisfying than simply finding the missing scepter somewhere and returning it.

When things are moving along and fluid within Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland, it’s such a great time. You’ve got this beautiful world that’s full of equal parts whimsy and menace, but even the bad guys aren’t really harshing your vibes. The moments of engagement between Nemo and the others are quite well written and got a few chuckles out of me. There’s so much to do and explore, so completionists will have the time of their lives finding every single Blue Moon, every bit of gem and coinage, trying to achieve the best multiplier possible and continually move ahead. It’s got that X factor that appeals to casual players and speedrunners alike and, overall, is a wonderful game. For someone else.

If someone got me a brand new car for a birthday present, I would be over the moon. I adore driving and it’s been so long that I’m afraid my skills are rusty. Hell, if someone decided to give me a 1992 Buick Lesabre, with four tires that worked and a functioning cassette player, that would be beyond my wildest dreams. Yet, if I sat down behind the steering wheel, got comfortable, buckled up and turned the key, only to discover that the alignment was constantly pulling to the left – like, aggressively so – I would immediately go to the nearest mechanic and fix this, because it’s not safe otherwise. And if the mechanic then said “sorry, this car will always pull left because you’ve got weird arms,” I’d probably cry and walk home. That, oddly enough, is where I am with Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland.

I’ve tried no fewer than eight different controllers on my computer. I’ve tried mouse and keyboard. I’ve tried a brand new keyboard that I stole/borrowed from my office, and I’ve tried moving the entire game through telepathy. Of all those options, only telepathy didn’t have the most frustrating camera issue in my life, and, honestly, I couldn’t play much of the game with sheer mental willpower alone. If there is more than one screen’s worth of game below you, the camera will automatically pan that way. So when trying to ascend or descent throughout the game, in multiple biomes, Nemo and his Little Buddy immediately lose centering the second I stop moving. Which means I had quite a few times where I couldn’t see where I was going, and baddies and hazards both could rain absolute hell on my play.

When the bug fix patch dropped on April 7th (I started this game nearly a week earlier), I honestly hoped that would be the solution to everything. After all, the reviews on Steam, though not numerous, are generally positive, with some complaints regarding the game being “janky” or “poorly designed.” But the bug fix, whatever it did, never addressed my issue, and it seems I’m alone with experiencing the Dreamland Drift. The horrible caveat of PC gaming being for everyone is that there’s all types of computers out there, and, apparently, Nemo hates me and my machine. Is it the GPU? My motherboard? The fact that I’m still on Windows 10? Or is Nemo just targeting me because I look funny, like most of my upbringing? Sadly, I may never know, because the constant camera movement prevented me from really enjoying the game.

Hopefully others can have a good time with this beautiful looking, sweetly written title, because I’m sure Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland is going to be a banger in the right hands. And perhaps, someday, a console port will arrive and make my world a brighter place. But, at the current time, I’m afraid I have to wake up from this one and realize it was all just a dream. Little Nemo is not here for my enjoyment: it’s merely a fading illusion, and now I must face the real world, which, thankfully, is front and center for my eyes.

 

Such a beautiful, dreamy and childlike quality throughout. The different biomes are unique and diverse with plenty of familiar elements to keep things from feeling disparate. The animation is gorgeous, I truly enjoyed seeing the Little Buddies plodding along.	Metroidvania platforming and plenty to discover, the game was incredibly difficult to navigate with the camera constantly resetting to dead space. All the great technical elements and cool pajamas mean nothing when I cannot see.
A great pairing with the visuals, the music keeps things upbeat and vibrant without being too energetic. When Nemo has moments of calm reflection, the score brings you to a comfortable place of your own self-meditation.	I’m so sad that I played, was unable to enjoy the game, and then waited for anyone else to have this issue so it could be patched and we could all be better. But Little Nemo told me, indirectly, “the problem is you,” and that just sucks.
Final Verdict: 4.0

Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland is available now on PC.

Reviewed on PC.

A Copy of Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland was provided by the publisher.

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