Hidden Treasures in the Forest of Dreams from Paleo Games is a relaxing first-person exploration experience on PS4. Check our Hidden Treasures in the Forest of Dreams review!

 

Hidden Treasures in the Forest of Dreams from Paleo Games is a relaxing first-person exploration experience on PlayStation 4. You’ll be taking on procedurally generated dreams that take around 45 minutes or so to complete, with randomly generated treasures to find as you walk around at a slow but steady pace while taking in the atmosphere that surrounds you. While there’s a formal ending to unlock, you can play the game over and over again since – as the studios mentioned – there are 4 billion procedurally-generated dreams to explore with some variations here and there.

The game’s tutorial will teach you all of the basics. This is a very chill experience in which you’ll walk around with the left analog stick as you move the camera with the right analog stick. To activate a treasure, just look straight at it and press and hold down the X button. To invoke a sign, use the Triangle button – more on signs in a bit. Treasure is easy to find since it will have stars floating around it, on top of also having a way of standing out on its own from its surroundings. There will also be a sound cue to let you know a treasure is nearby.

 

When you run, you will notice a needle on the lower right corner of the screen that moves on a gauge, from a green area to a yellow one and up to a red segment. If you spend too much time walking too fast and the needle remains in the yellow or red area of the gauge, then you’ll start to deplete the gauge right above it. This is bad since that second gauge is the one that establishes if you can remain in the dream and continue to explore or if you wake up. Just take things with calm and enjoy the scenery!

There are tons of collectibles to find during your time with the game. For the titular treasures, you must find there will be more than 40 pieces of ore to find, along with over 100 mushrooms to grab hold of, as well amphoras to locate. A mushroom is the most common type of treasure you can find during a dream sequence. Amphoras are next, and their contents are random. They could even be empty! But if you manage to find a golden amphora, you’ll certainly be rewarded. If you’re lucky, you might find an animal in your dream! For every treasure that you find, you’ll be rewarded with Dream Points, which can be spent to invoke signs. Spend 500 Dream Points to invoke a sign with the Triangle button, and you’ll be pointed in the general direction of the most valuable treasure in the area.

 

Once you’ve obtained enough Dream Points to go deeper into your dream, you can follow the weather anomaly to take you back to the starting point for the current area. The further you progress in your dream, the more types of treasures you’ll be able to find. Going from the tutorial to depth 2 of your dream will unlock animals. Going from depth 2 to depth 3 of your dream will unlock the coral category for treasures. How deep can you go?

The game has a trophy list that includes a Platinum. It’s split into 7 Bronze trophies, 8 Silver trophies, and 7 Gold trophies. The first trophy you’ll unlock will be Asleep, which pops as soon as you complete the tutorial and reach sleep depth level two. The rest of the trophies are for reaching levels ten, fifty, and one hundred, for discovering 100, 200, and 500 treasures in total, discovering all treasure types in a regular category, discovering all treasure types in a single-find category, walking 10, 42, and 100 kilometers in the forest of dreams, or earning 50,000, 100,000, and 250,000 Dream Points, to name some examples. A short Platinum run this won’t be!

If you’re looking for a very relaxing and chill all-ages game in which you’ll walk around at a slow but steady pace to stay within your dream as you discover more and more treasures the deeper you fall into your slumber, then Hidden Treasures in the Forest of Dreams is going to be a good option. This won’t be one for gamers looking for an action-packed mission, but that’s the whole point of this one: to offer an experience that won’t keep you running from place to place non-stop since you’ll be able to take your time as you marvel at your surroundings. Just be careful when you fall into a dark dream! Hidden Treasures in the Forest of Dreams is out on PlayStation 4 at a $24.99 price.

Disclaimer
This Hidden Treasures in the Forest of Dreams review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by Paleo Games.