Commander Keen: Keen Dreams

I love the mainline commander keen games, the same can't be said for this spinoff as while it’s a functioning game, its premise is far too stupid for me to put it in the ranks of vorticons and goodbye galaxy.

So, get a load of this, keen is trapped in a nightmare where he's forced to fight vegetable monsters due to his refusal to eat his vegetables at dinner one night, this takes place in a dream which means he's unable to defend himself with his gun or pogo stick and instead relies on flower pellets to temporarily turn his enemies into flowers in order to avoid them. Assuming you can stomach that absurd premise for this game, I have to say that the gameplay is a downgrade from the main games as in addition to keen being a pacifist, the dream like setting has apparently made his movements much floatier, particularly when he's jumping as it feels like he's soaring through the sky rather than platforming in this game. I guess the core platforming mechanics are in line with the goodbye galaxy titles which does ultimately save this from being a terrible game, although I vastly prefer the tighter controls in those games then the loose controls in this game. The graphics are also in line with goodbye galaxy which means the game is a delight to look at, that is it would be if it didn't depict fruit and vegetables trying to attack out hero like they're part of the French resistance from the 40s. There’s no music here much like in vorticons, however that's probably for the best as I'm not a fan of the sound design here as it's far less stylised and sounds like it was meant for an Atari 64 game from a decade prior.

Look this game was obviously meant to be more light-hearted than the mainline games due to it taking place in a dream, that's what makes it harmless and like I said, the gameplay is satisfying. I just don't want to see our hero fighting his fruit and vegetables simply because he refuses to eat them.