GoldenerTraum is a remake of the original Pocket Mirror (2016), which became a cult classic in the niche world of RPG Maker games. That whole scene had completely passed me by, but my friends talked me into checking out this landmark title. Well.
A girl of about ten wakes up in a gloomy room, either in a castle or a dungeon. She can't remember her name and rhetorically asks, "Where am I?"—which puts her on the same page as the player, since neither of you has a clue. One thing is clear: you've got this little pocket mirror, and you need to guard it with your life. Some Lovecraftian shit crawls along the castle walls, and at some point you have to rip an eye out of a live portrait while chatting with Halloween pumpkins. Soon, the protagonist meets Egliette, who's either a doll or another little girl. She introduces herself as a queen and starts being rude. Turns out she's the doll of Fleta, a spoiled, abusive little brat. After spending ages treating our heroine like a doormat, Fleta fucks off and makes room for the next little monster. Then another. And another. All these girls gaslight and abuse the protagonist, and sometimes outright attack her—which gets fucking exhausting after the first two or three hours.
They promise to answer any question—including the rather pressing "Who am I?" and "Where am I?"—only to immediately refuse to answer a damn thing. Everything is sooo mysterious, sooo Gothic and romantic. Ugh. So you end up drifting through this insanely beautiful game, lost and clueless. Sure, if you put 100+ hours into the game and replay it twenty times, it'll eventually reveal its secrets. For me, sticking with it for a little over two hours was already an achievement. And yet, despite all that irritation, I couldn't help but sense its greatness.
The art direction is fucking incredible. Tons of interiors, characters, and locations. Technically, it's impressive, too: portals, proper reflections (without any RTX, of course), and cutscenes. The music! Unique and woven right into the world. Just wonderful. The writing... Yeah, this game is very text-heavy. And it's actually interesting to read until the second little brat shows up, you roll your eyes, and start skimming-when-is-this-going-to-end-can-we-just-move-on-already. The creators drew inspiration from German poetry and a whole bunch of other sources, good for them, but... They were very young when they made the original, and it shows. The result feels like teenage fanfic that any geriatric millennial would just grumble about.
And even the art direction has its issues. Anime girls in frilly dresses, UwU-style. The whole thing gives off some serious male-gaze vibes, which is ironic: the game's director is a woman, and the studio proudly describes itself as female-led. Pretty weird. My brain never quite reconciled the two.
On the other hand, if you knew nothing about the developers, you'd never guess in a million years that they're Portuguese. Portuguese developers making a Japanese-looking game based on German literature. That's impressive.
