An infinite workshop dressed up as a video game, and that may be the whole problem.

On gut instinct, with no criterion, Dreams lands behind most games. The detail does not rescue it. Controller feel drops almost to the very bottom, fun sits just above, attachment and soundtrack get past only 8% of titles. Even the art style, from arguably Sony's most recognizable studio, stays very low, but on two votes only, so take it as early signal. The one line that lifts a bit is the wish to rediscover it. Here is the story: Dreams is a creation tool before it is a game you pit against another. What gets measured here, attachment, feel, soundtrack, is simply not what Dreams set out to give.

Against sandboxes and adventure games it compares badly, because it is not playing the same match. Its value lives elsewhere, in what players built with it, not in what it hands you ready-made.

So, who is it for? For you if you love making, sculpting, tinkering with worlds and digging through other people's. Much less so if you want to switch on the console and just play.