Ludography
70/100
Players9 ratings
Player reviews
50% positive16 reviews
Runs on
Windows
Price
US$5.99

Where to get it

Psycho Dream cover

1992 · Riot · Adventure · Arcade

Psycho Dream

Timed Nintendo exclusive

Psycho Dream is a side-scrolling action platform game developed by Riot, a division of Telenet Japan, for the Super Famicom. Set in a virtual-reality medium called D-Movie, the story follows two agents, Ryō Shijima and Maria Tobari, who enter a dream world to rescue a girl trapped there.

Released
11 December 1992
Platforms
Nintendo SwitchPlayStation 4PlayStation 5SNESWindows
Genres
AdventureArcadePlatformer
Developers
Riot
Publishers
—
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
Side view
Themes
ActionScience fiction
Country
Japan
Age ratings
ESRB E10+PEGI 7
Languages
English, Japanese
Time to beat
1hmain story2hcompletionist
Composers
Michiko Naruke

About

Psycho Dream is a platform game developed and published by Riot for the Super Famicom and released in 1992. Riot was a division of Telenet Japan.

›Story

In the early 1980s, rumors begin to circulate about a new entertainment medium called “D Movie”, which allows people to immerse themselves in a world of virtual reality. As D Movies gain traction, a trend emerges of disaffected young people taking permanent refuge in the virtual world while abandoning their physical bodies to atrophy. To retrieve these so-called “Sinkers”, Japan's National Public Safety Commission establishes Public Security Division Four, nicknamed “Diamond Dog”, in 1984. The agents who enter the virtual world and perform these rescues are known as Debuggers.

In 1992, a seventeen-year-old girl named Yūki Sayaka sinks into “Story of the Ruined Capital”, a D Movie directed by David Visconti. Three days pass before she is discovered, and combined with her weak constitution, she is expected to die within twenty-four hours. Two Debuggers, Shijima Ryō and Tobari Maria, are dispatched to rescue her before that happens.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The player takes control of either Ryō or Maria. Ryō is a swordsman while Maria is an angelic warrior who uses either a whip, a laser gun, or metal claws. Demons can even be summoned to destroy most of the monsters on the screen. Many of the stages are set against the backdrop of 20th century Japan.

Having a limited amount of time to defeat enemies, the focus is on advancing through the stages as quickly as possible.

Story

In the early 1980s, rumors begin to circulate about a new entertainment medium called "D Movie", which allows people to immerse themselves in a world of virtual reality. As D Movies gain traction, a trend emerges of disaffected young people taking permanent refuge in the virtual world while abandoning their physical bodies to atrophy. To retrieve these so-called "Sinkers", Japan's National Public Safety Commission establishes Public Security Division Four (公安四課, Kōan Yonka), nicknamed "Diamond Dog" (ダイアモンドの犬, Daiamondo no Inu), in 1984. The agents who enter the virtual world and perform these rescues are known as Debuggers.

In 1992, a seventeen-year-old girl named Yūki Sayaka (柚木沙耶香) sinks into "Story of the Ruined Capital" (廃都物語, Haito Monogatari), a D Movie directed by David Visconti. Three days pass before she is discovered, and combined with her weak constitution, she is expected to die within twenty-four hours. Two Debuggers, Ryō Shijima and Maria Tobari, are dispatched to rescue her before that happens.

Development

Psycho Dream was directed by Kenichi Nishi. It was released in Japan on the Super Famicom on December 11, 1992. A North American localization was planned by Telenet Japan subsidiary Renovation Products, but was never released. It would have been their second release following Doomsday Warrior. In their 1994 SNES catalog, Nintendo Power mistakenly listed Dream Probe as having been released in September 1993.

Psycho Dream was made available through the Nintendo Classics service on February 17, 2021.

Reception

Famitsu gave it an 18/40. Fan reception was mixed: readers of Famimaga voted to give the game a 17.43 out of 30 score, ranking at the number 292 spot in a poll, indicating a middling following. Reviewing the planned localization, three reviewers at Electronic Gaming Monthly gave a score of 5/10 and a fourth gave a 6/10. Super Play gave the game a 33% score. Italian magazine Game Power gave it 75%.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
SNESCancelled11 December 1992Japan
PlayStation 45 September 2025Worldwide
PlayStation 55 September 2025Worldwide
Nintendo Switch5 September 2025Worldwide
Windows5 September 2025Worldwide

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Collections4 collections

Platform libraries

Years

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.