"Melatonin" Review

Publisher: Half Asleep

Developer: Half Asleep

Available For: Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, MacOS

Reviewed For: Playstation 5

I don't know if you've noticed, dear reader, but everything I've reviewed so far has been a remake of an existing IP. I'm VERY far behind on my reviewing, so I have several new IPs in my backlog, but when I came across Melatonin, I was desperate for something original. So, as I often do, I was scrolling through the playstation store looking for a potential indie gem, and Melatonin was what I found at the time. Being a small indie title, there isn't too much to discuss, so let's jump right in!

There isn't really a story in this game, just a basic backdrop that you're a guy dreaming over the course of 4 nights. Each night contains a handful of levels (individual dreams). And that's all there is to say on story and concept! So, on to gameplay! Melatonin is a rhythm game, which tells you most of what you need to know. But as the name implies, this is as relaxing as a rhythm game can possibly be. The fundamentals of gameplay are as follows: There are three buttons at most that you'll be using in a given dream (meaning "level"). You'll use the x button, the left trigger, or the right trigger, and with any of these buttons, you'll either press them or hold them for a certain amount of time. Each dream has its own beat and its own song, and the level will use visual and audio cues to let you know what to do (i.e. when to hold a button versus when to just press it a couple times). But if that sounds potentially overwhelming to you (like maybe you have trouble with taking cues like that), let me talk you off the ledge. Firstly, each dream comes with a mandatory tutorial that shows exactly what each audio and visual clue expects of you complete with an ever-present metronome with solid visual indicators of what you're supposed to do and for how long. Then, when you take on the dream for real, the metronome is present at the start until you start performing well, and if you start underperforming, it'll show up again. Secondly, if that isn't enough, there are also plenty of accessibility options to help you out. Some of these are an ever-present metronome complete with ever-present visual instructions, extra leeway before an input is considered "late", things like that. So, rest assured, regardless of your skill level, you'l be thoroughly prepared before you start tackling a given dream. Once the tutorial is done, there are three other modes for each dream to contend with....well, really more like two, but there are three available. There's scored mode, hard mode, and the level editor. The only purpose of the level editor is to provide yourself with a self-made challenge...and to earn a single trophy for doing it once. So, like I said, really more like two modes: scored and hard. Scored mode is the basic run through the level, and I hardly feel like I need to describe hard mode. In scored mode, you're given a "star" rating based on how well you perform, while you're given a "planet" rating in hard mode. If you screw absolutely everything up, you get a score of 1. If you do passably well, you get a 2. If you do extremely well, you get a 3. If you're perfect, you get a P (for perfect). In order to get to the next night, you need to earn a 2 on each level including the final exam for that night. So you don't even need to be close to perfect in order to make it through to the end credits. 

I really only have one complaint, and that's the fact that certain levels have gimmicks that didn't sit right with me. For instance, one of the dreams is about money, and in it, you catch coins falling to the right and left of you. The catch is that if a beat is preceded by a thunder audio cue, the coin will flip to the other side on the beat. So if you see a coin falling on the right side but hear a thunder clap, you have to press the left trigger on the beat to succeed. Another example is the dream involving "the future." In it, you have three lanes: left, middle, and right, with the x button being used for the middle. This level uses unusually vague audio cues, meaning that the visual cues are the biggest key to success...or rather, they should've been. In reality, the visuals glitch out on purpose. If you pay enough attention, you can still thrive in the level like I did, but I actively resented an otherwise great level because of this little bit of trickery. I think if I had to boil this problem down to its simplest form, I'd say that the issue is that the game sometimes sacrifices its usually-excellent mix of audio and visual cues in the name of extra difficulty at times. Whether its pitting the audio cues against the visual cues or actively sabotaging the visual cues, there are times where the game approaches the player in bad faith. This doesn't mean these levels are objectively bad or anything like that...it just means that it was a major negative for me. If what I've said in this blurb doesn't bother you, then you'll probably enjoy this game even more than I did!

Normally I always do a technical segment, but there's really nothing to discuss. This is such a bare-bones game that it shouldn't be a surprise that it's a near-perfect technical package. The only thing I noticed is that the game would sometimes crash right after booting it up. This happened exactly twice out of several evenings, and when launching a second time, it didn't happen again on that particular day. So, with that negligible tidbit out of the way, lets get straight to the conclusion! This has probably been the most bare-bones game of all bare-bones games I've reviewed, and thankfully, it has the kind of modest price tag you'd expect to match that simplicity! If you like rhythm games, you'll find plenty to like in Melatonin. And even if they're not normally your jam, I suspect that by toying around with the accessibility settings, you might find a way to have some fun.

Let us review:

Occasional bad faith level design - 1.0

The final score for Melatonin is...

9.0/10 - Fantastic

Great work, Half Asleep, great work!