Quick Review: Dreams of Aether

First, Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, now this – more of these April Fools games, please!

Guess we've got to intrude into the dreams of others
to rescue them, and beat whatever nightmare this is!

Developed by Lepioid LLC, published by Aether Studios (which are behind the Rivals of Aether fighting game series, which expanded into a franchise), and released on April 1st, 2025, Dreams of Aether is an odd thing. Then again, for an April Fools title, this is to be expected, really. This entry focuses on standout Rivals character Absa the goat, who gets trapped in the land of dreams by some Eldritch entity. She is helped by some strange piñata creature, who reveals that other fighters are stuck in their dreams as well. The only way to leave from this story of a dubious degree of canon is to reunite everyone and fight the entity, with the piñata creature, Añi, joining in for the showdown!

Just one of fifty microgames!

Gameplay is WarioWare with a Rivals of Aether flavor. Series of seconds-long microgames that increase in speed and difficulty on each stage. Each of the main four stages introduces 10 microgames and one “boss” (just a longer microgame). Controls change for each vignette, but always involve either the arrows, the Z and/or the X keys. This, combined with the pixel art style, gives it a Game Boy Advance feel.

Featuring cameos of unofficial/fanmade Rivals characters!

Two at the same time? Oh, that might be ovewhelming.

The final stage, Añi's, adds another five microgames; but then, the game takes a hard turn into something I’ve never seen a microgames collection do. For the final boss, you must complete TWO minigames at the same time, on every round! You better be good at multitasking. The system is made so that microgame controls don’t mix up during that round (ex. You won’t have two games that require pressing, say, the Z key next to each other, so you won’t fail one while doing the other correctly). The final boss microgame is a music stage where Absa repeats Añi’s dance moves to the rhythm, all while also beating more microgames. It’s a kind of challenge I’ve never seen before! (It’s also a bit more lenient; you technically have eight lives for this one instead of four.)

A true peanut butter and chocolate situation, somebody put
WarioWare and Friday Night Funkin in my furry fighting
game. All at once.

It's so much fun to see these characters do stuff other than,
well, fighting each other endlessly.

In classic WarioWare-like fashion, you then unlock three bonus stages – one where all the microgames are mixed up, one where you start at max difficulty, and one that’s all about the dual microgame mechanic with complete randomness. You can play every microgame on its own; in that mode, you play the three difficulties of each microgame in sequence, then they repeat a little faster, up to 300% of the original speed. Finally, you can replay every stage and try to get three stars on each; you gain a star by beating the boss stage, thus up to the third difficulty.

Oh, these dual microgames get tough.

This isn’t just an April Fools, it’s a solid game. It takes every good thing about WarioWare-style gameplay and executes it perfectly, even throwing curveballs for those who are already fans of the "genre". It’s not as big as those games, with about 50 microgames instead of a hundred, and the story mode can be finished in under 30 minutes, both of which are acceptable for a quick and (originally) free game. There’s enough in terms of bonus challenges to extend one’s playthrough! As a tie-in to Rivals of Aether II, released in october 2024, this one feels like a clever promotional thing, sure, but also, it’s just a good game.

Dreams of Aether may no longer be free, but it's still got a decent low price of 2.99$ USD.