An LSD: Dream Emulator English translation patch has released, which converts much of the game’s text. LSD isn’t precisely a text-heavy game, relying more on visuals to tell its story, but the translation patch does make it a more self-contained experience.
Previously, fans would have to reference a wiki or the incredibly rare and expensive companion book, Lovely Sweet Dream, to get English versions of the 48 text-dreams scattered throughout the game. With this patch, you never have to leave the surreal and, at times, terrifying confines of your TV screen.
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If you’re not familiar with LSD: Dream Emulator, get ready to go down a rabbit hole. The game released in 1998 on the PS1, a product of Osamu Sato, an artist that rejected the idea of video games. Sato decided to use the PlayStation as a medium for art and music after becoming frustrated with the games of the day.
LSD mimics the chaos of a dream state. The game is incredibly surreal, placing players in stark, flat landscapes inhabited by odd creatures and covered in strange textures. Each experience lasts either ten minutes or until the player interacts with specific objects or walks off a cliff. After each experience, you get to see the dream graph, which maps your journey. Dreams can fall under Upper, Downer, Static, or Dynamic categories. You’ll never experience the same vision twice, and as you continue your adventure, the game increases the surrealness factor by using more textures.
You can’t “beat” LSD: Dream Emulator in the traditional sense. If you stick with the game for 365 dreams, you’ll get a cutscene, and the day counter will reset. You also can’t complete every space in the dream chart as filled spaces drop off after a certain amount of time.
LSD: Dream Emulator has become a cult classic, and fans have dedicated hundreds of hours to trying to figure out how the game’s systems work. Unfortunately, LSD never saw release outside of Japan and it’s rare in its original form. Fortunately, the game was released on PSN in Japan, so you can still legally purchase a copy for a reasonable price. This translation patch finally “completes” the experience for English players, and makes it even more accessible for non-Japanese speakers to enjoy.
