With every Commander Keen title comes the fact that it is also innovative in story, technical capabilities, or both. Keen Dreams is no exception. It is a tongue-in-cheek approach to the franchise where as the titular 8-year-old brainy boy, your enemies are not aliens or your annoying schoolmate, but rather vegetables, the ones you don't want to eat literally antagonized. It may be a dream, but it is still a nightmare if it is you and the vegetables that you like the least and you are not the one eating or (I hope in this case) just getting the best of.
As Commander Keen, you must free other vegetable-hating children and yourself from the "Dream Machine". Jump up or straight down platform to platform, climb poles, find keys to unlock doors, temporarily turn your vegetable foes into harmless flowers as you travel from site to site collecting cookies and candy--which you would preferably eat instead--and seeking explosives with which to be worthy to bomb the tyrannical potato king to hashbrowns. It is like a situational game of overthrowing or stopping corruption, but as already implied earlier, instead of aliens or other humans, it is all rather silly on a vegetarian level.
In terms of the game engine, it is much more powerful than, and just as groundbreaking and innovative as, that for the "Invasion of the Vorticons" trilogy. The 4-bit, (then-new-to-the-series) "2.5D" graphics are colorfully animated and the levels eloquently designed with many secrets and wide-ranging enemies to keep us playing them again and again. The physics for the series were improved where it is not just hold the jump button to jump higher, but also aim and throw horizontally, vertically, and even (somewhat) diagonally, all relative to the motion of Keen. Unlike the trilogy, Keen Dreams and the subsequent games are played at 60 frames per second as opposed to 30, and they are also faster-paced, more physically correct, and physically suited for bouncy objects. Smooth and gorgeous, it is like playing a decent Super Famicom Mario game on DOS, and that is how I like it.
My only wish, though it is important, is that I had a better and less limited field of vision. The screen scrolls appropriately as Keen approaches one of its edges, but when looking vertically, you are more often than not hoping that wherever you jump does not kill your Keen since the screen was not designed to scroll accordingly just by looking vertically.
To conclude, Keen Dreams remains a classic Super Mario-esque id Software game to this day. Fast, smooth, and tongue-in-cheek, id Software leaves a special landmark for nostalgia gamers and casual players.
