The dream world of Paradiso draws victims into its domain, where Marked children are attacked by nightmares – monstrous manifestations of their fears and traumas. A young person named Lucah had managed to overcome their problems and leave the dream, but others still wander Paradiso. Their former rival Christian takes the stage, believing that if he fights the religious Sanctum that underlines the living terrors of Paradiso, he can find the same peace of mind. And if not, well, at least he gets to kill his abusive priest father.

Except he doesn’t. Father himself is murdered by follower Samael in a coup for greater power. The Neo Sanctum rises to more directly rule Paradiso, promising further suffering for Christian and his fellow Marked children. But maybe, if Christian killed a bunch of them, he can finally find peace of mind… maybe…?

melessthanthree’s Death of a Wish is the upcoming sequel to 2018’s Lucah: Born of a Dream, an action-RPG with the leanings of Yume Nikki that I really loved. Your perspective has shifted to former rival Christian, who has more concrete goals. While the setting still lends itself to abstract ideas, the storytelling in this game is more explicit, as you’re somebody that understands their place in the world and what to do in it.

The presentation of Death of a Wish maintains Lucah’s vision of messy lines giving a decayed aesthetic, colorful streaks cutting through enemies in simple, flashy violence. Though, the game does have some art style changes at certain points. The game straight up has an anime opening with a cleaner art style that primes you on how to view the game, and at a huge spoiler moment, the art style changes to something that made me feel insane, and I honestly don’t want to say more because I don’t want to ruin that moment. Overall it makes for a nice package, and Nicolo Telesca’s ethereal beats help tie it together. If you liked the previous game’s soundtrack, it’s more of the same, but that same was good to me.

The action of Death of a Wish is largely similar to Born of a Dream, so instead of reiterating the past, check that out while I focus on the changes.

The stamina bar has been completely done away with, enabling Christian to fight more aggressively than Lucah could. It also feels that charge builds up faster, enabling you to more freely use familiars and finishers. These changes encourage you to fight fast and furious and feels more appropriate for this game: Lucah was a wanderer trying to figure themself out, while Christian’s motivated by bloodlust and is eager to fight. Lean into that beautiful violence he craves, fucking tear them apart. After all, being quick and beautiful with your bloodshed gives you better scores, staving off the corruption that’ll damn you to a bad ending.

If you’re only in it for the story though, the game still has options to make things easier. I honestly wound up using them in the last track because, well, I may have become a more violent and vengeful person in the last five years, but I’m still no expert at action games like this. It’s pretty neat to see teammates effortlessly butcher enemies with the accessibility options active, though.

Speaking of, another big change in gameplay that’s important to mention is AI teammates being present for some of the bigger battles. Pray for help before a boss battle and someone will answer, and the AI teammates are actually pretty good. They won’t carry you, but they pack a decent punch and can take the heat off of Christian.

But really, the most notable part of the teammates is how they figure into the themes of the story.

Christian is pretty valid in all of his bloodlust, but in devoting himself to the destruction of the Sanctum, he winds up pushing other people away. He honestly has insane main character syndrome as a deliberate character flaw, which other characters like Lilli come to be critical of. Neo Sanctum absolutely deserves what’s coming to them, but is Christian really helping the people the Neo Sanctum targets if he’s putting himself first?

Not really. Multiple people get screwed over as collateral damage to Christian’s crusade, and for multiple reasons that are huge spoilers, a clean happy end isn’t in sight for him alone. The latter parts of the game has Chris come around to embracing others and helping them for their sake, however. It’s in finding solidarity with others that he can even come close to reaching a happy ending – or at least, as happy of an ending everyone could possibly get.

It feels like a pointed commentary on our current time. If Born of a Dream’s Sanctum was an authoritarian Christian stronghold, the Neo Sanctum is a straight up Christofascist evolution, mirroring stronger rightward swings in the real world. This religious order went from interpersonal abusers and being the source of the traumas that spawned the nightmares haunting the world to an armed military fighting alongside those nightmares to spread more terror and subjugate people under their worldview. That Null Sun that Lucah once journeyed to to find their own peace of mind has also been appropriated to be the Black Sun – yes, that Black Sun.

Meanwhile, Christian and other Marked children are explicitly stated to be queer, their Marks symbolic and literal in the eyes of the church. While I’m a bit mixed on some of the character writing in that some feel flat compared to others, I feel that isn’t a big deal when you consider them as more of representations than anything. I will say that I respect Serah and her community oriented bloodlust and her mute CSA victim brother Michael, I love them. And yeah, the villains are cartoonishly two-dimensional, but also, fucking look at the average Zionist bluecheck Twitter user. People can really just be like that.

The most interesting villain character appears halfway through the story, a Marked siding with the Neo Sanctum. He hates Christian for not sticking to the redemption that the church previously offered him that Lucah interrupted, a mirror to how Christian used to be. However, Christian has clearly changed perspective from the end of the previous game, proclaiming that even if a Marked like him sucked up to the Neo Sanctum, he’d still be hated by them. It very much feels like a criticism of queer rightwingers – their help will be accepted, but in the end, they won’t be an exception when queer people have their rights stripped away.

The rights of queer people have been attacked over the past few years with the distinct possibility of getting worse under an increasingly Christofascist government. Queer children especially have it bad with how they’re being used as a foothold to attack queer rights broadly under a grooming panic. While I was playing this game, nonbinary teenager Nex Benedict was killed, and that’s probably only the most visible recent instance of a queer kid facing abuse.

Fictional queer kids like Christian and Lucah can fight against their circumstances, but real life ones can’t. But solidarity and community is the least that can be done. Death of a Wish highlights these struggles and an approach to face those struggles, and even if may not necessarily help everyone, you help who you can.

Death of a Wish is a pretty good follow up to Born of a Dream, with depressingly resonant themes. If you liked Lucah, you’ll definitely like this, and hey, if you want a little action game tied into emotional storytelling, I really recommend checking out both.