Never in my life have i played something so whimsical. Though now a pretty old game, (roughly around 20 years old now) It was released for the Sega Saturn in 1996, but got a re-release on XBLA, PSN, and Steam in 2012. It looked really ambitious back in the day, and if i grew up with it, I would have loved it even more.
The first thing I immediately fell in love with in this game was it's musical score. This is easily one of the soundtracks I've ever heard in a video game. It captures the feel of the game nicely and it really flows together really well, as well as being really catchy, the tune 'Dreams Dreams' will always get stuck in my head.
The visuals, I'm sure that 20 years ago it looked quite good, I think they still hold up, not particularly on the looks of the game, but it's imagination, and scale, which compliments the games levels, which are, for the most part 2-D gameplay in a 3-D world. But sometimes the game will like to change it up with other parts of the level. The backgrounds and the entire look of the levels, while may look outdated visually, they look impressive from an artistic standpoint in my opinion.
There's a time limit in every level, but the game isn't exactly punishing if you run out of time. This is what i like to call a 'laid back' video game, a game that you can really sit back and relax too. The games controls beautiful with a controller, tho for PC users, the keyboard and mouse are a little wonky, not terrible, but do take time to get use to.
If you haven't tried NiGHTS into Dreams yet, then i think you should give it a shot, it's not that expensive, unless you're going out of your way for an original Sega Saturn copy. It's normally around $10 which is a pretty good deal, and it comes with some nice extras if you're going after the HD Re-release. NiGHTS is an experience, one that can't be overlooked.