The art style (which is all hand drawn!), the atmosphere (the level design, the real sense of danger from enemies, creature design and sound design), and the game mechanics (choices in first person or traditional attack styles, defeat or outlast bosses, avoid enemies, limited sword use, dialogue options, emotion system, fears based on your choices). It is clear the developer has but so much love and attention to detail in this game that is very rarely seen from first time developers. I play a lot of game demos and indie horror games and this is unlike anything I have encountered. I am absolutely smitten with The Dream of Shadowlands!
Two of my main critiques are some of the bosses are super hard (the main boss and out running the imp) so I'd appreciate a difficulty option in the future and I noticed when editing my video that I did forget to use some of the game mechanics I was initially excited for (first person combat and talking in save rooms) because they were only mentioned to me in text form at the very start and I forgot.
I will be giving to the kickstarter campaign for this game and I highly recommend you do too!
I've included the video link here for part 1 and there will be about 6 parts in total!