Daymare: 1998

Firstly, I have recently played the RE2 remake, and enjoyed it, so quite familiar with the genre. This offering however is not great. First off, widescreen doesn't display correctly so often things were offscreen, this made one puzzle hard to even see what I as clicking on. Yes, and no mouse on those screens either. Its quite bad when you have to look through a walkthrough within the first 5-10 minutes of gameplay. You have to be right on top of anything to activate it, cue trying to circle an ammo clip to pick it up again as you didn't hold R long enough. Graphically it seems nice enough. Story is cut and paste from RE. Enemies seem to predict your shots too, could just be me but I could swear they dipped their heads when I lined up a head shot, or it went through. I had the same feeling whilst playing Evil Within 2 recently, again that could just be me. Anyways, I got annoyed with it very soon in, so will not be continuing. Play a demo or something before jumping in like I did. Would not buy after the few minutes I played of it.

I read a lot of negative feedback on Daymare before purchasing it, but I played the demo and really enjoyed that. I could tell this was going to be a "LOVE or HATE" game for me, so I purchased it on my own head; and I don't regret it. Daymare is a homage to oldschool survival horror, and aside from the 3rd person camera it fits well into the old tropes like limited recourses, methodical exploration and files/audio logs. And it's not easy, atleast on DAYMARE difficulty which is described as how the developer intended the game to be played for an authentic experience. I want to cover quickly some mechanics and aspects of the game that people have a problem with. Combat and inventory is clunky, voice acting is cheesy, and the enemies are a bit limited. But for me, these weren't problems. I understand that the developers were on a budget and limited team so considering what they managed to make, it's impressive for me. Clunky gunplay adds to more tense encounters, I really enjoyed the story and characters, the inventory system is very cool and again doesn't pause the game so you have to use it wisely. Though enemies are limited it variety the existing ones do well to give you a bad day; be it the slower shambling zombies or larger and faster ones with stronger attacks! The environments are varied; labs, woods, town streets and locales, a hospital etc, and are all dark and rich with tense atmosphere. I was constantly having my gun ready while slowly approaching corners in apprehension. While it is mainly influenced by Resident Evil 2, I think the soundtrack is very diverse and rich. The cutscenes are longer and more fleshed with character too; the story isn't glossed over. And the references to RE vary from blatant (like typewriters laying around) or enemies and characters that have remind me a bit of say, William Birkin or HUNK, but are enough of their own person. Overall, I just can't fault this game. It isn't perfect but it is playable and full of passion.

...is that it’s boring. Daymare faithfully replicates a lot of mechanics from classic Resident Evil. There’s logic puzzles and backtracking. You have tight resources. You’ll spend a lot of time fiddling in your inventory screen. That’s good, but they forgot the pacing and level design. I know it’s unfair to compare this to RE2make, but I must. Capcom understood perfectly how classic survival horror thrived upon a short length combined with tight, memorable level design – so they made a short, but highly polished and entertaining game. To finish a single run of RE2make takes me about 4–6 hours, and in that time, the game tells a better story, and provides you with a greater variety of guns and monsters than Daymare does in 12 hours. I’ve played through RE2make at least four times now and I got more fun out of it overall that than I did playing through Daymare once. Those 12 hours are mostly spent running through linear corridors with zombies in them, with plenty of false doors and debris walls used to make the levels seem more expansive than they actually are. There are but four guns in the entire game (one of which you lose a few hours in). There’s some alternate ammo types, but no gun upgrades. The realistic reloading system doesn’t compensate for this one bit. The zombies that comprise 90% of your foes just aren’t fun to fight. About half of them go down in a single head-shot from the pistol, and beyond the occasional head explosion, there’s not that much gore. You can’t bisect them with your shotgun or shoot their legs off and watch as they try to bite your ankles. There’s nothing exciting like that. Beyond zombies, you’ll only occasionally contend with a big super zombie, an even bigger super zombie and an acid-spitting zombie. They lack any interesting weaknesses – the game never goes beyond “aim for the head” with any of it’s enemies. My rating for this is 2.5 out of 5 stars. Until GOG implements half-star ratings, I’ll be kind and round it up to 3.

Well taking the obvious " was a project of RE2 remake that became something else after Capcom steped in " out of the way... this game is really something of its own and then some more. In its core, its a survival horror 3rd person zombie apocalypse biohazard style game, but it has some addon horror twists about which i wont say much except that the hospital chapter is amazing and much better and horrifying than many of the RE 2 remake . so short and sweet goes like this, this game is RE2 Remake concept + RE3 Remake concept + a deep understanting of what made the original versions so great in the 90's + a new take on the genre. it has some bugs and glitches but the developer has been fixing and updating so its getting better. its has innovative gameplay mechanics as manual clip reloading and the puzzles are all much more and much harder and much better designed than everyone in RE 2 remake. the soundtrack is original and very well composed and placed. the graphic aren't top of the line but still very pleasing and very well thought out as the collor pallete and details create a unique world and bring to life the story and gameplay this game is more than meets the eye , it is wears its influences on its sleeve but so well than it just might be the next great survival horror franchise out there. the jill, chris, leon formula is getting old so new takes like this fell fresh and welcome. i recommend the first playthroug on easy so you can enjoy every little detail. the value for the money is greater than the recent Capcom remakes and by the way...RE2 and RE3 Remakes only exist because this team once started this great project. 10/10