Daymare 1998 was developed by the same people who were making the fan made Resident Evil 2 Reborn RE2 remake, but then cancelled it at the request of Capcom.
Invader Studios then took their love for survival horror and put it to creating a new game.
Gameplay wise, it's not too different from RE2 Remake. You got your modern movement and aiming controls, complete with dynamic crosshair, the camera is third person shoulder, etc. The zombies are slightly unpredictable, etc.
How this differs from REmake 2 in gameplay, is the inventory and ammo management. The inventory is in real time, like System Shock 2, so you can't piddle around in it when
there's something about to claw your face off. Then there's the ammo management, kind of reminiscent of RE Outbreak's reloading system.
Daymare has the RE7 problem where the enemy variety is few. You got zombie, steroido zombie, other steroido zombie, acid zombie, and.... final boss. That's about it.
The puzzles are hit or miss depending on which one it is, and then one was flat out glitched (compass puzzle), displaying the wrong text with the selected setting, making the puzzle more confusing than it already was.
There are small packets of Engrish throughout the game, and even some mismatching subtitles. The developers are Italian, after all, but after all this time, you think they would have spellchecked and fixed these mistakes by now. I could have fixed these grammatical mistakes for them in 2 days, tops.
Paul Haddad (OG RE2 Leon VA) voices the "narrator" of the game, and ironically sounds like Oswell E Spencer in this. Rest in peace, Paul, you're still the best Leon.
I'd give Daymare a 3.5/5 (or a 7/10), most of it's pretty decent, not too bad for one of their first games... then it had to leave a sour taste in my mouth around the finale.
The 2nd last phase of the final boss gets a hard to avoid instadeath move while you're trying to escape from him. This kind of ruined the entire game for me. It was that bad.
