DAYMARE: 1998
Daymare: 1998 promises to be a return to the punishing world of 90s survival horror, only with the gameplay modern gamers would expect. A noble goal, if the Resident Evil 2 remake hadn’t beaten them to the punch, and did everything so much better.
I suppose that isn’t fair to InvaderStation’s efforts. Resident Evil 2 had a massive team of professionals with years of experience and an open wallet. Daymare: 1998 has a team of amateurs, but they carry a lot of love and ambition. Interestingly, Daymare: 1998 started as a fan remake of RE2, until Capcom requested that they cease, since an official remake was secretly in development. Capcom offered the team positions, but the small Italian team weren’t prepared to pack up and move to Japan. So Capcom suggested turning their efforts into an original game, and gave the team some unofficial support.
Let’s start with the positives. Daymare: 1998 is drenched with atmosphere, and the surroundings look gorgeous. It really does look like a realistic construction of 1998’s Raccoon City. However, the low budget is revealed when you see the characters’ graphics and animations. They’re not the worst, but it feels like some frames are missing, which can really throw you for a loop. Especially when a hungry zombie suddenly grabs you from six feet away.
The gameplay is an odd mix. Daymare: 1998 uses a limited inventory system like the olden days, but items do not stack. Before you know it, you’ve filled up your inventory, and item chests are in extremely short supply. As such, you’re forced to drop items to pick up a key, and return later to pick it up, providing you don’t need another key.
And while we’re on the subject of inventories, let’s discuss Daymare: 1998’s terrible approach to reloading. The game adopts a tactical approach. Rather than reload your weapon, you fill magazines with bullets, and then swap that magazine with the empty one. You can perform a slow magazine change, or a fast one. The fast swap is indeed fast, but you lose the magazine until you pick it up later. Said approach is interesting, but doesn’t work here. Damage is random, but in my playthrough, the average zombie took five to seven rounds to take down. Each magazine stores ten rounds, so I’m constantly running away to access my inventory, reload my bullets, and returning to the battlefield. And just to piss me off, the game would sometimes bug out by having recently made headless zombies suddenly stand up with new heads, and new teeth to sink into my unsuspecting arse.
Where Daymare: 1998 does succeed is when it decides to adopt exploration. It’s not the most perfect level design (you’re really traversing small hubs connected by alleyways), but the developers’ attention to detail rewards the patient player. There are loads of references to classic action and horror films and games, with varying degrees of subtlety. Graffiti declares that Snake Plissken has escaped, while a hospital log tells of a Dr. Silberman.
Daymare: 1998 takes an interesting approach in that you are effectively playing as the villains (the dudes performing the company clean-up). Unfortunately, this is as intriguing as it gets. I haven’t told you what the story of Daymare: 1998 is, because I’m not entirely sure. It starts off simple, and I had assumed the town got infected because the opening mission took a turn for the worst. But as the game progressed, it threw backstabbing, rival corporations, hallucinations, and the possibility that the toxic gas was released before the accident. I don’t know. Daymare: 1998 is very poorly told, and comes with an unpleasant helping of 90s edge. I was hoping, since the developers are Italian, that the game would have alluded to Spaghetti Splatter, rather than 90s shock value.
Daymare: 1998 is game suffering from an identity crisis. It tries stitching survival horror with tactical action. It almost gets the horror right, but drops the ball with the action. Thankfully, InvaderStation have been responding to players’ feedback with appreciation. This bodes well for their next game, a prequel called Daymare: 1994. I wish them well, since their obvious love for action and horror shines through. I mean, I saw this signpost on my travels.
If you can guess what it’s referencing, give yourself a biscuit. And maybe treat yourself to a Daymare when it’s on sale.
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