Mediocre Evil

Nostalgia is a heck of a drug. This generation has been packed with games going back to the past and trying to recapture classic magic. We have seen plenty of Metroid-style games and pixelated platformers, but the early survival horror genre has been mostly left alone. Some feel it was for good reason. That genre has evolved over time, and the recent remakes of Capcom’s Resident Evil games show that the style definitely needed tweaking. Daymare 1998 attempts to rekindle the magic of the genre from its glory days, with some neat ideas that are hit and miss in practice.

The story of Daymare feels familiar, which is likely intentional. The game opens as players take on the role of Liev, a member of a special unit known as H.A.D.E.S., as he is sent in to investigate and clean up a biological mess involving illegal virus creation. Of course, things go awry when the team discovers the virus has in fact turned people into plodding monsters that begin to attack on site. Everything from the writing to the voice acting is just abysmal. Some will argue this is a nod to those classic survival horror games, but at least those were charming.This is just embarrassing at times.

MSRP: $35.99
Platforms: XB1 (reviewed), PS4, PC
Price I’d Pay: $19.99

Things change up when a new character is tossed into the mix. Again, this is one of the ideas that sound great on paper, but just don’t manifest well. This takes a look at the game from the perspective of a forest ranger named Sam Walker. I love the idea of seeing the game from an entirely different perspective, as it showcases how the events have affected other people.

The gameplay takes a cue from classic games of its type. The perspective is over-the-shoulder third person and it looks and feels a lot like later Resident Evil games. Of course, that brings the same problems those games had at launch, particularly RE6. The camera is too close in for my liking. This breaks the spatial awareness. I get the thought that it adds to the suspense of not knowing what is going to attack from where. Where it falls apart is the gameplay itself. Things are just slow and cumbersome to execute. The zombies will run at you without remorse and there is no good way to dodge them. Melee attacks do not really interrupt them and the aiming has its own issues. Instead avoiding and keeping a distance are imperative.

The aiming suffers from a few problems. First, it never feels smooth. This becomes a problem with the limited ammo situation. Then we hit the frame rate, which hovers well below 30 often. This makes hitting staggering enemies even more frustrating. Again, I get the ideas behind the concepts, they just don’t work when your game is poorly optimized. That feels like the theme with Daymare. It feels like it just isn’t optimized. The inventory system is frustrating as it is on your wrist feed. Again, a solid idea that is poor in practice since it is cumbersome and the game does not pause while looking at it. I feel like a ton of deaths are attributed to bad design instead of skill.

The shooting and inventory are a mess, but strangely my biggest problem stems from something that sounds really neat on paper. When reloading there are two options. Quick reload and full reload. Tapping the X button will immediately refill my clip with a fresh one. The downside is that it drops my current clip on the ground, even if it still has bullets in it. I don’t know about you but I have been playing games for a long time, and I am an obsessive reloader. I hit that button every time I fire a shot. This means I was constantly picking up my clips and combining them back into my inventory. I never got used to holding the button to do a proper reload.

Visually the game looks decent outside the framerate. The environments are slick and the mood is set right. As mentioned the voice acting is just bad, not charming bad, just bad. The team has done a decent job of setting a mood that fits the survival horror games of yore. I just wish it was optimized. Even running on Xbox One X this game stutters and crawls at times. The effect on aiming is unacceptable and combined with its other problems makes it nearly unplayable at times.

Daymare 1998 is clearly an homage to survival horror games from the original PlayStation era. It hits some notes while missing plenty more. With some more tweaking and optimization this could have been a great addition to the genre. What is here though leaves a lot to be desired and falls more into the area of being a game that will spark some nostalgia, but induce more frustration at what could have been.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.