Daymare: 1998

Had this game since it released, but didn't play it much. Since I'm almost 60 yrs old now the game was too hard for me in it's original release, reflexes just not what they use to be. The game was not at fault since it did pay homage to the original RE series pretty well in almost every aspect. Since the last update I have been really enjoying the game now, since it's much more adjustable to fit my skill level. Overall not a bad outing for indie Invader Games in the survival horror genre. Hope to see more from them down the road.

I really like this game. I was not expecting (Daymare: 1998) to be as good as it is after reading the mediocre reviews & scores. I don't understand them at all. I'm having a blast with the game. Only payed 8.99 £ for it also during this 70% off period and thats a total steal. I love the sharp graphics and lighting in the game which brings a creepy atmosphere to life along with good sound effects and music. The control feels good also, when moving the different character's you play as and it feels smooth and tight. I don't mind pushing 2 buttons when you have to sprint fast. It works well and easy with a keybord. The gunplay is not as good as (Resident Evil 2 & RE3: Remake) but it still works. The reloading critizism i came to understand in the beginning but after i learned how it works it became functioning.
I have not finished the game yet. I'm at chapter 3 of 5 totally. I take my time with games and explore everything. The story feels pretty good i think. Maybe the voice acting is not the charpest but that doesen't bother me much. There was some segment in the first chapter in the end that was on time and that did not match the rest of the well made game. But it was not long luckily and not the best idea. The game runs well on my PC with no dips in framerate and no crashes.
Really FUN "Resident Evil" old school type game. Survival horror classic.
______________________________________________________________
:::::: EDiT :::::: Finished the game now and i really liked this horror-action adventure. The first 3 chapters was the best of 5 totally. It was still an enjoyable game but it felt a little bit rushed in the end. Daymare: 1998 is wort full price i think. There is some bonus videos after the roll credits after finishing the game. I really hope that Invader Studios is working on Daymare 2 now. Great first game by the devs and this can be a very good Resident Evil clone series.
/// Score: 7.5 of 10

Short version: I really wish I had a sideways thumb. If you've played a Resident Evil game and you're like "I want more of that", it's worth picking up. But only if you're comfortable using WASD for movement, and you're willing to adjust your expectations based on the price.
The good:
* It appears to have more content than the RE3 remake.
* Some of the sound effects are quite good - especially the guns.
* Management of individual magazines for your guns feels right at home in a survival horror game. It's a great addition.
* I am so damn tired of dealing with zombies in sewers. What were all those people doing down there to begin with? But other than that, the environments are enjoyable.
The bad:
* The writing, voice acting and corresponding animations are very, very rough. If you're in this for the zombies, you may not care. But it can be quite jarring at times.
* The closest thing to a boss fight is needlessly confusing. I eventually had to give up and ask youtube what to do about it.
* Too many (virtually all) of the game's lore items are references to a website. I get the ARG angle. In some games, it works. But survival horror games rely heavily on immersion, and the game actively encourages you to pause and open up a deliberately bad website.
The mind-bogglingly terrible:
You can rebind your movement keys away from WASD to something else. Great! But you're still stuck using WASD to navigate the menus. And the fact that you have to manage individual magazines means you're going to spend a fair amount of time in there. So if that key combination doesn't work for you, pass this one up.
As a software engineer, I'm simply appalled. This tells me there are multiple, separate code paths responsible for interpreting that "key W = move forward". And that those code paths are somehow... hard to change? That wasn't a challenge when I started writing software 20+ years ago. It hadn't even occurred to me that it was _possible_ to make this difficult anymore.
Professional grievances aside, this was a minor annoyance for me. My keyboard has a physical layout that makes it difficult to use WASD, so I'm forced to use ESDF for most games. I can manage WASD in the menus, but it requires re-positioning my hand. But there are lots of people who don't have the luxury of just being slightly annoyed about this, like people with certain disabilities. And lefties. For them, not being able to change keybindings may be a game-breaking experience.

Introduction
Daymare 1998 is a third-person survival horror where you experience a zombie outbreak from the perspective of three persons. This game is heavily inspired by Resident Evil in every aspect in the hope of recreating the old-school survival horror experience. This game got some right but also has many shortcomings. I played a ton of Resident Evil games so I understand what the game tries to achieve, however for those who don’t, might not think this game is as good as I do.
To me, “old school survival horror” is a horror experience generated from resource rarity and powered by Metroidvania-like map design, a nonlinear map design you need different items/abilities to unlock different stages of the map and usually requires a fair amount of backtracking.
Map Design
The complexity of map design is basically on par with Nest 2 map design in Resident Evil 3 Remake, with the most complex one (hospital level) similar to the hospital design in RE3. For those who don’t know, the map design of RE3 is criticized by some fans for being not exquisite and too linear compared to RE2 Remake. I am fine with that, but I do think they make a fair point. If that makes sense to you, you should know how it is like in Daymare 1998 – not very complex or exquisite and somewhat linear, but still made use of Metroidvania concept and most importantly, it works.
Inventory Management
There is one unique feature I have never seen elsewhere – you need to manually load your bullets into magazines. I appreciate the intention – too few magazines make your combat hard as you cannot reload (inventory menu does not pause the game), while too many take up your inventory space. However, this idea doesn’t work well. The constant need to toss around bullets and magazines breaks the flow of the game. As for others, buff items are so superfluous that their existence only reminds you there is an inventory system.
The game puts a terminal integrates item box, trade, manual save together, which feels like a massive afterthought. It is not until Chapter 2 you see one and it is nowhere to be found when your inventory gets stuffed. In fact, the game can be just fine without it. On top of these, inventory menu is not intuitive. I played too many Resident Evil so no issue for me, but I can imagine casual gamers have quite a headache navigating it.
This game is pretty forgiving (1990s classic mode, normal difficulty) as long as you don’t sprinkle your bullet all around. Enemies besides bosses don’t take many bullets and there are so many to pick up that at the end of a chapter my inventory is often stuffed up with bullets. The only time they ran low is Chapter 1 running session which works great but not for long. I am not sure about the hardest difficulty, but normal difficulty which I assume most people will play at, cannot create the tension from resource rarity.
Puzzle Design
I think puzzles are bad and too many. Most puzzles that work fine are some sorts of ramifications of Resident Evil puzzles. For those original puzzles, they range from bad to ridiculous.
Chapter 1 spelling puzzle is ridiculous because you cannot just assume everyone can spell Greek. Chapter 3 fountain puzzle is bad for using trial and error that only works well with mechanical and environmental puzzles, because they don’t require an interpretation of three sets of contradictory clues that can generate too many combinations. For the Chapter 4 morse code translation, I just simply could not find where the puzzle is. Escape session in Chapter 5 can be viewed as an environmental puzzle in a timer. It is very creative but wasn’t executed well because of a bug that even I downed the monster, he was still able to grab me when I run past, which turned it into an annoying experience.
Control & Combat
Control is very slow or say unresponsive. Swapping weapons and holding a gun to aim take forever and are downright frustrating in the middle of combat, making swapping guns in close range effectively impossible without getting hit. Besides, command will sometimes be unregistered, meaning you have to repetitively press the buttons for the action to kick in.
Shooting is solid and satisfying, with the great thrust sounds from blasting a zombie’s head off and the gory body disassembly. But close combat (about three steps away from get grab) is problematic. In close range, zombies move faster than your aim moves especially on low mouse DPI. This causes you to not be able to aim appropriately. Hit detection in close range is also a problem. Sometimes bullets hit, sometimes they don’t even you are so sure you have aim right at the head. It also happens in melee. You can push the enemies away sometimes but other times you can’t. It is just pure luck.
Magnum is supposed to be the most powerful weapon but it is in an awkward position. If the shotgun cannot handle the enemy, magnum also can’t. That leads to this gun being superfluous and enemies should have been less spongey to magnum rounds.
Visual & Sound
Graphics is okay, except a daytime session looks terrible with bad lighting and awful looking environment, and a short session where the developer just turned down the brightness to create a smoke environment, which is lazy (inventory menu is also dark). But I do appreciate the developer put lots of attention to environmental details making places realistic and believable. I also like how they made use of low lighting to capture the gloomy vibe and were able to create a few scary moments I sincerely enjoyed.
Character faces look terrible. Their faces are so fake that like they are wearing them instead of having on their skins. Some character motions in cutscenes are not well animated, like no lip-syncing, stiff hand gestures, weird movement, but I am willing to forgo them as they are hardly the point.
Sound design is on point and features some memorable music. The only thing I can nitpick is that zombies’ howling sounds right next to you despite the distance. It isn’t completely bad since it sounds like a zombie just sneaks behind rising some tension, but certainly feels more like a defect than a design choice.
In terms of optimization, it is decent, owning to most environments are dark, but cutscene does not run well at least for me. It is probably due to my crappy computer that all cutscene run in slow motion causing video desynchronizes with audio. I experienced this with other games and was able to resolve it by changing graphics setting. Yet here I dropped the setting to the lowest problem still exists.
Story & Narrative
The story shares some similar settings with Resident Evil, but it is different and unexpected in terms of plot and has rich background and lore for me to enjoy. I do think the narrative is kind of poorly executed though. The narrative angle shifting causes the story to be too fragmented. Also, because three protagonists are all collateral in the event, only until the epilogue the game reveals the whole story, which is not fluid and natural.
Cutscene is somewhat problematic, not because looks bad but because some important scenes are not shown. For instance, it was supposed to have a scene to show helicopter crashing because what it means behind is important to the whole story. There are a few other scenes I feel important but missing. Lacking them does not affect the story, yet makes the narrative weak, as some important plots did not get the emphasis they deserve.
Verdict
Daymare 1998 has many rough edges that bring some frustration, but ultimately the core experience is on point especially if you know what the developer tried to do. From the ending, I would expect a sequel and if it is the case, I am looking forward to it since what they did are on the right track, just need more polish to refine. If you are a survival horror fan wants to scratch that itch from waiting for RE8, this game has my recommendation.

Daymare: 1998 is a third-person survival horror game.
The developers tried to recreate the mood of iconic titles from the '90s. The game is heavily inspired by Resident Evil. Originally it was planned to become a remake of Resident Evil 2.
An incident turned a small town into a deadly zone filled with zombies. There are three characters to play with an elite soldier, a helicopter pilot and a forest ranger.
The story is not really new, so I find it kinda boring. Also the characters are pretty boring from my point of view.
Controls are wonky, but you will get used to it.
Graphics are okay but the characters have absolutely ugly faces.
The voice acting is not the worst but could have been way more better. The soundtrack however is good.
There are also a few game breaking bugs, I had for example a problem were one boss monster felt through the map and I had to replay the whole boss fight.
Fans of the old Resident Evil games and people who would like to play some oldschool survival horror game will probably like it. Even with the negative things I mentioned, I liked the game overall and had my fun with it. From my point of view the developers recreated the mood of the '90s horror games pretty good.
It is not the best horror I have ever played but definitely not the worst.
Sounds 7/10
Graphics 6/10
Gameplay 6/10
Atmosphere 8/10
If you liked my review, please feel free to follow me and/or my curator group:

I actually feel like this game is horribly misunderstood.
The whole premise of this isn't to be a clone of Resident evil, or even pry off of your nostalgic feelings for past resident games.
In itself, it's supposed to be cheesy, the voice acting is supposed to be bad, because things like that in 90's horror games were like this, and to be honest, it works really well here. Only a couple hours in, but have watched the games stream and many other gameplay videos, and from an outside perspective, or a person that has been spoilt in the newer age of horror games, they'll just see this as trash, because they don't quite understand the concept of what it's trying to be.
I'm not saying it's going to be the best game you'll ever play, but if you enjoyed horror games growing up in the 90's (like me) chances are, you'll probably enjoy this and laugh at how bad the situations and voice acting are.
The game is also pretty challenging when set to the difficulties the Developers recommend you play on.

I'm going to give a cautious 'It's alright but...' for this one.
Daymare is a straight-up homage to classic survival horror, and unfortunately that goes both for and against it. On the plus side, the game looks pretty decent for a smaller title, the guns handle well, the score is pleasantly atmospheric and while the puzzles are indeed difficult at first blush - the logical solutions aren't far away.
The problem is that the story is absolute drivel. I can't really put it up to purely translation - the story flounders through terrible dialogue, with a conspiratorial plot that requires you to log on to the Daymare website to get all of the lore (which is precisely two steps further than I could be bothered) and concludes with a 20-minute post-credits epilogue that's full of information that should have been conveyed throughout the game proper. I think there's some confusion when people think of 'twists', believing that they're supposed to be a last-minute 'gotcha' that subverts our expectations, when they're actually better served at peak moments as the story goes along, redefining our motivations and giving us fresh context.
As it stands, if you can enjoy Daymare for the gameplay, which is again, pretty fun, then that's alright. Just ignore the plot.