Born as an attempt to bring back the classic Resident Evils, this survival mixes the best of the Capcom saga with some interesting new ideas.
The copy is the most sincere form of tribute, or so it is said. But the best may be to take the bases of something and evolve them from respect towards a product that is true to the essence while adding interesting news. And that is what this Daymare 1998 does with respect to the Resident Evil franchise, and especially its first installments.
As a result of the effort of a small team that started trying to reinvent Resident Evil 2 for modern times, but that, more importantly, are fans and people who have internalized very well what makes the Capcom saga special, Daymare plays all playable the correct keys.
From the level design to the recurring puzzles, to the limited amount of ammunition or life, the sensations of each level are irretrievably reminiscent of those that the games of the Osaka company once transmitted. But in turn, the gameplay has transferred well to the third-person camera, similar to modern Resident Evil.
Think before shooting
A gameplay that is the highlight of this title. As is often the case with simmering small team games, there has been time to polish the small details and generate interesting new mechanics. One of them is how to reload weapons. What in other games is almost automatic, takes more or less time to complete, here it acquires a much more strategic component. The ammunition that we collect in our inventory we can combine from there with our weapons, which takes time during which we are sold, or distribute it in chargers (we will have a couple of them), which we can change at the touch of a button.
But beware, a simple quick press will make the equipped charger fall to the ground, where we must recover it. If we want to recharge well, this will take time. And if the charger is unloaded, it will have to be refilled from inventory. This means that even if there are no hordes of enemies, any encounter is challenging.
The location of the enemies is also generally very well thought out, so that we cannot breathe easy when opening a door, without knowing what is behind it. There are also rooms and lockers that we can only open if we have a multifunction cable, and we overcome a small hacking puzzle.
If we run out of ammunition, we can simply hit enemies, but this mechanic is adjusted to be a challenge that can end our character losing a significant chunk of his life bar. Apart from expending energy, we will have to have enormous precision when executing the movement, with the uncertainty of whether just one hit (or shot) will have killed the undead. In fact, we cannot be suspicious because soon they can get up again if we neglect ourselves and surprise ourselves busy with something else.
We will not rest nor in the inventory
To use the inventory, the map and the documents, we use a device that does not pause the game while we use it, which requires us, in a game that lacks 100% "safe areas", to take into account our environment before putting ourselves to mess around. Yes there is a system of boxes to leave things that we do not need and take them again at another time.
Horror remix
Regarding history, we find a small remix of stories and situations seen in various titles in the Resident Evil franchise, which inevitably refer us to installments from the first to the fifth. All this linked with an interesting background plot but an execution in dialogues and kinematics somewhat topical and hackneyed. It is especially a shame that the aspect of the schizophrenia and hallucinations that makes presence, but which does not get the juice out of it, is no longer explored.
Part of the story is revealed from documents, in the most Resident Evil style. Characters of all kinds will bother to write down everything that happens almost as if they know we are going to find them and want to give us necessary information. Here it has been innovated by converting them into passwords that we can unlock by going to an internet website and entering the corresponding code.
It is also a shame to a certain extent that the game does not have a greater variety of enemies, but it is forgiven because there is also a strategic component in this regard, with more efficient ways of ending each one, and its designs are well integrated into the scenarios. . These in turn risk some original decisions. To the typical laboratory environments that we could associate a game like this, urban and even wooded locations are added.
In the most open parts, the game forces us to avoid a greater number of zombies than normal, in addition to having moments where not seeking refuge will make our gas mask saturate, so we must run to the next safe place. Unfortunately, in these open environments the technical part of the game shows its seams, with an evident pop-in and lack of element density, especially in the forest.
Technical seams
And it is that compared to the mime of the playable part, the technique, although it borders on an acceptable level and nothing is far from what we could expect from a game of big companies from a decade ago (remembering titles like Zombie U), yes it is something out of date and cannot compete with a current AAA. An aspect that is especially noticeable in two aspects, the frame rate (which ranks a little although without exaggerated drops) and the characters, which especially in the cinematics show somewhat robotic animations and a somewhat unreal aspect. Also from time to time there are textures that take time to load, a very typical failure of the last generation. Nothing in any case that the player does not get used to after a short time, and in a game that despite the scares is not exactly a shooter, it does not seriously condition the gameplay.
It is also appreciated that basically we are facing the fruit of a small team in the lack of testing, with some bugs that can be somewhat irritating: sometimes the option to return to the last checkpoint does not work, other documents that we found are not shown on screen, audio and video desynchronization in cinematics, there are prompts that tell us to press a button but they do nothing (especially frequent in open doors), cinematics that if we return to the console menu and resume them, they go black …) . But even if they are ugly, it would be unfair to say that they ruin an experience that, in general, oozes know-how and care.
A mime that moves to the location, which although it has problems with the limitations of the text boxes, in general it is of quite good quality, apart from the detail that means that the game comes fully translated into Spanish. The sound section deserves a special mention, with quality English dubbing and an important care in sound effects, an essential part of any self-respecting horror product.
(This Reviews has been done on the PS4 version)
CONCLUSION
Daymare 1998 is more than just a tribute to the Resident Evil saga, it is a survival horror that drinks from the bases of the classics and adds its own innovations to result in a mixture that will leave a good taste in the mouth of fans of the genre, despite some limitations of low budget production.
THE BEST
- The way he knows how to distill the essence of survival horror.
- The gameplay and the scenario design are very well worked.
- The script manages to hook and has interesting twists.
- The sound, the technical aspect that borders on the highest level and that greatly helps the atmosphere of the game.
WORST
- The technical aspects, especially the visual ones, are typical of the last generation.
- Some bugs and lack of polishing.
Good
It meets the expectations of what is a good game, it has quality and does not have serious flaws, although it lacks elements that could have taken it to higher levels.
