Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle Reviews

Daymare '94: A Real Dream 8/10 First I think it should be mentioned how impressive it is that Invader Studios made such a leap in quality and design from Daymare 1998. The first game in this series was generally looked at as "yeah, its janky but the heart was there. It has potential." These guys definitely realized that potential. I'm honestly blown away by how far they've come in such a short time. It's astonishing. Props to them for that. The character models in this game look good. The environment and props are great. And the game play mechanics are fun and complex. Miles beyond anything offered from their first venture. Overall I had a great experience with this game. The combat was engaging. The environments were immersive and interesting. Progression felt natural. And the upgrades and resource management were handled well. The length of the game was spot on for me as well. Lots to explore, but didn't over stay its welcome; which i appreciate. A great survival horror game for sure. I played my first play through on hardcore and felt like it definitely presented a challenge that remained completely within your grasp. As far as the criticisms go, I do feel like a some of the encounters were a bit unfair. They were manageable and nothing game breaking, but I had my fair share of moments thinking... "Ok. Cool Guys." And I'll out right say this. The final boss "fight" was terrible. Frustrating. Annoying. Just not fun. And when I finally did get past it, it didn't feel rewarding. More like thank god this b.s. is over. That seems to be the consensus from most players on forums as well. Ultimately though, I'd easily recommend this game to people, especially fans of Horror Survival or Indie Teams. The strides made by this company from Daymare '98 to this game are absolutely incredible. They went form making what was essentially a niche novelty game to something that could easily contend with AAA developers. It's nothing short of inspiring.

Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle is a very good horror action game and a vary good prequel and follow-up to daymare 1998; now then let's talk about the story. The Groom Lake military base on the surface it's your standard run of the mill military facility, but unknown to the public it's one of the most advanced research bases in the United States, carrying out experiments deep underground in the Nevada desert. But then one of the experiments have gone awry an earthquake happened destroying the surrounding area and causing unknown catastrophe as well as silencing all communication to the military base, so hexachor sends three of its best agents to do an infiltration Mission, see what happened, get the research data and prevent information of what went there from getting out. Agent Delilah Reyes is one of the three agents sent there, a brilliant mechanical engineer and a fine Soldier, Miss Reyes will soon be forced in a world of madness and horror as she must fight her way to the center of this chaos, but what she might find might be more than she can handle as she is not just dealing with of the Living Dead, but of her own past. Alright the likes, the story is really good while I do think it kind of jumped the shark a little bit too early if this is going to become a series it was still very good, with plenty of great twists and turns that again like the previous game shows how screwed up Hexachor and an extension the US government is, also like with the first game there's this big twist in it that really changes the whole story not just for this game, but also enhances the story of the first game and repainting characters in a different light. The gameplay is very good like daymare 1998 its Resident Evil styled, explore, fight monsters, scavenge for resources and solve puzzles, but it does make things more interesting like the enemies being a lot more challenging and aggressive than the zombies from the first game, also there is this one device/weapon that actually changes up the game play a bit, but that’s for later. Also they sort of changed but improved the gameplay like you don't have a stamina bar you can always run around, you only have one health potion, you always have a wires that allow you to hack and a bigger inventory, but to contrast this if you get rid of an item it's gone for good. Lastly if you beat certain challenges in the game you get bonuses and get like infinite ammunition. The puzzles were okay requires a bit of trial and error, although they did change it a bit where you can't skip them like you did in the daymare 1998. The weapons were good you only have three weapons one being a shotgun and another being a machine gun, but there's one weapon and it’s a freeze ray think of it like Mr Freeze’s freeze ray combined with a Mega Man blaster, as it can be used as an offensive weapon allowing you to freeze enemies making it easier to kill them and a device that can be used to solve puzzles kind of like the gravity gun from Half-Life in its versatility, although I do wish more could have been done with it. The graphics are very good even better than the first game with plenty of great colors, details and designs for the environment/levels to the characters although the character animation is a bit odd. The levels are good, the military bass is a bit diverse with some interesting scenery and touches here and there that really makes this feel like a secret underground military complex and it just makes you want to explore and see what you find. The enemies and bosses were good kind of like the idea of electro zombies and they had some interesting designs I especially like the design of the final boss, it felt a little bit like Dead Space although the gameplay for it can be a pain, but I'll get to that in the dislikes. The atmosphere is pretty good, it’s still nice and spooky that makes you jump at every little sound as you're dreading what's going to pop out from behind a corner. The characters are good I liked Reyes I feel like she was the right balance of tough, but vulnerable and I also liked her friend Ivan he was a jerk, but he's a good kind of jerk. The music is good with plenty of nice tracks that really help the game. The voice acting is very good I feel it's a bit better than the voice acting from the first game, nothing wrong with the previous game voice acting, I just feel like this is a bit better. The notes are very good and even better than the notes in the previous game as the problem with the notes a lot of them were encrypted which forced you to have to go to their game's website in order to read them, but here all the notes are not encrypted which is good. Alright then is this game scary, yes like the previous game it's helped with its atmosphere like I said as you're exploring you dread what's going to come out, it does rely on jump scares especially false jumpscares like the previous game, but I feel like these were well placed and didn't feel that cheap. Alright the dislikes, now I said the story was good but it did jump the shark a bit too early, [spoiler] basically in this game we find out the reason why there are zombies is because this science group was working on this teleportation experiment and somehow they teleported this Cthulhu like creature that was either resting deep in the arctic or is from another planet and it has the ability to mind control people to an extent and releases some sort of electric energy balls that reanimates the dead. I don't know I just found that bit weird to go to a dead space/lovecraftian story, granted Resident Evil has jumped the shark and made bizarre story stuff the Giant mold monster and werewolves, but that was later in the game series, I just feel like this should have happen more in a third or fourth game, but I don't know that's just me personally. [/spoiler] There is also one type of enemy and the final boss are really annoying this one type of enemy in the game is this giant mouth thing that if it grabs you it's an instant kill, I hated that because it can be quite chaotic in certain levels which can be hard to kill it especially since it teleports, I feel like it should have had like a quick time event like the other enemies. Also the final boss is like I said annoying basically it has a teleportation ability and when it grabs you it'll teleport you all the way to the beginning of that level and it will constantly do that to the point where I actually had to look up a walk-through on how to defeat it, I don't know it felt more like a stupid puzzle with fighting zombies then an actual boss fight, I mean say what you want about the final boss fight in 1998 at least it felt like a final boss and you could fight it and defeat it. [spoiler] And speaking of bosses I feel like that Cthulhu creature should have been the final boss, but who knows maybe in a sequel it will be. [/spoiler] also one huge problem in the game is that in the start of the game we find a dog and we just can't pet the bestest pupper. Okay now that I told you this Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle is a very good horror action game and a very good prequel and follow-up to daymare 1998, it has a really good story, very good gameplay and pretty good atmosphere. So if you played the first game and liked it then I definitely recommend playing this game as it improves on the mechanics of the previous game and if you're wondering on what order you should play the daymare games, start with daymare 1998 then play this game after.