YMMV / Daymare 1998

• Breather Level: Chapter 4 is shorter and more straightforward compared to Chapter 3, with the only real challenge being an encounter with a Castor H.A.D.E.S. during the final section. Even then, it's just a single one in contrast to the Dual Boss from the previous Chapter, so it's easier to take out (barring a few zombies that you'll have to take out alongside it).
• Cliché Storm: While intended to be a throwback to '90s Survival Horror games such as Resident Evil 2 and Silent Hill, many felt that Daymare borrowed too many aspects from those type of games, and thus comes off as formulaic. Though some gamers also feel this is offset by the bleaker story compared to the aforementioned games. Which includes a cliffhanger ending where all the characters potentially die.
• Critical Dissonance: Reception overall for the game was mixed, but general players leaned more towards the positive side than critics.
• Demonic Spiders: All three of the Elite Zombies:
  • The Type-7 zombie, who are faster than normal zombies and are pretty strong. Fortunately, a couple shotgun or magnum blasts are enough to down them quickly.
  • The Melted Man is slow, but is highly resistant and can attack from a distance by shooting balls of acid at the player. Said acid also can drain a good chunk of your health. Even worse, when it dies, it'll explode and spray acid in an attempt to take the player out with it if they're within radius.
  • Castor H.A.D.E.S. is easily the worst out of all of them, being a Lightning Bruiser who can kill the player in just a couple hits and is fast enough to where the player has to sprint to get away from it. Its only weakness is an exposed white-artery on its back, meaning you have to stun it first and then get behind it to kill it fast enough. The one silver lining is that they rarely show up.
• He Really Can Act: A minor case, but Raven's voice acting is generally considered as the most natural one out of the others.
• Narm: The English voice acting ranges from dull to outright goofy sounding, which can ruin many of the tense or scary scenes in the game. Although, considering many English-dubbed Japanese PlayStation 1 Survival Horror games had such kind of voice acting, this was likely deliberate.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Checking your inventory is done in real-time, meaning the actual gameplay doesn't pause. This is absolutely frustrating as the game has a lot of enemy encounters, so there's a likely chance you won't have time to reload your weapons or heal when in the middle of a fight. Even worse, there is a five-second boot-up each time you press the inventory button, and this drawback exist in all difficulty levels and game modes.
  • One Bullet Clips is averted in this game. This means that instead of reloading from your ammo pool, you have to reload from filled magazines. This also means having to manually reload each magazine from your inventory which, again, is done in real-time. This can get tedious real fast and is not ideal when dealing with lots of enemies. Thankfully, this feature only applies to weapons that use magazines (like the pistol) and is completely absent in Modern Take mode.
  • Manual saves don't count as checkpoints, meaning if you made a significant amount of progress but don't want to have to restart from the latest checkpoint, you'd have to quit to main menu and select the save file you are currently on.
• So Okay, It's Average: Reception for the game was largely along the lines of this, with many noting that the game is far from perfect with its flawed mechanics, optimization, and story, but still holds up on its own.
• That One Level: Chapter 3, where you start playing as Raven. You first must navigate the zombie infested city; all you have on you is a basic pistol and a small amount of ammo pickups. Because you have no magazine at this point, you must manually reload your pistol from your inventory, leaving you at the mercy of nearby enemies. Then you wound up in the sewers; while you now have your hands on a pistol magazine plus a powerful shotgun, the sewer is very mazelike and thus easy to get lost in. The sewer, specifically the concluding section of it, is also when you first meet the Castor H.A.D.E.S., who cannot be defeated with your current arsenal and thus must be evaded. Finally, once you get out of the sewers and make it to the crash site, you must go up against two Castor H.A.D.E.S. this time around. If you grabbed the Desert Eagle from the gas station and saved up on your shotgun shells, this would be a relatively easy fight. If you did not, be prepared for one hell of a battle. It isn't until Raven reaches the dam, the final part, that the chapter finally starts giving you a breather even if slightly.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: While certainly not the prettiest game out there, many agree that the detailed graphics and lighting help capture the game's eerie and gloomy atmosphere. Especially for an indie game made on a relatively low budget.
• The Woobie: Samuel is easily the most genuinely sympathetic character in the game, as he suffers from some sort of brain cognitive disorder that causes him to experience hallucinations and nightmares and has the pleasure of watching his wife be murdered right before his eyes.