Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle
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Critic Reviews for Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle
Daymare 1994: Sandcastle is a decent second title in the series which makes some improvements but still struggles to come together as an complete experience. The basic combat and movement controls lack the refinement of the titles from which it takes inspiration. Taken alongside a story that goes from interesting to incoherent in the 6 or 7 hours it takes to complete and you have an interesting title that is worth a look by survival horror fans but not at full price.
A prequel which unfortunately takes a clear step backwards, in spite of some interesting ideas.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Daymare 1994: Sandcastle is a fun title that improves on almost all the issues from the original. It provides an excellent atmosphere and fun combat situations where you can use cryo abilities. It's not a perfect game, though, with some bad voice acting, really dark lighting, and being unable to dodge attacks leaves you open to strikes. Invader Studios will hopefully build on these qualities for the promised third instalment in the series.
Invader Studios has packaged a survival horror experience with a good atmosphere and decent pace, adding small but interesting new features and significantly improving the technical compartment. A sequel that represents a good step forward but still has a long way to go to walk side by side with the best exponents of the genre.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Ultimately, with Daymare 1994 Invader Studios has taken a step forward, treasuring the experience accumulated during the development of the progenitor of the series.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Daymare 1994: Sandcastle is a better game than Daymare: 1998, but fails to become one of the iconic survival horrors of the modern era.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Daymare 1994: Sandcastle acts better as a period piece for the early 90s than it does a horror game. It focuses quite a bit on combat, but doesn't really give you any tools to play around with your enemies, and its attempts at horror are, at best, hilarious, and at worst, annoying. Thankfully, the story is the right kind of pulpy fun that is bound to get you through the game like it would a middling episode of a thriller series.
Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle improves over the original game and has some cool ideas, but it still has some issues that stop it from being a must-play release in the genre. The rough storytelling, iffy enemy placement, and harsh difficulty spikes stand out as the most obvious, but there’s also a lack of polish to the overall experience that sees the game falling short when compared to the big hitters that inspired it. It’s certainly not a bad game though, and if you’re a fan of survival horror (especially Resident Evil), there’s fun to be had as you experience the sinister adventure. It just doesn’t quite do enough to make it shine in what is a VERY crowded genre.
