Review: Yume Nikki

Before I begin, I will say that I love Yume Nikki and its many fan sequels. (Even though some are better than others)

So,

Lets start this review!

"Yume Nikki" is a surreal horror game by Kikiyama. The game is about a young(?) girl named Madotsuki, who seemed to have locked herself up in her room in her apartment. Now, her bedroom is pretty bare for for her age(?). All that's in the room is a bed, a carpet with an Aztec like design, a bookshelf, a few pillows thrown about, a bed, and TV with no form of cable and only having a video game system (a Nintendo) plugged in with a small mini-game called "NASU" to put it to use.

For some reason she never leaves her room throughout her entire adventure. The closest she gets to going outside is standing on her balcony. Now this probably sounds pretty boring. And in hindsight, the room is pretty boring in and of itself. But the game isn't about the physical world, it's about exploring the dream world.

So basically, the entire time you're playing, you're just snoozing the day away in bed.

The first thing I discovered while playing, is that the little girl(?) I'm playing as is anything but a normal kid.(?) If you noticed, I put a question mark between brackets every time I mentioned Madotsuki's age. There's a reason for this.

You see,

Madotsuki's dreams are so messed up, that even the people who tear at every bit of symbolism in this game provides have trouble defining the main character's age.

She certainly looks young, but if your hero dreams of stabbing her dream creatures, and some of said dream creatures becoming bloodthirsty monsters upon being stabbed, implies a whole slew of problems that normally you wouldn't associate with children.

 Other then that, three is no story in the game. There's not even any dialogue. Just you, and Madotsuki as your quirky little guide.

Now design-wise, I love the how the worlds are designed. Everything feels so desolate and empty,n including the soundtrack, but that's how it's supposed to feel. With most of worlds being so empty of life, it's so satisfying to find a small sign of  life, or a tiny event that showcases how creepy the game is.

... What even are those things? And why is a little girl dreaming of grabby monsters?

I won't spoil the surprise of discovering things while playing,but I would describe the creepy discoveries as similar to walking in a desert for days without even seeing a cactus, and then finding a buzzard. Naturally you're going to be happy so see something other then sand, but on the other hand, seeing a buzzard while you're running out of supplies during your trek feels like a bad omen of things to come.

Some worlds don't need to have events to keep you creeped out too.

Gameplay-wise, this game is pretty basic. The main objective is to find these dream powers called "effects." Effects will change the appearance of Madotsuki, and sometimes do odd things. Like the cat effect will give her cat ears, and will meow when you press the action button, which attracts all the creatures on the screen, or the bike effect, which will give Madotsuki a bike a bike to ride on and go faster.

Or give you blonde hair. that's cool too I guess... 

The biggest flaw I see is how unbearably slow Madotsuki is.  There's so many cool effects, but her walking speed is so frustratingly slow, I only used the bike most of the time. It's like she's underwater or something, and can only go so fast. The only saving grace when I started was that the bike effect was in one of the beginning areas, and was (relativity) easy to find.

I could have been a weirdly cute frog girl, but even that's too slow.

Now to close this review, I will discuss the fandom  (Fandom: A large group of people that discuss, and create fan works of their favorite work)

The fandom is one of the more productive groups, but you should never look into these groups until you're relatively far into the game. The reasons for this is that there are spoilers everywhere in the fan art for the game.

Other then that, they are a very creative group that has created hundreds of Yume Nikki fan games centered around different kinds of games(like this platformer), to games with similar game mechanics as the original, but centered around entirely different dreamers.Big name titles include; .Flow, Yume 2kki, and Lcd Dem. I really like this, since different dreamers mean different life experiences, which mean different dreams in general.

My final thoughts are that I really recommend this game to those that like surreal horror or just weird Japanese things. There are flaws, but those can be overlooked by the hours of fun this game has to offer.As an added bonus, there's plenty of fan works to keep you entertained after you're done playing.

For the downloading game and help finding the harder effects.

A good place to start if you'rte interested in the many fan games.