Yume Nikki is one of the most important games ever despite its seemingly small scope, paving the way for several RPG Maker games inspired by it in one way or another, as well as one of the most iconic surrealist games of all time, and for very good reasons.
In several ways, Yume Nikki isn’t really meant to be understood in any conventional way, nor is it meant to be played with the mindset of expecting a conventional game.
Yume Nikki as a game strips down the gameplay down to the very basic cycle of walking around like an idiot, soaking up in its atmosphere and occasionally finding something new, though the main difference is that where as in other games, such as Super Metroid, the reward for exploring the map to its fullest are upgrades that make you more powerful, finding new areas is the reward here, with some of the “power ups” merely changing the look of Madotsuki and nothing else (while others aid in traversing the map), but in the end they are still pretty cool.
But what truly matters in the game is what’s present (and what’s NOT present) in each location you find. Mind-bending landscapes where the borderline nonsensical reigns over anything else, seemingly endless black voids where surreal entities and abstract images coexist, and even the (arguably) more grounded places manage to feel just as strange as everything else due to their haunting atmosphere, helped by a stellar soundtrack which really sells the vibe of every place, all of that make the game arguably more harrowing more so by virtue of exploring a world so uniquely alien and terrifying as Madotsuki’s perturbed mind than that of an actual threat hiding around the corner. But eventually you start getting accustomed to the world’s idiosyncrasies, and consequently starts to get a better hang of the environments both based on their map layouts and their sights and sounds (for better or for worse), and the game itself is absolutely ripe with imagery and symbolism, and thus, much like the best surrealist and abstract art, it’s up to you to find meaning in everything you find throughout the game, and that’s the magic of Yume Nikki, isn’t it? Finding sense in everything found throughout the seemingly endless dimensions of abstract images, and piecing together all of it to find a meaning to Yume Nikki, or maybe not doing that at all and just soaking up all of it as it is and leaving it at that, that works too.
Now you may be wondering why did I rate this game only a mere three stars out of five despite everything I said so far?
SHORT ANSWER: IT’S BORING! Or rather, it BECOMES boring.
Long answer: When you first start, everything seems and feels extremely bizarre, and thus, it ends up being incredibly compelling and rewarding to explore each location and sometimes find new things, helped a bunch by other secret places and events that are entirely optional, making your first time reaching those moments really friggin special.
HOWEVER, it does get tiring when you have to do that to accomplish a goal as dull as “Collect 24 Effects”, especially with the slow as a snail speed of Madotsuki, and no, the Bicycle doesn’t make this much better. What starts as engrossing and bewildering starts to become annoying and exhaustive to go through, and I’ll admit I used a guide to find out how to get the rest of the Effects after I got 14 of them or so, since some of them are fairly tricky to find as well, which I would appreciate more if not for the aforementioned slow speed. Pro tip: Get the Bicycle ASAP, and then start using the Bicycle Glitch to get through most areas as quickly as possible.
I get that most people will look past this and still adore it for everything else, and I can perfectly see why, but when the whole gameplay loop involves something as mundane as walking and nothing else, that one flaw starts to get on me. And to me, the game manages to be boring both intentionally and unintentionally, and the latter part is the issue.
In summary, I do really admire what this game does (and did to indie gaming as a whole alongside Cave Story), it is an absolute piece of art that broke the boundaries of what video games could be at the time, to the point where several games were inspired by it, including fan games like the famous Yume 2kki or .flow… However, I could also say something similar about other games I far prefer to play over Yume Nikki.
TL;DR - I admire the hell of what Kikiyama did, but I don’t like actually playing it, and I’d rather just watch about it than playing it, but I don’t know, maybe YOU will find those “flaws” as something that adds to the experience of playing Yume Nikki, and I'm fine with that.
Edit: Who the fuck changed the cover art in IGDB? Come on bro the other cover art was so awesome, but now it's replaced with this dull as a plank stuff!
In several ways, Yume Nikki isn’t really meant to be understood in any conventional way, nor is it meant to be played with the mindset of expecting a conventional game.
Yume Nikki as a game strips down the gameplay down to the very basic cycle of walking around like an idiot, soaking up in its atmosphere and occasionally finding something new, though the main difference is that where as in other games, such as Super Metroid, the reward for exploring the map to its fullest are upgrades that make you more powerful, finding new areas is the reward here, with some of the “power ups” merely changing the look of Madotsuki and nothing else (while others aid in traversing the map), but in the end they are still pretty cool.
But what truly matters in the game is what’s present (and what’s NOT present) in each location you find. Mind-bending landscapes where the borderline nonsensical reigns over anything else, seemingly endless black voids where surreal entities and abstract images coexist, and even the (arguably) more grounded places manage to feel just as strange as everything else due to their haunting atmosphere, helped by a stellar soundtrack which really sells the vibe of every place, all of that make the game arguably more harrowing more so by virtue of exploring a world so uniquely alien and terrifying as Madotsuki’s perturbed mind than that of an actual threat hiding around the corner. But eventually you start getting accustomed to the world’s idiosyncrasies, and consequently starts to get a better hang of the environments both based on their map layouts and their sights and sounds (for better or for worse), and the game itself is absolutely ripe with imagery and symbolism, and thus, much like the best surrealist and abstract art, it’s up to you to find meaning in everything you find throughout the game, and that’s the magic of Yume Nikki, isn’t it? Finding sense in everything found throughout the seemingly endless dimensions of abstract images, and piecing together all of it to find a meaning to Yume Nikki, or maybe not doing that at all and just soaking up all of it as it is and leaving it at that, that works too.
Now you may be wondering why did I rate this game only a mere three stars out of five despite everything I said so far?
SHORT ANSWER: IT’S BORING! Or rather, it BECOMES boring.
Long answer: When you first start, everything seems and feels extremely bizarre, and thus, it ends up being incredibly compelling and rewarding to explore each location and sometimes find new things, helped a bunch by other secret places and events that are entirely optional, making your first time reaching those moments really friggin special.
HOWEVER, it does get tiring when you have to do that to accomplish a goal as dull as “Collect 24 Effects”, especially with the slow as a snail speed of Madotsuki, and no, the Bicycle doesn’t make this much better. What starts as engrossing and bewildering starts to become annoying and exhaustive to go through, and I’ll admit I used a guide to find out how to get the rest of the Effects after I got 14 of them or so, since some of them are fairly tricky to find as well, which I would appreciate more if not for the aforementioned slow speed. Pro tip: Get the Bicycle ASAP, and then start using the Bicycle Glitch to get through most areas as quickly as possible.
I get that most people will look past this and still adore it for everything else, and I can perfectly see why, but when the whole gameplay loop involves something as mundane as walking and nothing else, that one flaw starts to get on me. And to me, the game manages to be boring both intentionally and unintentionally, and the latter part is the issue.
In summary, I do really admire what this game does (and did to indie gaming as a whole alongside Cave Story), it is an absolute piece of art that broke the boundaries of what video games could be at the time, to the point where several games were inspired by it, including fan games like the famous Yume 2kki or .flow… However, I could also say something similar about other games I far prefer to play over Yume Nikki.
TL;DR - I admire the hell of what Kikiyama did, but I don’t like actually playing it, and I’d rather just watch about it than playing it, but I don’t know, maybe YOU will find those “flaws” as something that adds to the experience of playing Yume Nikki, and I'm fine with that.
Edit: Who the fuck changed the cover art in IGDB? Come on bro the other cover art was so awesome, but now it's replaced with this dull as a plank stuff!