Daymare 1994: Sandcastle
Daymare 1994: Sandcastle is a prequel to Invader Studios Daymare 1998, a game that I have been meaning to play for quite some time, but I unfortunately never got around to it. Luckily, I was able to get the chance to check out Sandcastle and on paper, it looks like my type of game.
Story
We play as Dalila Reyes, an agent of H.A.D.E.S. known for her love of computers, science and hacking. As the game starts, we are prepared and briefed for Operation Sandcastle, a secretive mission to infiltrate Area 51 and find out exactly why all communication with the outside world has ceased.
Upon arrival at Groom Lake, Dalila and her squad are attacked by humanoid beings that seem to be powered by a kind of electromagnetic energy. I won’t go into much more detail about the story as it would be pretty spoiler-heavy but let’s just say Dalila will travel deeper into the base facing many challenges along the way.
Gameplay
The gameplay is your typical 3rd person survival horror game, you have your over-the-shoulder camera mechanics for shooting and aiming while you work your way through the labyrinth of offices, hangars and labs at Area 51.
While progressing through the facility, you’ll be collecting key cards, solving simple puzzles and fighting off an onslaught of teleporting enemies using your trusty shotgun and submachine gun.
I originally was going to try and keep comparisons to Resident Evil to a minimum but Daymare 1994: Sandcastle has made that quite hard to do as there’s a lot of Resident Evil DNA here, the inventory system, quick turn mechanic and 3-digit combination puzzles all seem to be lifted from Resident Evil’s newest entries with even the font and user interface looking somewhat similar.
While it’s hard to deny the obvious inspirations from the RE series, it’s not a bad thing at all as it works so well, although I’d say the game feels like it wants to be RE2 Remake a little too often. Sandcastle plays a lot more like one of the Resident Evil Revelations games, you even get a scanner that is very similar to the one in the original Revelations with a similar level of enemy variety.
I am slightly sad to report that there’s only a handful of different enemy types in the game and you’ll be fighting them repeatedly. Enemies in Daymare 1994 are guilty of doing one of the things that I hate most which is spawning behind the player. Not only is this annoying, it happens frequently. Often, you’ll find an enemy teleport right in front of you and hear another behind you. These enemies attack by grabbing Dalila prompting you to mash the A button to shake them off, the problem here is the enemies are incredibly fast, so you can guarantee you’ll be mashing that button a lot especially as they grab you from behind before you’ve had the chance to even spot them.
The other sin committed by Daymare 1994’s combat is the classic one-hit kill. There’s a certain recurring enemy that will grab Dalila and kill her in one hit, sadly there’s no dodge button here.
You’ll eventually gain access to a weapon called the frost grip which is essentially a backpack that can shoot or spray liquid nitrogen. This can be used to permanently disable enemies as well as putting out fires and solving other environmental puzzles. This is a unique mechanic and one I enjoyed a lot, you can freeze enemies in place and smash them to bits.
The Frost Grip can be upgraded at specialist one-time-use upgrade stations. At each station, you can choose between upgrading the weapon range, its power, overall capacity for Liquid Nitrogen, and the recharge rate. Later, you’ll be able to upgrade the frost grip with even more skills and abilities which are pretty much essential to your progress as some enemies can only be permanently taken out after being shattered once frozen.
A lot of enemies release a ball of energy upon death that can be neutralized with the frost grip if you are quick enough, this becomes a vital mechanic later as that ball can float over the corpses and reanimate them creating even more foes for Dalila to fight.
Before communication was a lost with Area 51 a military team known as Team 8 went in before you, luckily leaving a surplus of ammunition and health kits throughout the facility. Throughout my playthrough, I almost never ran out of ammunition and if all else fails, you’ll have the frost grip which automatically recharges itself after use.
As you delve deeper into the base, breadcrumbing and environmental indication of where the player should head next is done pretty well, for example, early on there’s a flashlight that has been left on shining a light towards a locker containing a key item linked to story progression. Little touches like this stop the player from wandering around aimlessly for hours trying to figure out where to go next (or giving up and closing the game entirely).
Saving is handled via portable terminals which are well spaced out and unlike other survival horror games, they do not require consumables to use, at least on Normal difficulty.
The Lighting is great and often you’ll find yourself in very dark environments. If you turn your flashlight off in certain areas you won’t be able to see anything in front of you. If you can, try and play Daymare 1994 on an OLED screen as the black levels really make the game stand out and add to the sense of atmosphere.
I played Daymare 1994: Sandcastle on PC where performance was great overall, I didn’t experience any crashes or glitches and from a technical standpoint, the game seems to be very well made. I tried out the game on Steam Deck, and while it is verified, I opted to stick to PC due to the downgraded settings needed to get a decent framerate on the Deck.
The graphics are really nice at times with the game looking great overall, however, in-game reflections need a little work. I could always see the light blue glow of the frost grip in reflections, even though it was equipped to Dalila’s back.
A few other nitpicks I should mention have to do with the overall traversal mechanics through the base, with the first being Dalila’s movement. While animated well, I always felt she could have benefited from moving just a touch faster and her overall movement felt a little ridged, especially noticeable while in combat, once again a dodge or evade button/mechanic would have done wonders here.
My second issue would be ladders, throughout my playthrough, I wouldn’t be surprised if more than 5% of it was taken up simply by holding up or down as Dalila climbs ladders. She has no sense of urgency as was one of the things that annoyed me the most about Daymare 1994. There are traversal sections later where you’ll be going down ladder after ladder, a small option to speed up the animation perhaps by using the run button would have not gone a miss. It became such a trope through my playthrough that I started counting how long it took to climb or descend ladders, the longest one I found took 29 seconds to climb, which is a long time that the player is just holding the up button and I almost expected the theme from Snake Eater to start playing halfway through
Speaking of things taking a long time, there were numerous forced walking sections during the game, usually while Dalila was in conversation with someone either in person or via radio. I understand why these sections exist, but they dragged on for far too long and happen far too often. It’s only a minor gripe, but a gripe, nonetheless.
In terms of length, there’s a fair bit to do. You have scannable items to find in each chapter which unlock additional backstories etc. along with collectable Alien statues that can be found hidden throughout the level.
The game took me 5 hours and 42 minutes to complete on normal difficulty during which I had a total of 10 deaths, each time via a cheap one-hit kill. Even with this many deaths, I still managed to receive an ‘A-Rank’. So there’s some replayability for achievement hunters and those who want to get the best possible rank and time.
Conclusion
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Daymare 1994: Sandcastle. There were times when I was genuinely having fun and it seems like a lot of work has gone into the game. Sadly, I was left a little frustrated with the repetitive enemy types and the game’s pacing, especially towards the end. Sandcastle’s final boss was a little lacklustre in my opinion and verged on being annoying, dragging on the encounter for far too long.
I would recommend giving it a try if you are a fan of other survival horror games but just don’t go in expecting the next ‘Resident Evil’ as you’ll be sorely disappointed.
6.5
Steam review code kindly provided by the Publisher
