Despite knowing of Yume Nikki for half of my lifespan and its fan sequel being one of my favorite games, I never actually...played the original? ^_^; Baby me had watched huge amounts of gameplay videos and fan content and figured that there was no point in actually playing it. Finally I decided that simply wouldn't do and so today I sat down and beat the game in one sitting.

I have a lot to say about it...!

So to start things off, I wanna say that this game is insanely ahead of its time. It came out in 2004, which means that it may be older than a lot of the people reading this page! The pixel art is insanely well-crafted and the game itself is full of tiny little details that show the developer really put their heart into it. In particular the art styles of some assets feel very very influential towards amateur surreal art made in the early 2010s...the kind you'd see posted on Tumblr, you know?

Even seeing audiovisual footage of this game doesn't do it justice. It feels so much more impactful to be actually playing it for yourself. I did end up relying on the wiki for navigating to a lot of places, which is something I end up doing a lot with old RPG Maker games and their tiny screens... If you value the discovery aspect of this kind of game then you probably shouldn't do what I did unless you get really stuck. Even if you know where you're going, though, you'll still have an interesting time. There's a lot of strange things to see.

My favorite part of the game was the sheer atmosphere of it. With a few exceptions almost every area feels uniquely, nauseatingly dreadful. They aren't anything like places you'd see in real life, they're like strange abstract versions or just entirely unfamiliar. It doesn't even really feel like something most people would see in their ordinary dreams. It's like an alien landscape, or a hallucination of something that doesn't exist. I like it a lot.

I would also like to talk a little about the visual symbolism, because I think it helps a lot with how sickening and scary the game feels to me. There's a lot of imagery in the stranger areas that feels weirdly sexual in some way and to me it is definitely intentional. I remember reading a lot of theories of people wondering what it meant for your player character. I don't think it's meant to tell a story, though. I think it's meant to convey actual thoughts the developer had, in some shape or form, and it's really effective at expressing what can't be said.

I saw the end credits but I haven't seen absolutely everything the game has to offer just yet. I'll definitely go back and see it sometime. I could write a whole properly formatted essay about this game. Maybe I will someday. For now you get this though. I think everyone reading this should go play Yume Nikki.

If you're curious my favorite areas are Pink Sea and the basement in Sky Garden with all the tulips. I think they're lovely. :)