the perfect game: (not) a review of yume nikki

I: Intro

videogames are the most subjective medium out there. they are also the most objective medium out there. a game can be easily identified as bad or badly made, but this same badly made game can be someone's favorite game because of its bad aspects. this is all fine and good, and everyone knows this already (at least i assume), but if games are objective and quantifiable, then there is such thing as a perfect videogame. yume nikki is NOT that.

the one review that changed the way i write reviews forever is tim roger's review of Cave Story, in which he spends the entire readtime circumventing around the subject at hand because Cave Story is so perfect that it doesn't need any reviewing. do i agree with that? yes. very much. however, even though cave story is a perfect videogame, i don't think it is quite THE perfect game. in this essay, i posit that the perfect game is at the tip of our tongues, but we are not quite there yet.

yume nikki is a dream exploration walking simulator released in 2004 that everyone knows about, has played, and has loved. but the extent of that love is different between each person. some have played the game and can recognize its prowess and what it does, but don't exactly love it to bits. some have it as their favorite game, doing cosplays of the characters, fanarts, playing it regularly or even developing their own take at it. this, the yume nikki fangames, is what attracts most people to the fandom. yume nikki to me and many other people feels more like a blueprint than a fully realized experience. many others will argue that it IS a fully realized experience that just so happened to inspire other projects, but the truth is that no pioneer is ever the best at what it does. unless that pioneer is Cave Story, but this is not about that.

so, yume nikki is a blueprint, and in my opinion, it is the prototype for the perfect game.

not just a game that is perfect, but a game that everyone loves and adores and considers it the most enjoyable or artistically satisfying experience present in the medium. any nikki fan can tell you i am cooking with this, but, to get there, i need to explain why the perfect game doesn't exist yet.

II: .flow

as you probably know if you're reading this, .flow is my favorite game of all time; however, i in no way believe that it is the best version of yume nikki. it's BETTER, sure, but not the best. in my review i mentioned the things that make it better than the original, but i didn't mention the things that make it worse.

starting with the soundtrack.

kikiyama, in an ironic opposite way than pixel, was actually a musician before developing yume nikki, so the fact that yume nikki's soundtrack is so transparently perfect is no surprise. from my own experience as a musician turned game dev (shoutout socialsim_2002, in stores a few years from now) i figure kikiyama wanted to focus more on the music than other aspects of the game, which paid out immensely well. the first and second things people always mention about the game are its atmosphere and its soundtrack, so i'd say he did a great job.

the other thing people mention about yume nikki that is so great and ISN'T present in .flow is its gigantic scope. sure, it's harder to navigate through it (because the screen loops are way too big and empty... something .flow improved) but the amount of areas you can find are beyond impressive. you can play that game your whole life and still never see everything it has to offer, not only because of how big it is but also its rare rng dependant events (shoutout Undertale, which is also a yume nikki fangame). .flow is admittedly way smaller and limited. if you go through the main quest of finding the effects you'll probably see everything it has to offer. what it offers is great, but it's not enough. hence, .flow is not perfect.

III: 2kki, from the eyes of someone 

who's never played 2kki.

i've heard things about 2kki being scarier and creepier than both yume nikki and .flow in some parts, so i never played it. though 2kki is the most notable yume nikki fangame of all time (besides, again, Undertale, which is also a cave story fangame)because of its massive scope. it is (still is!) made by a community of people instead of just one developer, so it is almost ridiculously big. as i haven't played it i can't go onto details about how the game feels, the progression or soundtrack, but i had to mention it here.

if 2kki is so grandiose, then why isn't it better than yume nikki?

the thing that makes is so good is also the thing that keeps it from being great. the community are very creative people, but one of the more special aspects of yume nikki is the developer's (in this case, kikiyama's) personal subjectivity. 2kki is too messy, inconsistent (according to what i've seen) and the lack of one specific direction keeps it from being so emotionally resonant as, for instance, .flow.

it is a commendable and impressive game, however, it is not even close to perfect.

IV: Undertale

 

no.

undertale is perfect, but not the perfect game.

V: LSD Dream Emulator

yume nikki is an LSDDE fangame as much as LSDDE is retroactively a yume nikki fangame. the dream exploration walking sim wouldn't exist without LSDDE and it wouldn't be GOOD without yume nikki. not to shit on LSDDE, it's not a bad game, but it's very, very limited.

osamu sato is a legend with a one of its kind mind, but LSDDE feels incomplete, not only because of the hardware its running on but it lacks the scope of yume nikki and other similar games. some of the areas are great, but others are just plain and boring. the soundtrack is good, but far from being as good as nikki's or .flow's. of course, the previously mentioned emotional subjectivity of its creator is not very present here as LSDDE aims to explore surrealism more than specific dreams (even though they WERE based on specific, real dreams). LSDDE has no vague story elements telling you more about the person who you're playing as, instead, it feels like the main character is the player themselves.

interestingly, LSDDE also has its fangames being made today that aim to expand this idea, building more developed and complex areas in a bigger quantity, but i feel like it lacks the heart and intimacy of a yume nikki fangame. though, i will say, it being 3d is an extra.

VI: You Started Rotting Again

you started rotting again is a project i've vaguely mentioned to friends in the past and also described in more detail to a guy who wanted to program it to me (who is a jackass and i don't talk to him anymore).

the development process went through several drafts and at some point i decided to make it a doom wad, which later gave birth to vagrancy.wad, which isn't you started rotting again, but a blueprint for it.

YSRA is, frankly, the closest thing to what a perfect yume nikki game could be. the idea was to take all the elements from it and make something as big as it is personal. it would be in 3d, for more immersion and beautiful scenes. it would have an amazing soundtrack made by yours truly (some of the tracks i had made already but now are probably lost) and an interesting subliminal story. however, as good as this idea is, i don't think it would be the perfect game at all. it would just be a good 3d yume nikki fangame.

so, with all that said, is there a game that fits all the criteria?

YES. and that game is:

BULLET WITCH

developed by Cavia and Marvelous, published by AQ Interactive for the Xbox 360 in July 26, 2006 in Japan and by Atari Europe in February 27, 2007 in North America, later ported to Windows PC by XSeed Games in 2018, directed by Yoichi Take, designed by Masayuki Suzuki, with a soundtrack composed by Masashi Yano.

available NOW for YOUR COMPUTER, on STEAM and PIRACY WEBSITES.