Review of DEAD DAYS
| Subject | DEAD DAYS DEAD DAYS |
| By | Helpfulness: 0 Vote: 5.5Dunnodoncare on 2025-04-20 |
| Review | DEAD DAYS is a VN that wants you to think about "Living VS Staying alive", or how living without a purpose is no different from being dead (inside). Sadly, they have little to say on the topic, and the metaphors (humans are like batteries) cannot go past frivolous, because a significant part of the matter is settled by illusion of freewill. Since neuroscience and philosophy would have been terrible bets commercially speaking (or not, who knows?), love rises as the cure-all to apathy and cynicism, and it's not like they are wrong. Living for someone you love, can translate to purpose in life, fabricated or universally ordained makes no difference. The takeaway is: Limited premise, but more than enough to generate interest. Positive: - Not a lot - There's a Yandere, it's a positive based on rarity; Art style. Probably the smaller eyes, and "dirty" color palette; H-scenes. CLOCKUP manages to surprise every time (pleasantly or not is up to you). And voiced protagonist (he is not great though). - Concentrated Heroine Routes - "If you hit rock bottom you can only go up" (meaning the "common route" is weak). A lot of what I'm pointing out below, is used to make the heroine routes entertaining, that much is undeniable. Neutral: - Paper thin connections between characters, behaviour that change drastically within the very scene, and events made to fit needs - I don't recall reading anything quite like this before. Everything is connected, the events happen in logical order, but each step keeps challenging your "good will", to a point where mental progress feels serpentine. Exemplifying: Protagonist is supposed to be smart, in a manipulative kind of way, but doesn't see the problem with giving an (armed) A.I entity, the ability to harm humans. Nothing wrong there, he was actually young and dumb. Problem: Tokyo has 37 million people (now), and said A.I is gonna (conveniently) remove the main obstacle to happiness in the current heroine route. OK, odds like that are still within common sense (lottery). Except that these unlikely events are all over the place: There's some background creepy character who jumps criminal magnitudes, because it's only natural. There's this journalist who's about to figure out the entire premise in 5 minutes, and she appears out of nowhere. One character hits a cop, and 2 scenes later he is the "Cleaner" of some organization... It's on neutral because the outcomes can be ingenious, but this is no different from "making it up as you go". Negative: - Since the neutral parameter is long, I'll just propose a partial fix to the situation: You can have a fragmented narrative with a "lesser" protagonist (lots of main characters, scattered perspectives), but in order to interconnect it and create a successful non-linear experience (without breaking the flow, basically), you'd probably need a narrator giving you its take, on character inner world and action consequences (as seen in fables). Note that the above is personal, and not opposed to creative freedom. The objective problem is poor scenario planning. Score: 5.5/10. Definitely an engaging title, something to pass the time successfully. Can't complain about the 18+ either, the "darker scenes" feel "fresh". And if we talk about overall creativity, it's likely that "too much of it" is the natural conclusion. Even so, the fact that DEAD DAYS fails in terms of structure and storytelling, cannot be overlooked. This is not one of those VNs where you sense some talent and "roll with the punches", it's one with fundamental flaws that would be incredibly hard to correct. Recommended, because at the end of the day it's entertaining. |
| 0 points |