Day Dreamin' Davey (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
176A playthrough of Hal's 1992 action-adventure game for the NES, Day Dreamin' Davey.
Day Dreamin' Davey is one of those games that came out of nowhere when it was released, and it disappeared about as quickly and suddenly as it arrived. I only knew about it when it was new because of a short Nintendo Power feature and a few ads in GamePro. After I played it, I found myself wondering how it got a feature at all, let alone being highlighted alongside classics like Battletoads and NES Open Tournament Golf. Nobody I knew ever had it, and I never saw it once at the store or rental shops, so it was several years after it was released that I played it for the first time.
Triple-D is an action game that likes to parade around like its an adventure or an action-RPG: you'll find there is an inventory screen, shops, and NPCs, and all of the levels are fairly open by design. All of that is window dressing, though. It's a straight up action game with the occasional task thrown your way to keep the plot moving along. Unfortunately, the gameplay isn't very good at all. Most of the stages are just huge mazes that you'll travel back and forth across often (there are only a few different stages that are reused multiple times) in search of a specific item or enemy. They're pretty simple and usually easy to figure out, except some of them are loaded with hidden hazards, enemies sometimes spawn right on top of you, and the hit detection is pretty appalling - you'll whiff many, many attacks while being swarmed by enemies at least a few times throughout. It's mechanically poor enough to make it just not much fun.
At least the stand-off scenes are pretty cool, and you can use the Zapper in them. Too bad the game doesn't really try to warn you when these scenes are coming - by the time you've put down the controller and grabbed the gun it's quite likely that you'll have already been shot.
That having been said, I loved the cutscenes in this game. They're totally goofy and ugly, but they are a neat way of tying the game together. They all focus on Davey, the apparently sleep-deprived, unmedicated ADHD kid who is just trying to make it through a day at school by being the biggest PIA ever to everyone he meets. To get to the action scenes, he falls asleep during his lessons in class, dreaming that he is the hero in each story. This leads to some funny moments, my favorite being the one where Davey wakes up as he's trying to stab an ugly girl in the eye with a pencil after dreaming about fighting a cyclops. The voice samples are pretty funny in those scenes too, especially when he yells, "Bummer!" Overall, the graphics are pretty okay - there is a fair amount of detail put into the environments, and the portraits usually look nice. I also like how the severed Medusa head looks almost exactly like Mrs. Vorhees from the Friday the 13th game, and how the Underworld's floor being made out of tortured bodies makes for a nice touch. The music is generally good throughout, and is probably the best part of the game.
And is it just me, or does the main theme sound suspiciously similar to the NES Monopoly theme? It is the same composer, so I guess that probably explains it. Surprised me when I noticed it, though.
Day Dreamin' Davey always struck me as a game that wanted to be what Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves became. The idea and basic design feel quite similar in many ways, even though Davey is nowhere near as substantial, nor is it as good in any respect. They were both developed by Sculptured Software around the same time, so I have to wonder if there was any actual direct connection between them.
It's not a terrible game, but Day Dreamin' Davey ends up begging the question, "why did they bother?" It has its moments, but there's really no reason to touch it unless you've exhausted countless other possibilities first. Sculptured Software usually did quality stuff, but this one just isn't up to par.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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