Good day(break)!
It was a long game since I played and reviewed a horror game, so here I am, playing Until Daybreak, a so called "stealth horror" game that won't take you more than 30 minutes to complete (I played the game on Normal, but you can choose also Easy difficulty or Suicide, in any case there is just ONE ending, except for the game over). But first, an important thing: this is a game originally made by Nysan with Rpgmaker MV and translated by HiragiHOUX with some edits and proofreading by enigmaopoeia.
Ok, now we may begin from the story!


HELLO! Well, this gentleman may be nice but he looks like a bad guy from Charles Dickens' novels!

Leon is our alter ego, and he's a young boy that lives with his sister Anna, after their parents died five years before the events of the game. And if you believe that these poor boys were unlucky, wait! Because it's not enough: Anna contracts a deadly illness, anyway Leon is ready to do anything to stop the Angel of Death that already took the lives of their parents... will he succeed? The good thing is that he just need to survive until daybreak, the bad thing is that this won't be so easy!

Ok, so Leon is armed with just a flashlight, a surveillance system (a computer connected to some cameras) and some dolls that can act as a decoy to devert the attention of the monster that came to take his sister. They have to survive until the next day, when the doctor will arrive, anyway remember that the game isn't timed, so it's not use to stay idle hidden in a single location, because to reach the victory condition you have to move to a room to the other. Quickly!


Oh yes, sure, burglars. But this is a horror game...

IF the monster will see you, be ready for a fast chase section, and trust me, escaping from that beast is quite difficult. Unfortunately the game is a bit buggy, sometimes the monster seems to be invisible, and there are also some problematic controls like the flashlight that can be turned on or off only if you do NOT move! So what? It's better do without the flashlight, but also avoid using the surveillance system (the cameras never showed ANYTHING in my playthrough so they were basically useless) and probably the dolls too! What a pity!

Confusing gameplay aside, the game looks good: I liked the custom made graphics and characters portraits and charsets, the maps are well designed but bare bones and spacious, anyway this is also motivated (for once!) by the fact that the two siblings sold most forniture to survive after the death of their parents, so the large house with empty rooms (except for the bedroom and some rooms like the toilet and the bathroom) makes sense, besides being a good environment for a game based on chase sections.
There's not a lot to say about music and sound: aside for the menu theme and the music during the cutscenes, the main sound that can be heard is the monster's laugh, but you know that? That's perfect to create an atmosphere of dread and impending danger, probably the best part of the game.


Uuuuuh I guess that's no burglar! Run you fool! RUNRUNRUNRUN!

Final Verdict
Until Daybreak is an ok game, I mean visually is very good, the story is ok, and the gameplay is... decent (I played it, I did not find it annoying but it's nothing really original or exciting, and I do not intend to play it again). Starting from the story, my problem is that it's never explained what is the monster and why is it there, I mean the real menace is technically the Angel of Death/Reaper/Soul Collector, that only Leon can see, but what is that creature? We'll never know. Gameplay is simple but with some flaws, and some can be exploited, that's a pity since it makes many of the objects and equipments totally useless, if you really know what you do. In any case it still is an ok game for a single sitting, so it gets an ok rating from me.