D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die

It's the small insanities that elevate D4 to something truly special.

D4 has me intrigued, mostly because I felt a genuine attachment to the characters. I want to see this journey through to the end, and the classic Swery wackiness kept me interested throughout the relatively familiar adventure genre gameplay.

Don’t be fooled by the overly bizarre characters: with its surprisingly deep and compelling story and tight controls both via standard controller and Kinect, D4 will leave you begging for more episodes. A great new adventure game, definitely worth buying.

What D4 does incredibly well is provide gamers who loved Deadly Premonition with another tale of weird and wonder while at the same time giving day one Xbox One owners a reason to use their Kinect rather than controlling their cable TV.

D4 is Swery65 after all. Great and insane characters, intriguing plot and good Kinect gameplay. However, the game has some graphical issues.

D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die may be a short game, but it takes strides to be memorable.

It is not easy to appreciate D4 in its entirety, especially due to the Japanese surrealism it contains, sometimes extremely difficult to understand. At the same time, what you will find is a fine game that is able to provide a unique experience.

Once again, SWERY injects a detective story with his patented brand of weirdness, though this time he's finally free of the technical limitations that hampered his past work. D4 isn't a flawless experience, but, as with Deadly Premonition, it offers a world and set of characters you won't want to leave behind.

D4 is a greatly absurd adventure that thrives on its colorful characters and downright bizarre dialogues. When you’ve grown tired of serious adventure games like The Walking Dead and you want some humour in your life, D4 is good company.

As gamers we are taught that games should fit different formulas, game characters should be certain types, and stories should be told in certain ways. D4 refuses to accept the established methods and creates it's own rules like a drunk man on a focused mission. Sometimes it's good to let go of all inhibitions and join the drunk guy in his binge.

D4 is a game that knows what it is. It’s quirky and odd with an outrageous story and over-the-top characters, and that may not sit well with some people, but that’s the kind of game Swery is known to make.

D4 isn't what I'd easily call a good game, but it's a good enough one built around such magnificently strange material that I have zero qualms about recommending it to just about anyone. I guarantee half the people I'd recommend it to will find it impenetrably weird, but that other half will adore what Swery and his team have constructed, and hopefully will continue constructing, in D4.

While it tries too hard at times, it's difficult to deny D4's zany charm. There's something irresistible about a game where you have literally no idea what's coming next. We're stoked for the next instalment.

Fans of Swery65 and Deadly Premonition will be in heaven while playing D4 since Swery's outrageous story and characters are even more outrageous this time.

D4 is utterly charming. It's also thought-provoking and very, very silly.

Maybe it's not a game for all the audiences and actually it's not even a complete product, but just this beginning is worth the price of the ticket for this new ride in Swery's world of weirdness.

D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die may just be the beginning, but it is easily one of the most delightfully bizarre trips of the year. It won't always make sense, but there is a consistent earnestness to its oddity that somehow makes it all work in harmony of '80s saxophone riffs and overly-affected Boston accents.

D4 hasn't a big talent, but it has a strong personality. If you want to try something different, the latest Swery videogame is definitely a good choice. It's not for everyone, but maybe it could be for you.

The characters are quirky yet interesting, and I’m looking forward to returning to their world. If you’re willing to give decent motion controls a shot, and like the idea of a bizarre private eye anime, I would say that D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die - Season One is well worth the investment.

There is a real richness of content and back-story that has been invented, and despite the feeling that you don’t really make much progress in solving the case in question, I really wanted to press on and find out what was going on.

From its insanely quirky characters to its underlying tragedy, D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die is oddity done right.

D4 is ridiculous. It's weird, and silly, and makes very little sense. It's also hilarious, and packed with some of the most engaging motion-controlled sequences I've ever played. Coming from someone who generally doesn't like the Kinect, that's a damn big achievement!

D4 is disorienting, surreal, crazy as the previous works from Swery65. Is a brilliant adventure with a lot of hyperbolic characters and exaggerate situations. Play it and you won't regret it.

At first it may remind you of the latest Telltale adventures. But in the end this mystery thriller is more like an interactive David Lynch movie to which Quentin Tarantino and Abel Ferrara wrote the script. And yes: It is fun to play – even with the spot-on Kinect controls.

A weird and intriguing adventure which manages to make good use of Kinect and is filled with pure Japanese madness.

It probably would be more intuitive to play an adventure game with a steering wheel and pedals, when compared to the controls that D4 brings to the table. On top of that, the game is crippled with a stupid hunger minigame, that requires you to hunt food, or else you run out of stamina. The story is quite compelling and the wacky characters try their best to keep the game afloat, but the controls and the core mechanics just aren’t up for the task. [Feb 2015]

D4 is a darkly weird game, and one that boasts a fair amount of polish as it experiments with genres and controls. It’s not for everyone, but the solid Kinect input and trademark Japanese madness make for one deep dive that you won’t soon forget.

The narrative hooks are numerous and capable of sinking in nice and deep. I can’t wait to see where this crazy tale goes next in the forthcoming episodes. Hopefully less of my time is spent on needless action, and more of it is focused on the case and characters.