The Haunted Hoard: Dying is Dangerous (Wii U)

While Nintendo’s Wii U system was discontinued in early 2017 to make way for the Switch, games continued to trickle out for it. However, the digital eShop got fewer and fewer releases each year, bigger names disappearing and small random games from indie developers often ending up the only releases during a month. While some games like Shakedown: Hawaii revel in the novelty of releasing on a dead system, Dying is Dangerous is a stranger story, this game appearing on the eShop in early 2020. While it would receive an Xbox One release during that console’s natural lifespan, the Wii U release might only exist because the graphic of a character holding up the game pad was already made, the game not even really making use of the controller in any special way since it displays the action on both the T.V. and game pad alike. However, the existence of this game gets stranger the more you dig.

 

Based on the game composer’s website, Dying is Dangerous was once going to be something more. The composer created a soundtrack for a horror adventure where a girl and her boyfriend would face off with ghouls, killers, and other monstrous staples in some form, the levels having a distinct ending and bosses capping off each world. There was some form of story between levels as well, one of the images on the composer’s site depicting a scene of the characters talking and one of the songs implying the game had an ending as well. Since this game was seemingly in the works since at least 2015 and only released five years later, it is certainly likely that the vision of the project changed, and almost all of the aspects just listed were either completely removed or trimmed down considerably to make Dying is Dangerous into the game it is now: a really awful memory test.

 

There is one thing to do in Dying is Dangerous and you do it over and over unless you get tired of it immediately and jump off before it can truly irritate you. The female lead of the game has to get to her boyfriend, but a bunch of monsters or spooky objects stand between them. The girl is able to kick, headbutt, slide under, and jump over the objects and characters in her path, but she doesn’t do so actively. Instead, you get to view all the hazards in her path in reverse order, the traps moving offscreen as the camera pans over them. The player then needs to input the correct sequence of actions that will allow the girl to safely get through all the dangers and get to her boyfriend. After completing a stage, the next level begins with a new random set of obstacles placed in a line, the number of these growing higher and higher each round until you input the wrong action and the girl fails to get to her boyfriend.

All there is to the game is memorizing the traps you see in your path and selecting the proper responses to them, their reverse order making it a little less straightforward but the structure still just a small inversion of typical sound-and-repeat game ideas. The view of the path scans over to make sure you only get one good look at everything, you then need to reverse the information you received since it pans from the end to the beginning, and then press the right buttons in order on the Wii U game pad to beat the level. Doing this over and over, with the same audio file of the girl asking “What do we do NOW?” and the complete lack of evolution to the play makes Dying is Dangerous a game that grows extremely old pretty much the moment you understand its premise. It’s a memory game and that is literally it, and it’s not even a game that can help improve your memory. You only need to make sure you know how to respond to the four objects that will be in your path in random arrangements and increasing numbers, and unless you develop a clever mnemonic or some other way around your own memory’s limitations, the high score challenge of getting further each time isn’t really something that’s going to be built upon well. You’ll either reach your capacity, quit because the game doesn’t make the memorization process engaging, or you’ll whip out a way to keep notes of your needed responses each round and eliminate the challenge of the game, there being no ending or reward for getting deeper into the action.

 

Memory isn’t a bad thing to structure part of a game around inherently. Minigames from series like Rhythm Heaven often involve small sound-and-repeat challenges, some video game puzzles involve using details you remember from earlier, and noticing patterns and replying properly is a common ingredient in good boss battles. However, all of Dying is Dangerous relies on the very basic memorization of some objects on screen, the fact you need to reverse the order you remembered it to have your responding actions arranged properly not the kind of complication that improves the play at all. The fact it is so easily broken open by taking notes and provides practically nothing if played fairly means it’s a game where there is no preferred way to play. Even if you simply want to test your memory, something like the electronic game Simon ends up superior because that builds off a previous sequence to build up your memory rather than asking you memorize a unique sequence each round.

 

The only thing Dying is Dangerous has that makes it stand out is aesthetics, and this includes its own little baffling addition on top of the other questions you might ask about this late Wii U release. The opening scene that seems like it is setting up some sort of plot is filmed entirely in live action, a stand-in for the girl and boyfriend acting out a scene where the girl seemingly dies and comes back as a zombie to get her man back from an evil clown and other spooky creatures. However, in the game itself she doesn’t really appear to be undead, and if you get certain random backdrops for your round of reverse memory gameplay, there aren’t even any clowns relevant to the action. While there are scary clowns in the game and the guy looks a bit like his in-game counterpart, it is once again likely this was created for a younger version of the game before it underwent the changes that made it an abysmal memory test.

The cartoonish look is certainly a hit-or-miss art style. The leading lady seems to be distorted to be funny looking and strange when she does her attacks or reacts to the situations, and a suntanning death in a foreground graphic certainly seems like its a game going for funny horror instead of legitimately spooky creatures. The backgrounds that are randomly picked for your run can be things like a sinister circus, haunted mansion, spooky forest, or a graveyard at night, and these backdrops actually feel like a good fit for something legitimately scary with the level of detail. The most important visuals though are the look of the objects in your path. Each one, whether they be a monster or environmental hazard, can only be overcome if you put the right action into your sequence of inputs, the heroine coming to an abrupt stop and crying if you mess up rather than actually being hurt by these. While the control explanation before playing will show you how to react to certain objects, it’s not always intuitive which one requires which move. For example, it’s perhaps reasonable to say the clown on the unicycle can only be kicked rather than headbutted, but the television set that is just sitting there demands a headbutt for some reason when a kick feels like a safer way to dispense with it. Each level theme has its set of four unique hazards, and depending on which one you get, this can vary in quality. Sliding under a gnarled tree a crow is sitting atop isn’t quite as scary as when the sliding hazard in the graveyard is Jason Voorhees looming over an arch ready to decapitate you.  Shards of glass on the mansion floor are pretty mundane when compared to the hands that pop out of manhole covers inexplicably at the circus.

 

Even if you can’t immediately recall how to respond to something like a pile of bones or a bundle of balloons that is lethal for some reason, you are only asked to remember the sequence of four objects, their variety never advancing and the game never featuring any interesting interludes between constant rounds of adding a few more hazards to the already excruciating sequences. You even have to exit out of the Retry screen to alter the background, and that will always be randomized so fishing for a new aesthetic is just that tiny bit more inconvenient. Seeing a slightly spooky baby doll with mixed up parts and a bleeding eye socket certainly isn’t worth the trouble though, and since you can see all the content without even needing to get good at the memory test, there isn’t any reason to really play, that high score counter a hollow attempt to add a goal to this boring concept.

THE VERDICT: The cartoon horror coat of paint can’t save this abysmal memory test. Dying is Dangerous does one thing poorly, and that thing is already a poor idea for a game. Seeing a set of hazards and then inputting the proper responses in reverse order might sustain a Mario Party minigame for a few seconds, but Dying is Dangerous asks you to perform a meaningless high score chase even though it does nothing to train up your memory or make the play more challenging beyond adding more things to remember. It’s a game that will be limited by how well you already remember data unless you just break out a notepad and completely invalidate that challenge, but neither approach has any merit, a few good looking monsters not nearly enough to justify playing this horrific little Wii U eShop anomaly.

 

And so, I give Dying is Dangerous for Wii U…

An ATROCIOUS rating. To put the game’s concept plainly, this is a memory test where the data is presented backwards and you need to put in the proper responses in the reverse order of how you saw it. This concept could work as a slightly annoying little minigame in a bigger title, or to improve its own design it could present them to you and then have you actively input your actions as you move through the stage with that preview a courtesy. Instead, you slowly see what’s in your path, then you input a sequence of actions under pressure of a time limit, and then watch as the girl runs through the traps slowly and executes what you input. If you mess up, your high score counter resets and you try again, but if you succeed, you face more objects to remember and you do the same thing. It’s a style of play that can’t carry a whole experience and wouldn’t even be that great of an addition to a heartier experience in its current form, the complexity of it never reaching a point where the challenge is greater than how big a sequence of objects can you remember… or write down accurately. Even if there was just something to shoot for beyond high scores you could at least have an end point to cut off the endless sound-and-repeat structure, some sort of milestone to celebrate beyond a high score that won’t budge once you reach your limit, then Dying is Dangerous could at least motivate you to keep going and train your brain. However, the lack of a goal and lack of any way to feed into your improvements at the memory test means it is about as basic of a memory game as it can be, save for the weird live action opening and the horror trappings.

 

Whatever Dying is Dangerous might have been originally before that concept was scrapped and replaced with this, it’s hard to believe it was actually worse. Even in the card game so simple it is called Memory where you turn over cards to match them, success leads to a snowball effect where later successes become easier. In Dying is Dangerous, you just keep facing the same few shuffled elements and need to respond in an inconvenient way, and it’s hard to get invested when there’s nothing new to stimulate your brain as you do so. The comically obvious title could be further elaborated on, because Dying is Dangerous is a danger to anyone looking for a fun little time waster. Dying is Dangerous is easily able to kill off any enthusiasm you had turning it on when it reveals how repetitive, unengaging, and uninspired the whole experience turned out to be. The most entertaining aspect of the game ends up being trying to theorize on how something in the works for so long ended up in such an unimpressive and sorry state.