YMMV / Yume Nikki

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Many, many bizarre things happen at random in the game and are never referenced again. But then, it's a dream, and there's no dialogue; it's only to be expected.
• Contested Sequel: On the Dream Diary Steam game. Is it a worthy successor in the Yume Nikki franchise, or is it a generic horror game with the Yume Nikki license slapped on? Reviews on Steam and Metacritic are mixed to this day. Really, the only thing that hasn't been contentious is the soundtrack.
• Creepy Awesome: Uboa. Despite being terrifying, he's got a lot of fans and is one of the most memorable characters in the game. Madotsuki might qualify as this, too, since she's a Hikikomori with messed-up dreams and runs around killing innocent bystanders with a knife.
• Discredited Meme: Vomit-chan — a reaction image of Madotsuki throwing up — is hated by fans, not only because it's propagated by those who are unfamiliar with either the character or the game, but also because such an event never even happens in the game.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Uboa only appears in a random-encounter event that one is unlikely to discover without a guide, yet is one of the most iconic characters in the game.
  • Masada due to the theories of him being lonely out in space and being one of the few characters to react if Madotsuki pulls her knife out. Again, the way to see him requires some obscure not-hinted-at steps.
• Epileptic Trees: There are a lot, due to the fact that there is no plot or characterization at all.
• Fanfic Fuel: The lack of context and background information for many areas and characters, including Madotsuki herself, leaves the game's canon very open to fan interpretation and expansion.
• Fan Nickname: All of the area names are unofficial, as are all the character names except for Madotsuki (who's named in the menus), although various characters' nicknames (such as Monoko and Monoe) are derived from their internal files.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • It's not uncommon for fans of Yume Nikki to also be fans of OFF, since both games are highly interpretive, Surreal Horror games made in RPG Maker.
  • Given all the crossover art, the fandom also tend to overlap with other RPG games (RPG Maker or not) such as Undertale, OMORI, Ib, Mad Father, The Witch's House, and LISA.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • According to post No. 1420 on this page, Kikiyama was surprised to know that Yume Nikki was a lot more popular in the West than they expected.
  • For an April Fool's event on reddit where redditors could draw on a big canvas, Madotsuki was initially drawn on a part of the canvas claimed by r/Sweden, who actually completely embraced her and even led to a drawing of Madotsuki holding hands with Pippi Longstocking, a famed Swedish character.
• Good Bad Bugs: The boosted speed trick, which makes exploration a lot easier.
• Goddamned Bats: Some of the Toriningen. They don't kill you (really, nothing in the game can except gravity) but if they hit you, they'll send you to a secluded area that you can either escape by waking up or by using the Medamaude effect which takes you back to the hub.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Although Masada is often noted as Looking Like Cesare, he arguably looks even more like Tommy Wiseau. One poster of The Room (2003) even depicts Wiseau with slightly crossed eyes!
  • A composite of the two characters appears in this video of Smash Bros. Lawl. (2:18)
  • This◊ novelty gag, which has absolutely no relation to Yume Nikki apart from sheer coincidence.
  • Either that or Heartwarming in Hindsight is the fan-made alternate ending mentioned above. Why? Because that's basically how Dream Diary ends.
• It Was His Sled: How to make Uboa appear, as well as his very existence, which ruins a fair amount of the shock of discovering him. Then again, he has a 1 in 64 chance of appearing in a specific room through a specific procedure, meaning that most will never see Uboa anyway unless they either get very lucky or they explicitly try to find him. It can still be very shocking, however, when trying to find him, failing multiple times, doing it more just for the heck of it, and he suddenly appears.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: If you haven't played it yet and are planning to, better do it before the video playthroughs, Fan Art, and even official merchandise spoil it for you.
• Memetic Mutation: See here.
• Nightmare Fuel: So much of it.
• One-Scene Wonder: Uboa appears for all of one event that the player will likely have to go out of their way to trigger (due to relying on a 1/64 chance), and despite this or perhaps because of this it is easily the most memorable character in the game.
• Once Original, Now Overdone: Yume Nikki gets hit with it pretty hard, especially because of how little there actually is to the game compared to even its own fangames.
• Quicksand Box: Since there is absolutely no dialogue or anything vaguely resembling a hint, getting completely lost is a very real possibility. Fortunately, getting out of a dream is as simple as the single press of a key.
• Ron the Death Eater: Uboa and (less often) the Bloody Touching Monster are often portrayed as villainous characters within the fandom, even though you can play through the entire game without even knowing either of them exist. Of course, if you're playing Yume Nikki you probably already knew about Uboa and how to get it to appear.
• Scrappy Mechanic: In Dream Diary, once you enter a world, you cannot return to the Nexus. The only way to return to the Nexus is by waking up and go back to the Dream World. And since some of the available worlds are "blocked" until you collect an item or an effect to explore, this becomes a chore.
• Self-Fanservice: Many of the characters are portrayed in fan art as cuter and/or sexier than what their sprites would normally suggest. Masada gets the most of this, but special mention goes to Shitai-san, who's supposed to be a dead body.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat:
  • If you don't ship Masada/Madotsuki, be prepared for a virtual shove-in-a-puddle. And the people who don't ship them are usually too busy shipping him with Shitai.
  • It's difficult to find femslash shippers in Yume Nikki, but there's a few people who enjoy Madotsuki/Poniko, or Monoe/Madotsuki.
  • The Dream VS Dream April Fool's is a mock dating-sim so everyone's ship needs get catered, hilariously so.
• Shocking Moments: Nothing was as unexpected as Yume Nikki not only getting an official release on Steam, but also having a reimagining supported by the Kadokawa Corporation.^note A company known for making games like RPG Maker 2003, Sword Art Online: Code Register, and Root Letter.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: NASU has been upgraded into Super NASU, with multiple lives, new mechanics and shmup-elements that changes the futile game into something genuinely addicting. After getting the dirty game cartridge, you can also play a super simplified arcade version of Ao Oni in the dream world.
• Signature Scene: The infamous ending where Madotsuki commits suicide and Uboa's appearance are the scenes that are usually most known outside of the game's community.
• Stuck in Their Shadow: Poniko, Uboa, and the Bloody Touching Monster can all be found during the same general event. Take a guess which one of these three is often left out (or straight up ignored) in most fan works.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The song playing in Poniko's room when the lights are on somewhat resembles the infamous Lavender Town theme from Pokémon Red and Blue.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: Certain places, like the sky garden are strangely relaxing.
• Tainted by the Preview: Hoo boy, Dream Diary. When the first screenshots and the teaser trailer were available to the public, some criticized the game for its ugly graphics, the change in gameplay (a horror platformer inspired by some indie games, like Little Nightmares) and the fact that the game doesn't resemble the original at all. People even assumed that Kikiyama being a supervisor was a hoax made by Kadokawa to make the game sell more copies on Steam.
• Tear Jerker: Has its own page.
• That One Level:
  • The very big Hell maze, which is difficult to navigate and features a few Torinignen enemies around.
  • The teleporter maze as well. While it lacks in size, it makes up for with a confusing Portal Network.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Dream Diary has been hit with this pretty hard. Many fans expected it to be Yume Nikki but 3D, but it is actually more of a 2½D puzzle/horror platformer.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: The release date on Steam (January 9th, 2018) has led many to think Yume Nikki is a blatant copy of Undertale, which is untrue.
• Ugly Cute:
  • Monoko is what you get when you combine Body Horror with Moe.
  • Uboa, of all things, tends to get this treatment in fanart. It does have a big wide smile and eyes that suggests it's quite happy.
• Unexpected Character: No one expected Ao Oni to show up in Dream Diary at all, let alone an 8-bit version of the game with Yume Nikki characters.
• Win Back the Crowd: After the launch trailer was uploaded on Youtube, some criticism regarding Dream Diary vanished, as the trailer managed to show more gameplay footage than the other two trailers released.
• The Woobie:
  • Seccom Masada-sensei is often considered one, given where he resides: a spaceship in the middle of space, with no sentient company. If you take out your knife, he tries to get away from you. And then there is the table with two chairs, as if he would hope someone would come to him...
  • Mars-san, who's trapped alone in a cavern under Mars, looks as if it's crying, and its background music certainly doesn't help. It should be noted that it appears later on the same path as Secom Masada-sensei.
  • Madotsuki is commonly represented as such, due to her Hikikomori nature, the lack of interaction with other characters in her dreams and the ending, where she is Driven to Suicide.

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