Daikatana

At first whole idea of game sounds very cool and unfamiliar - imagine a shooter with several distinct eras , and each ear and age have it's own weapons, enemies and puzzles. Sounds pretty cool, yes? With that thoughts back in 00's i brought this game on disc and ...well...Let's say easy - was disappointment. Sucidal AI companions, bugs, werid architecture and stumbly-fumbly puzzles killed all vibe. It's so hard to admit that cool idea were literally shattered agains wall of bad execution. Daikatana ain't awful. It just ...feel wrong. A game that had potential to became cult classic among such Titans as DooM, Duke 3d, Unreal, Quake1-2-3, just get crushed unde weight of it's own bugs and ambitions. Yet there still so many cool things that awfully or aburpy vanish under bad tags of ugly bugs. Shortly in total all perks and traits of this very rough gem -Each era really have it's own weapons, and they really feel-and-shoot different. Also many guns have alternate fire-mode so double the gun - double your fun. -Enemy design is ain't so bad. Ugly mooks of different eras really feel and look like different creatures not just "mobs get recolored to fit cyberpunkish future". -Awful, really awful companions. There is no excuse for that . -Level design is dreadfully painful but some levels can recall good vibes of first Unreal Series or have some smooch of design from RUNE and Serious Sam. In total - this game were play of risk, play of trial and error and sad to say it fall on error cathegory. Yet i still recommend you to try this quite bugly yet somehow nice artifact of old. After dozens of fan-and-official patches Daikatana have chance to shine in some glory and tell some story.

When it was new I couldn't play it because it crashed constantly. Now 25 years later it was time for a revisit and - it's not the big thing. But if you disable the AI companions, necessary because they get stuck everywhere and if you use the 1.3b patch (no crashes, widescreen, a bit eye candy, native 64bit linux binary) it's payable at least. Some levels are even really good. There are much worse games out there. But in the end it feels unpolished e.g. no proper weapon feedback, AI of the enemies,...

I actually had alot of fun with this game once I figured out how to approach it. The main annoyance is the sidekicks, Miko and Superfly. At the beginning of each level you need to tell them to stay, STAY!! Then clear the level and go back for them. I like the Romero episode, chapter 3 if I remember right. It seems more like what Doom 3 or Quake 2 should have been. They should have left out the sidekicks and just called it Hexen 3.

This is not a bad game the ending is levels are kinda crap but all in all not a bad product in the long run you are better off useing auto saves as a means to keep the game where you are at had a ton crashes due to trying to load hard saves other then that no other probelms arrived.

First, I have to mention that I couldn't play this game when it came out. Now, I've finished it the first time... and I LIKED IT! I know, this game WAS very late, 3 years after Hexen 2, made in a very late engine, but comparing to the 3 years eralier debuted Hexen 2, which I've played a lot, this game can be much more entertaining than H2. It starts very slowly, the first part is definitely boring. But after the first time travel, the story starts to be interesting, the quests are consistent, the gunplay, the weapons are quite good. With the narration and the VERY few NPCs, this game was better for me than Hexen 2. It was simply better to play it. The sidekicks are funny and the level design is very logical. I must sayí that I've played it with the 1.3 patch, without it, I can imagine this game can be annoying as hell (especially in the last chapter).