Daikatana

I have really believed into John Romero and I have really looked forward, when Daikatana was only 1.39 € during summer sale, so I gave it a try, besides the crushing opinions of so many players. Well, unfortunately, they are absolutely right. I personally do not care about the old graphics, as I know that there are plenty of enjoyable games out there, whose graphics aren’t good looking at all either. Yet, when your first level starts in a green swamp with a green background, in which you have to shoot dozens of small mosquitoes and frogs, while hurting yourself with your gun, when you try to shoot it underwater, this is already a true fun-killer. The level design is pretty linear and very often you have no space to evade the enemies shots. Even with the easy difficulty and your health fully boosted via the neat RPG system of the game, chapter 1 is incredibly hard, even for experienced FPS-players. Yet, very often the enemy robots are stuck at a corner of a door, so you can keep shooting at them, while they cannot find a path to you, which, unfortunately, makes the game very laughable. Although you got plenty of weapons, the only 16-pages-sized manual gives you no clue how they actually work and that they are most likely to hurt you, while trying them out. Mostly, in chapter 1 I just used the Ion cannon, which you find right at the start of the first level. Yet, if you accidentally miss your target, it hits the wall and can fly back right toward you, eating your health away. Be prepared for a lot of frustration, might it be due to the terrible AI of your two comrades and your enemies, the weapons that harm you just as they harm your enemies or the extremely dark and often too narrow level design, which gives you rooms filled with enemies that just tear you apart within a few seconds, as soon as you open the door to enter. Luckily, GOG uses the 1.3 patch, which allows you to save and reload any time you want, otherwise Daikatana would be an even more frustrating mess.

I bought this game when it was first released on the PC. You have no idea how many issues I ran into trying to play this game ( I mean at least I was able to enjoy playing Ultima IX ). I am however tempted to buy this again because I read Masters of Doom which was the story of both Romero and Carmack and think that it is ironic that the DnD game they were playing was ended by the Diakatana, and this game for the most part ended Romero's career...sorta. I always thought that if Romero would have done things differently and was not trying to so up Carmack, this game could have been good. It had some good ideas...sorta

If you liked Quake II and want something with a few more bells and whistles and a lot less poo-brown, you'll find it here. The opening levels don't help (when you're getting used to movement and mouselook), but dig in to the mad story and the crazy weapons and you'll find something here that has plenty of enjoyable peaks to offset its rugged edges. At worst, mediocre. At best... Pretty good. Not great, but definitely good. I have no regrets.

I found this in the bargain bin at a local retro-gaming shop a few years ago. It was listed for 50 cents. This game is worthless. Not worth a single penny. Don't waste your time unless you really feel that your time is useless. It is an affront to retro games to have this for 'sale'. What garbage and major FAIL on GoG for selling it. If anything it should be listed as $1 permanently (to cover their costs/taxes or whatever) and that's it. Maybe even have it 'free' but it isn't worth a damn thing even if it is free. Don't waste your time.

Trashed during its launch for horrendous bugs, Daikatana still gets bashed in hindsight. Looking back and replaying its GOG release, Daikatana ain't all that bad. Have the basic mechanics been used before in games like Unreal? Yep. Has the premise of wildly different locations been used more effectively in later FPSes, like Time Splitters 2? Yep. Did the concept of companions fall flat due to technical limitations of the period? Oh, you betchya! In retrospect, I think John Romero's creative ambitions were just too far ahead of the tech of 2000. From a basic gameplay perspective, Daikatana ain't bad. Its basics are rather average and at only $6 (USD), it ain't a jip. Just go in acknowledging the swath of cool ideas were a bit too far ahead of what could've been done at the time of release. Many of these ideas have now been fine tuned by other developers who had time on their side...and probably got some of their ideas FROM Daikatana.