Daikatana

That is paradoxal that a game talking about time travel get so bad with the ages ! I remembered it as a not so bad game but replaying it was painful, especially bugs and savegames system make it so annoying. Apart from that , Daikatana is not so bad !

Despite the general opinion I always remember myself enjoying Daikatana. 16 years after my first playthrough I still find it quite enjoyable. Pros: - Great level design. Most levels are quite memorable and they are packed with tons of secrets. - Great variety of enemies, settings and weapons because of the 4 chapters. - Interesting story. - Great soundtrack. Cons: - Sidekick AI sucked. Fortunately with the unofficial 1.3 patch you can play without them. - Some annoying enemy types. Anyone remember trying to kill these annoying bats in the 3rd chapter? - Most weapons from the first 3 chapters are quite uninteresting and luck impact.

Daikatana could have been ahead of its time. Its has group members, RPG elements, creative weapons, interesting scenarios and a storyline that was about people. However, most of these elements have been wasted. When Daikatana finally came out, shooters had already left the dark caves and brown grey environments and it was some years since unreal had shown that shooters can not only be technically impressive but also be beautiful. Other games like Half-Life had shown that shooters could have a better plot than "kill evil things cause evil and collect keycards". And of course it was still buggy. I could not finish it in single player. Act 1 had gamebreaking script errors, and from there on my KI buddies killed themselves too often to bear it. I played it in multiplayer-coop-mode, alone. With no story, no cutscenes and no Superfly and Mikiko. And who thought jump & run sequences are what people like in a shooter? Bugfree and roughly at its intended release 1996-1997, it would have been one of the defining games of its genre. Sad story. The game has some historical value, because we can learn from failure and missed chances.

This game is the weird not so polished brother of the original Deus Ex. that's basically all you need to know to decide if you like the style or not, but i'll try to expand on it, and go into more detail below. At first, i'd like to state i tried this game way back in its day, and i put it away very quickly. but, it has been almost 18 years since it's launch, and i got this again on GOG, and due to a graphics card failure decided to give this game a shot sine my current graphics card could handle it. Let's start by stating the fact, i did not play the vanilla version of GOG, and nor should you. there's a great modding community that is still modding and patching this game daily. i got at least 3 or 4 updates during my playthrough. Now, onto the game, to anyone who played Deus Ex and loved it, this would be like playing it for the first time, or getting new content. the feel of the game, some of the sound effects, animations, graphics and other things are identical and will hit that nostalgic spot enough to get you to play this. Unlike Deus Ex, it's a linear game, very reminiscent of 90's FPS like Doom and Quake. no RPG elements or choices in dialog, but it does allow you the same freedoms that Deus Ex does in choosing how to complete a level. you can power up acrobatic and jump to higher places or away from enemies, or power up things like attack and go in guns blazing. overall it's a good game with good level design and story, but it has its flaws. for one you get 2 sidekicks along the story, and their A.I. is let's say less than stellar. though this is an issue being patched by the modding community, it is a bit annoying. there are ways to get around that, like the feature to play without them that was added by the modders, or using codes to teleport them to your location if they get stuck. to sum things up, it's not the most polished game or the best it can be, but if you enjoy Ion Storm's games and design give this one a chance!

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.