John Romero's Daikatana

The Good
Daikatana’s lead designer John Romero is a programming veteran. It is commonly believed that veterans are experienced enough to avoid obvious mistakes. However, Daikatana is a model for bad design decisions and balancing. I’m positively baffled – I do not understand how so many plain errors could have occurred to such an renowned designer. As it is, Daikatana should be shown to young designers to teach them what to avoid. It should not be played.

The Bad
Weapons: Worst I’ve seen in any 3D shooter so far. Standard weapon can hurt yourself (and will in small corridors) – who came up with that idea? Most explosive weapons are too weak; also, loading takes too long. Result: The first volley will rarely kill an enemy, but the foe will likely kill you while you reload. Weapon switching takes too long – this is exceptionally annoying in the heat of a battle. See save gems.

Sidekicks: Useless. They will die an a matter of seconds in any major battle, forcing you to replay most of the level. See save gems.

Balancing: Whoever did this is a candidate for a good flocking. If I was delirious enough to design a game that has a very restricted save system, I’d make damn sure that the player never encounters an unfair situation, and that the game forgives minor mistakes. Daikatana was obviously designed by sadists. Why on earth do closing doors crush me? Why do forcefields kill me? Why do hidden turrets shoot me in the back? Who could possibly design jumping puzzles in full knowledge that the players would die a couple of times and have to replay the whole level each time? Why are there dozens of health packs when you don’t need them, but none in a succession of fierce battles? These are just a few examples of many flaws -- minor by themselves, but so frequent that one or the other pains you all the time. See save gems.

Save gems: A prime example of idiocy, and of an incredibly arrogant tutelage of the players. If I pay $40 for a game, I wish that expensive program to satisfy me, not annoy me. I’m a grown-up, thank you, I can decide for myself how often I’d like to save. I DO NOT want the game to force such a decision upon me. If it does, as Daikatana does, I will not buy a game of that company again. Wake up, Ion Storm! You’re not increasing the thrill if you don’t allow the player to save whenever he wants to, you’re just increasing the frustration when he dies. Just in case nobody told you: Frustration is not fun.

The Bottom Line
Daikatana is 3D shooter hell. A solid game at its core, it is made virtually unplayable by a score of turn-offs, flaws and unfair situations. Play if you enjoy humiliation.

The Good
I'd like to say something to all those people who bash Daikatana because of their personal opinions on the delay of the game..."Get a friggin' life!!!"...I have to admit I was a Daikatana-basher for a short while, but now that I have really gotten into the game I must say that it is pretty fun...

First of all...the game is very diverse...its like you're buying four games instead of one...different eras, weapons, settings and enemies...keeps the game interesting by changing the setting and challenges players to switch strategies as new weapons become avaliable...

Some areas have extremely well crafted levels...thye just make you want to stop and admire the scenery...

The RPG part of the game adds a fresh and interesting perspective to the game...not only can your character level up, so can your sword...this is a refreshing break from the old formula of FPS shooters...

The Bad
The obvious blaring mistake is the AI of your teammates...your two buddies have the combined brainpower of precisely 3.8 braincells...they rush madly into in coming fire, as if they had no understanding of the word subtlety...granted, they extremely accurate, but that doesn't do any good if they just run right into enemies with guns blazing, and turn into swiss cheese with out their accuracy even coming into play...The worst part is that when they die, your game ends...this makes you end up leaving both your people behind while you have to take out everyone...which kinda defeats the purpose of having teammates in the first place...

the second bad part is the sheer amount of killer robots and bats that the game decides to throw at you...wave after wave after wave of frog robots come after you, and after the first few minutes, it kinda gets a little annoying.

The loading time also ruins the gameplay...With a P500, and a Voodoo 3, with 128 ram, I actually made a BLT before the game finished loading...with your teammates dying every so often, playing this game can take a while...sometimes I get so frustrated I want to throw my computer out the window...

While some levels look awesome, some look like some one decided to cut and paste some photographs and put the scene into the game...the scenery takes a lot away from the gameplay and after waiting a huge amount of time for the game to load the crappy scenery that you see make really want to throw your computer out the window...

Some of the weapons eat up ammo at ridiculous rates...the shotcycler basically shoots every round of ammunition you have in all of 3 seconds...super weapons are more of a pest than of help as they basically kill everything, and your teammates seem too stupid to realize that the demon that you have just summoned would like their heads for a snack...but other weapons like the nova beam weapon, the wood frag grenade, discus, and crossbow are good touches...

The Bottom Line
To guys who need to get a life: Give John Romero a break guys...don't criticize the game or him until you try it...if you do, I think you'll find that this game has some real good parts...

To John Romero: Good idea, but I guess it just didn't work as well on the Quake II engine especially the AI...If it had came out when it was supposed to then it would probably have been the best game ever though...

To everyone: if you are an FPS fan, then this game should be somewhere on your list...maybe not the top (thats for Team fortress II, and Tribes II), but it should be there, somewhere between middle and the top...don't listen the losers that decide to criticize John Romero just becuase of the delay (even if it was longer than my goldfish's lifespan...hehe ;-))...try the game and I think you will be pleasantly surprised...

The Good
This game's developer was involved in the creation of Wolfenstein 3D (a classic first person shooter). The bad news is that he seemed to forget how it became so popular. Daikatana is pretty dark and creepy like it's supposed be. There is a range of 25 weapons, 64 monsters, four different time periods, all of which are shared within 24 levels.

The Bad
When I said the game was dark, it really is dark, I have to keep squinting sometimes just in order to see what's in front of me (usually in a dark place). Another problem I have with this game is that it was a delayed release. The developer John Romero believed that the entire game could be finished in just seven months, intending to release it in 1997. The game was eventually released in 2000 and many people said that it was using the "old fashioned" 3D engine used for Quake 2.

The Bottom Line
Overall, this game is satisfactory and playable. John Romero's Daikatana is a pretty creepy and amusing first person shooter. While summing up this game, it has proven to be pretty original and creative.