John Romero's Daikatana

Moby ID: 1678
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/24 1:15 AM )
Included in See Also

Description official descriptions

Hiro Miyamoto is a martial arts instructor and a member of an ancient clan of fighters. One day he learns that Kage Mishima, a sworn enemy of his clan, has gained possession of the Daikatana, a magical sword that allows its bearer to travel through time. As a result of Mishima's quest for power, a devastating disease is threatening humanity. Hiro and his friends must venture into different time periods, retrieve the sword, and defeat Mishima.

Daikatana is a first-person shooter using the Quake II engine. The game is divided into four episodes of several levels each, each episode taking place in a different time period: far-future Japan, ancient Greece, Dark Ages Norway, and near-future USA. The game uses cutscenes and text to tell the story. Two AI-controlled characters accompany Hiro throughout the quest, helping him in battles and also requiring protection. In addition to several different firearms, the Daikatana itself, which the player acquires in Episode 2, can gain experience and grow stronger as it is used. The game includes a multi-player deathmatch mode.

Spellings

  • 大刀 - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (Windows version)

165 People (140 developers, 25 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 57% (based on 49 ratings)

Players

Average score: 2.6 out of 5 (based on 83 ratings with 12 reviews)

John, why do you want to annoy us?

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.

Windows · by -Chris (7762) · 2001

True Lies (the hazards of demos)

The Good
The first episode weapon models, the enemy creature models and the architecture throughout the game are extremely well done. The textures and miscellanous art leave little to be desired, striking new ground in style and quality.

The duo that you tow along in the game, while annoying when in your line of fire, provide good comic relief, great assistance in a firefight and are generally nice to have around. Kudos for ION's attempt at moving the industry forward.

The Bad
For every episode after the first, the weapon models degrade. By the fourth episode, the weapons have reached an all-time low. Bad animation, foul modeling and even worse coding makes for an arsenal that serves only to smear you, rather than your opponents.

While your partners AI is grand, your opponents are a far cry. Harking the days of Doom, upon catching sight of you an enemy will yell, and attempt to advance on your position, usually getting hung up on the beautiful architecture and generally making a complete fool of itself. If they're not stuck somewhere they will bee-line. Some enemies will attempt to play with you, for example the griffon or the mosquitoes which zip around and actually present a challenge for a marksman, but in the end there is no AI, simply a repetitive and predictable Action/Reaction system; Quantity, but no Quality.

Sound effects and music are sub par but livable, while voice acting leaves me laughing. A japanese swordsman does not have an American accent. Shadow Warrior is more believable.

Of all the details, however, one sticks out; sorest thumb of all, the Daikatana itself. This sword is horrible. No fluidity in the swings, unpredictable hit-scan (meaning you don't know where you're going to be slashing) not to mention the fact that you have no way of controlling which of four slashes you perform.

The RPG element is in sour need of a redesign. An attempt at creating an RPGish system wherein you gain experience and thus 'levels' through the slaying of 'baddies'. It doesn't fly very well simply because if you do not select the correct stats you will find yourself a bloody pulp too many times, and with load times reminiscint of pre-patch SiN you do not want to be reloading.

The level design, while breathtaking in more than one area, is linear to say the least. And if not linear you will find yourself wandering aimlessly trying to figure out where to go next (though this is quite rare). There is no similarity between functions, for example a door that looks like another will not function the same.

The Bottom Line
Download the demo and you will find it enjoyable. Buy the game and you will be throwing your money away on an amateur product that should have stayed in development for another week to create new weapons.

Overall I would not recommend buying this game simply because it is not what it should be, after four years in development. I have seen many user created modifications for many different games that of much higher quality than this (eg: Counter-Strike, or Gunman)

Windows · by tantoedge (19) · 2000

You call this a game?

The Good
Without a doubt in my mind, this is the biggest disappoinment in the history of PC Gaming. Three years in development. Developed by the creator of the first person shooter. Action/RPG gameplay. The Quake 2 engine. So what's wrong with it? Ion Storm developed it or way too long! If it made its original release date, Daikatana would have been an innovative, fun game. Reason one: Graphics were excellent. Reason two: First game to play with two buddies that help you through the game. Reason three: Find-the-key, kill everything gameplay was still passable as a good game. Reason four: RPG elements. Reason five: exciting multiplay deathmatch Three years later, classic games like Half-Life, Rainbow Six, Deus Ex, System Shock 2 and Unreal Tournament alll have these features and were revolutionary while Daikatana stays the same, but with buggy gameplay and stupid AI. Well a few parts are good about Daikatana, like some of the Greek levels are good.

The Bad
Well, the part that is the worst is the first level. You roam a swamp, searching the ground and air for evil flies and frogs, killing them using a sluggish bee-shooting gun! What? this is fun? In the more interesting levels, all the enemies do is like 'blow up' when you kill them. Multiplay is boring and lame, lag-filled fun, just as 'fun' as the maps. I cannot think of how I could recommend it when there are so many better games out there.

The Bottom Line
Load up mine sweeper, and play it on the hardest difficulty. Then, turn off your monitor and you will have the experience the numb gameplay of Daikatana. Fun isn't it? Then you'll reconsider why you bought/considered buying this garbage.

Windows · by Dragoon (106) · 2000

[ View all 12 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Should I try it? Unicorn Lynx (181780) Dec 30, 2011
incite PC gaming's Daikatana preview / interview video Foxhack (32102) Aug 19, 2007

Trivia

Advertisement

Long before Daikatana was released, an ad for it was run in several magazines stating "John Romero's Gonna Make You His Bitch." Needless to say this upset quite a few folks.

Daikatana Deathmatch

In April 2007, a fan team released Daikatana Deathmatch (DKDM), a multiplayer-only modification stripping the game from all the single player parts to reduce the file size for players who only want the multiplayer part. It still requires a full copy of the game to play. The link can be found in the related links section.

Development

Daikatana was in development for 3 years, exactly. The reason for the long development cycle was the switch to the Quake II engine. Romero decided to switch because of its colored lighting, among other graphical goodies, but when he finally received the source code, it was nothing like he pictured. Overall the story of the game's development and Ion Storm in general is as epic and profound as anything in the game. Check the related links for The Story of Daikatana.

Dialogue

The characters' sound files used in this game are not encrypted in any way. They're ordinary mp3 files which can be found in the data/sounds/voices folder of the Daikatana directory. There's quite a bit of unused dialogue in there which never made it into the full game. It seems the enemies and the player's two sidekicks were supposed to have more ambient dialogue (e.g. combat taunts, waiting sounds) than what was eventually used.

Dopefish

There are four Dopefish hidden in the game, one per time period.

German Windows version

In the German version enemy blood was colored grey, gore effects were removed and various human enemy modes changed, e.g. into robots or with an added mask to hide their face. A detailed list of changes can be found on schnittberichte.com (German).

Nintendo 64 version

The Nintendo 64 version misses violence in comparison to the original Windows version, e.g. purple instead of red blood. The PAL version was even cut further: the blood was replaced with sparks and civilians are immortal.

References

In the lobby of the Mishima Funeral Home/Crematorium, there's some solemn funeral-type music playing. This is really a slowed down version of the famous e1m1 music from DOOM.

Remix

As the sounds and dialog are not encrypted, one creative mixer was able to rearrange the dialog, add a little fake stuff here and there, add some bump-and-grind music, and came up with a long MP3 that sounds as if the two guys in the game were "engaging" the female sidekick. Computer Gaming World called it "the ONLY redeeming feature of Daikatana".

Sales

Daikatana sold 200,000 copies and had budget of over $10 million.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2001 (Issue #201) – Coaster of the Year
  • PC Powerplay (Germany)
    • Issue 03/2005 - #8 Biggest Disappointment
    • Issue 02/2006 - #7 Hype Disappointment

Information also contributed by Alan Chan, bkaradzic, Kalirion, Kasey Chang, Sciere, WildKard and Zack Green.

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Romero's Aftermath
Released 2015 on Windows
Killing Sun
Released 2020 on Windows
BattoJutsu
Released 2019 on Nintendo Switch
Knife Hit
Released 2018 on iPad, 2018 on iPhone, 2020 on Android
Akai Katana
Released 2010 on Arcade
Kaitohranma
Released 1997 on Windows
Keen: One Girl Army
Released 2020 on Windows, Macintosh, Nintendo Switch
Akai Katana
Released 2011 on Xbox 360, 2022 on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One...
Kabuki Ittōryōdan
Released 1995 on TurboGrafx CD

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 1678
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Matthew Bailey.

Additional contributors: Trixter, Andrew Hartnett, John Romero, Sciere, Ms. Tea, DreinIX, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger, Frank Sapone, aKro.

Game added June 18, 2000. Last modified March 16, 2024.