John Romero's Daikatana

Moby ID: 1678
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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

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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)

It's not that bad!

The Good
1. Bang for your buck. For $30, we're looking at 16 GIGANTIC levels in four worlds with different styles for each group.

  1. The Discus of Dadelous. It is the coolest weapon since the BFG.

3.Level design. The design is quite good. The way the levels are laid out is excellent.

  1. Multiplayer. The multiplayer levels are some of the best I've ever seen. There unbelievably tight.

  2. Sidekicks. I liked them.

This is an addendum to address something I found a personal attack that made me sick. <<The bovine, mothlike fanboys forcing themselves to love Daikatana are entertaining...in a sad, pathetic sort of way.>> First thing, I am not forcing myself to like Daikatana. I am never affected by hype. My personal opinions are created solely from the game. Secondly, if you find me entertaining, good for you! Just don't share it with everyone, or you come off like a jerk. And also, I have an opinion. Last time I checked, an opinion can't turn you into a moth or a cow. Now, I have a sense of humor, and believe me, this isn't humor.

The Bad
1. The Swamp. So bad it is scary. The epitome of bad level design. They probably hired a second grader for this level.

2.Ultimate Gas Hands-'Nuff Said



The Bottom Line
OK, so it's not the second coming, but it's not as bad as some make it out to be.

Windows · by emerging_lurker (160) · 2000

Are you broken?

The Good
One surprising thing about Daikatana is that it genuinely should have been really, really good. Just look at its premise: an immersive first-person action game centered around time travel where every chapter has a unique feel and playstyle to it. It's unique, visionary, unprecedented, and at the same time absolutely doable with technology available at the time.

And that overall concept is still the game's biggest strength. The varied locations, distinct aesthetics, and differently paced levels all add to Daikatana's feeling of freshness. It doesn't really matter how flimsy and clichéd its excuse of a story is with a general premise this good.

Another thing Daikatana gets mostly right that's really important for an action game is the combat. Thanks to the varied time periods and aesthetics, each chapter has a separate and distinct arsenal, not restrained by the somewhat basic futurism of Quake II or the realism of Half-Life. Not every weapon is all that useful or satisfying to use, but the variety is enough to allow for freedom when it comes to playstyle and adapting to the game's challenges. Another interesting addition is the titular daikatana, a melee weapon that gets stronger with every enemy you kill with it, as opposed to being bound to the XP system like the other weapons.

The Bad
With so many good things about Daikatana, why is it not a good game overall? One reason is the level design. While not more convoluted than that of Doom or Quake (let alone some maps in Unreal), it definitely feels far less intuitive and at some points simply annoying. On top of that, chapters 1 and 4 really like to put enemies with hitscan weapons or very fast projectiles in places where they will see you immediately as you enter a room, often not allowing any time to properly dodge. Combined with an abundance of segments where you actually have to take (mostly fall) damage to progress, Daikatana feels a bit like a throwback to the NES era of artificial difficulty. Except here it's used simply to spite the player and not to pad the game's length despite technical limitations.

But Daikatana's biggest sin lies somewhere else - the infamous AI ally system. During large portions of the game you'll have 1 or 2 NPCs following you, with them being by your side necessary to move on to the next part of a level. A combination of friendly fire, awkward hitboxes, and most of all absolutely abysmal pathfinding makes the allies a waking nightmare that will impede your progress on numerous occasions in the most frustrating ways possible.

Despite Daikatana's notoriously long development cycle, you can tell the quality assurance portion of it was rushed. The game is mostly a finished product and definitely playable, but it does have its fair share of minor hiccups and annoyances surrounding hitboxes and collisions.

The Bottom Line
In short, Daikatana is a both unique and highly frustrating experience that doesn't quite live down to its terrible reputation, but is even farther from living up to the promise of its premise. 4/10

Windows · by Pegarange (282) · 2023

Hey...it's not THAT bad...

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...

Windows · by MadCat (53) · 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.

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  • MobyGames ID: 1678
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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.