A port of the most successful arcade racer ever, the home versions of Daytona USA include the same elements that made the original version successful: three highly detailed tracks, arcade driving physics that challenge the player to find the best trajectory to make a flying lap without kissing the rails and beating the checkpoint timer. The 40 cars of the Easy race (later named 3-7 Speedway), one of the stalwarts of the original version, are also present in this version.

These home versions include a new mode (Saturn or PC Mode, depending on the platform) where the three tracks are played without the timer, and optionally in mirror mode, using one of the bonus cars (with additional abilities such as driving on grass or hitting the rails without losing speed) and in one of three lengths: Normal (identical to the arcade original), Grand Prix (2.5 times longer) and Endurance (10 times longer).

On the downside, detail and frame rate suffered a drop to fit the game into the limited hardware of the Saturn and Personal Computers, and lacking any kind of multiplayer, comparing to the two to eight player rumbles of the arcade version.

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Screenshots

Daytona USA Windows Keep to the left at the beginning of the Expert track, or you may find yourself wasting time with an accidental pitstop!

Daytona USA SEGA Saturn You can make a pit-stop, but it just wastes time.

Daytona USA SEGA Saturn The second course is more complex than the beginner course.

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Promo Images

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Alternate Titles

"デイトナUSA" -- Japanese spelling

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Part of the Following Groups

User Reviews

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Critic Reviews

Computer and Video Games (CVG)	SEGA Saturn	Jun, 1995	96 out of 100	96
Mega Force	SEGA Saturn	May, 1995	95 out of 100	95
GameFan Magazine	SEGA Saturn	Jul, 1995	88 out of 100	88
Mega Fun	SEGA Saturn	Jul, 1995	87 out of 100	87
Electric Playground	SEGA Saturn	2000	8.5 out of 10	85
Power Unlimited	SEGA Saturn	Jul, 1995	8.5 out of 10	85
Retro Archives	SEGA Saturn	Mar 03, 2021	14 out of 20	70
Retro Archives	Windows	Mar 03, 2021	14 out of 20	70
PC Joker	Windows	Dec, 1996	53 out of 100	53
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	Windows	Mar, 1997		50

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Trivia

1001 Video Games

The Arcade version of Daytona USA appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

In other media

Daytona USA arcade machines appeared in the arcade scene of the episode "Simone" (season 1 episode 3) in the television series La Femme Nikita (1997).

Promotion

At one point to boost Saturn sales Sega of America ran a promotion where if you bought a Sega Saturn they would give you Daytona USA, Virtua Cop and Virtua Fighter 2 for no extra cost.

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Contributed to by mars_rulez (43808), Luckspeare (3370) and quizzley7 (21706)