I have a bit of a confession to make: I actually really like Daikatana.
I know that hating on this one has been a popular take on gaming for years, but I'm not one to let other people's opinions define my own... and besides, I can truly understand Romero's perspective here through the shared hell of watching a passion project crumble to dust due to unexpected challenges, faulty leadership, and a severe lack of technical expertise. Even though our failures were nothing alike (mine cost me a few months of my life, his cost upwards of 50 million dollars), they were both the result of a heartbreak, of reality rushing in and crashing that frail house of cards as one watched, being absolutely powerless to stop it. I'm not trying to imply kinship between the guy responsible for bringing us Doom and this one nerd here. I'm just trying to state an uncomfortable truth: sometimes love, passion and good intentions are just not enough to deliver. And once that's clear, it's easy to appreciate the flawed project that did came out of that wreckage in a whole new way.
I played the PC version of Daikatana in or around 2012 and thoroughly enjoyed it, even going as far as to honestly believe that Romero's product had been judged quite unfairly at the time (and I'm SO glad that you can't see my posts on the matter in now-deleted fan forums). I couldn't beat the game due to the severe problems associated with turning every map after the first few into a never-ending escort mission, however, but I didn't think that it killed it.
I'm not saying that this is a perfect port, but they at least tried to make it look and feel as close to the original as possible.
However... there's a reason why I'm choosing to cover the N64 version specifically, and that's because it is just too perfect to pass. A game that was barely functional upon release being ported to a console that's barely functional right now (in the emulation front, at least) created just about the perfect storm, and I was ready to weather it.
Those who have been here long enough know of my strained relationship with Nintendo's 64-bit beast, a machine I had always coveted, but I could never get my hands on due to the ridiculous prices it retailed for (both back then and now that it has turned into a heavily sought-after collecting item). So when I heard that one of the most ambitious PC games of all-time was actually ported into a console that just refused to evolve, my interest peaked immediately. And, in some forms, Daikatana and the N64 are mirror images of each other: both trying to innovate whilst also clinging on to relics of times' past: with one making use of "save gems" and other in-game artifacts that most players were glad to be rid of as gaming evolved and the other still betting on cartridges when everyone else was moving on to better, bigger storage media.
Even though I don't usually do this, I actually went and looked up archived reviews from when this console port hit store shelves and found a gem of a quote closing out a scathing article from one of the top gaming outlets of the time: "Don't buy this, don't say we didn't warn ya!". WOW! Now I was really interested. Could it really be THAT bad? I knew by that point that the N64 could either make you experience Nerdana (that's Nerd Nirvana) or take you straight to the low-polygon Hell, but I had never heard any game get that sort of treatment, so I was very curious about it.
The first thing that struck me upon firing this one up was just how... "classic" it felt. While the original Daikatana did everything in its power to look like the next best thing, this much humbler port settled for what I'd like to describe as a "Doom feel". The oversized, impossible to ignore HUD completed with gigantic feedback upon leveling up gave the game the sort of feel that was already starting to be rare by that point in time, specially in consoles. And I actually appreciated it, as it made it less intimidating than offerings like Perfect Dark and Goldeneye.
Yeah, it's a blurry mess. But it is MY blurry mess.
And while I'm not going to sit here and bash the game for looking like a blurry mess (it was kind of expected!), I AM going to criticize the techniques used to tell its rather convoluted story. Blurry, blocky graphics are one thing, but when combined with a camera that didn't know what to do of itself and a long-winded intro that crawled on screen, first impressions were rather poor. I know that this is a problem that was originally seen on the PC version of the game, but it is worse when combined with the aforementioned limited looks the N64 was able to pull off, even with the Expansion Pack activated (more on that later). If you look at how Deus Ex and Anachronox handle their intros, then you see that the people at Ion Storm really did know how to make an entertaining, cinematic opening, but they were still learning their craft when they decided to make this game, and it shows.
This 13-minute intro (!) really is a slog to sit through, particularly as there is no voice acting to make it more bearable due to cartridge limitations, and that problem is compounded by the amateurish stylistic choices that plague it, like the incredibly weird colors used to differentiate the dialogue between different characters... seeing dark purple text on a game that's already dark and going for a moody atmosphere doesn't bode well here, particularly after reading our main character through perfectly reasonable white text over a black background. The execution is all-over the place during the opening part of this game, and it's just very unfortunate that that's the first thing you are gonna see upon popping this one in.
Of course we have all heard about the weird control scheme that makes the first real hurdle of the game (that stupid, half-risen door that sits a few seconds into the first level) into a real game-breaker... and I'm not going to defend that. That's just poor design and they should have known better, but the game is so much more than its shortcomings and questionable choices, and that becomes evident as you approach the end of the first episode and realize that the guys at Kemco had done us all the ultimate favor by removing the most infuriating aspect of the whole experience in ways that make you wanna go back in time and ship that cartridge to Ion Storm so they could imitate it: you no longer have to deal with your brain-dead AI companions! Hurray!
Anyone who's ever played the PC version of Daikatana would tell you just how frustrating it was to deal with Kimiko and Superfly as they got killed over and over or got stuck in the scenery as you desperately tried to keep them away from harm's way. No matter how hard did the developers try to make them into an asset by letting you command them directly though a series of hotkeys (which, in theory, could make them into valuable companions), the sad reality was that they would cause you to either fail constantly by getting murdered by freaking doors, or would force you to backtrack just to fetch them once every enemy had been dealt with. And that just isn't fun... but the N64 version removes this problem entirely by relegating those two to cutscenes. They are still part of the story, but just aren't an obstacle to it. And that's honestly how it should have been from the start.
Actually super ironic that it feels like Doom.
Unsurprisingly, the game became much more fun after I learned that I could actually explore the levels without worrying about those two getting decimated by that one enemy that slipped through... but, in true Daikatana fashion, that immediately highlighted another problem: the AI is horrendous in this version, even more so than in the original.
While enemies weren't exactly evil masterminds just working a hell job when the game was originally released, these baddies truly suffer as a result of the poor AI programmed into them. Some enemies don't even react as you pound them into vaguely human-shaped goo with your portable weapons of mass destruction, whilst the turrets are able to snipe you from across the map with deadly precision... and part of me wants to justify that by saying that they are machines designed by an evil overlord protecting his hideout in the distant future, so it'd make sense for them to be so deadly, but nah. I'm fairly sure they are so good at shooting because they didn't have to worry with moving, meaning that the programmers could skip the whole pathfinding thing and just make them really damn good at killing the player. infuriating? Yes. Realistic? Also yes.
I read somewhere that the reason for which Kemco removed Mikiko and Superfly from the game was because they were worried about the framerate getting killed with those moving around the map as the overly-complex effects of the many weapons presented on the game and the enemies milling around overwhelmed the system, but I just don't buy it. Even with the Expansion Pack on, the game runs very smoothly and rarely drops any frames. The redesigned and scaled-down levels also account for the hardware limitations of the system hosting it, so I could potentially see them adding these two to the game and still have it run smoothly, but I think someone on the development team played through the PC version of Daikatana and quickly realized how much of a miserable experience it was to have those two ruining everything, so they suggested to remove them almost entirely. And for that reason alone, I'll always play this version first, even with all the downsides.
9-5 bad guys are the best kind of bad guys.
Given that Kemco were so good at implementing changes that enhanced the overall experience (like making you able to interact with the NPCs you encounter along the way, instead of having them run away as soon as you showed up like in the original), I'm honestly kind of surprised that they didn't just remove the half-baked RPG system from the game entirely. It made sense in the aforementioned original release of the game because how much of a difference it made to your gameplay, and because it let you customize your character as you saw fit -- but here you don't even to choose which one of your abilities levels up, the game just decides on its own. As a result of that, the whole system does little more than clutter the screen even more, and it'd have been nice to either repurpose it so it fit this version better or just cut it entirely.
I was actually never a fan of neither the music nor the sound effects on the original, so the sacrifices made to fit the whole thing on a cartridge made this experience even less pleasant for me. There's absolutely no musical variety and the weapons all sound strangely hollow, whilst looking very impressive due to sheer amount of effects crafted into each and everyone of them. In a way, they resemble fireworks: they look powerful enough to blast a hole in the sky, but then they are reduced to sparks and a minimal explosion.
As expected, there's still a ton of weapons in this version as well, but most have lost their edge and are just underwhelming to use. Oh! It is still very much possible to kill yourself with the Ion Blaster or to get yourself in the neck with some of the other weapons, but because of the graphic downgrades used to make them and the modified scenarios in which they are used, there's really not much more room for self-inflicted mayhem. If you are gonna kill yourself in this one, it'd have to be pretty much purposefully. And, believe it or not, that takes a lot of fun out of the equation... there was a certain enjoyability out of clocking oneself in the head with most of the projectile weapons that is now simply reduced here.
And speaking of things that got reduced, Daikatana 64 has less levels (18 vs 24 on the PC), and these are also much smaller than their computer counterparts, but I'd argue that this works to their advantage. Smaller levels means less opportunities for getting lost and more of a chance for one to move along as the story progresses... and, given the choice, I'd much rather have less of something than a whole lot of nothing, and this works particularly well during the second and third episodes, when the environments really feel alive and are a joy to look at, narrowly avoiding becoming mazes.
They'll never see me coming, despite me making no attempt at hiding myself.
NOW! I realize that I have been pretty... unflattering of a game that I claim to be a hidden gem, but here's the thing: I love the game DESPITE all those negative takes. And guess what? Daikatana 64 remains just the third N64 game I played to completion, joining Pilotwings 64 and Banjo-Kazooie as the only offerings on the system that made me want to see them through (and let me do it, too). Why? Because it's simply a fun experience.
Sure, I can pick apart basically every technical aspect until the sun kills us all, but that's not the point. The point is that I had a grand time running around the maps with my incredibly unwieldy weapons, blasting away at everything that moved with practiced ease. The game mutated to the point of being its own thing, independent of the version that inspired it, and it's all the better for it.
The review I mentioned earlier seemed to go out of its way to appeal to the (already popular) "let's hate Daikatana" crowd, but I found that every single point they made throughout the heated argument could be dismantled by actually playing the game... and those that could not (again, I'm not defending these graphics, even if I understand them) sorta serve as a time capsule of sorts whence gaming outlets literally just took a look at a game before deciding upon it, understanding that looks came first and foremost, and that every new release had to push the systems more and more in order to be worth their elevated price tags. Well... Daikatana 64 does none of that (hell, it isn't even appealing to look at in retrospective), but I still recommend it for the simple reason that it did the one thing it should have right, which is to keep a great framerate despite going a little crazy with the effects and at the expense of dialing back a lot of the visuals, which is something that a lot of games even from that era failed to emulate.
I recommend Daikatana 64 to anyone willing to take a closer look at one of gaming's most infamous cautionary tales through a whole new perspective, and I truly do mean it when I say that it is a bit of a hidden gem. Of course, neither version would ever compare to the circumstances surrounding them (and are effectively overshadowed by the many things that have been written about the hellish landscape that birthed them) but if you are able to play them as their own thing, forgetting everything but what's directly in front of you, then I truly believe that you will have a really good time with them (at least after you have dealt with the frogs and mosquitoes from the inexplicably bland first episode).
I like how people were so desperate for ways to hate this game that they even clung to the typos and translation errors of a Japanese studio.
Oh! But because this IS an N64 game, it crashed during the ending cinematic just to remind me of who I was dealing with. IMPECCABLE.
Have fun!
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