I earned the World's Biggest Masochist Award (Daikatana (PC))

Member Name: thereddragon

Product:	Daikatana (PC)
Date:	21/04/09 (99 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The ending is good (but for all the wrong reasons)

Disadvantages: Everything else

Year of release: 2000
Developers: John Romero's team at Ion Storm
Publisher:Eidos

Why am I reviewing this stinker? I normally only review games (usually the more obscure ones) that I really enjoy and want to share with others to encourage them to hunt down and try. But I'm doing this particular review as a public service, in the hopes that if you missed this game first time around and happen upon it in a bargain bin or flea market while in the throes of retrogame frenzy and think it might be worth a go - DON'T!

Being stuck at home for a while with long-term illness, I decided that an enjoyable way of passing some of that time would be to trot out all the old games I'd bought over the years that I never finished for one reason or another. This has so far been an enjoyable journey through such gems as all of the Monkey Island series, the System Shock series, Black Dahlia, Phantasmagoria 2, Thief 2, Grim Fandango, and other goodies.

Next in the pile was Daikatana which, having bought it the day it was released, I'd abandoned about a quarter of the way through due to not being able to find all the pieces of the Aegis Stone, the reassembly of which was necessary in order to proceed any further in the game. I couldn't figure out where the remaining piece was, there were not yet any walkthroughs for it at that time, I got fed up and went on to another game, and Daikatana ended up getting shelved until now, when I remembered 'Oh yeah, this is another one I never finished.'

I'd bought Daikatana immediately on its release in 2000, eager to play this new game that had been so hyped for so long. The CD blurb says 'From John Romero, the legendary co-creator of Wolfenstein 3D, the Doom series, Heretic, Hexen, Quake, and now: DAIKATANA! Are you ready?' Yes, yes, yes, I thought, having enjoyed all of those games as each came out (and having actually completed all of them). I installed it and...

No, no, no, I thought, finding that despite having been several years in the making, the game gave the impression of a rush job - it was buggy (two major bug fixes were required), the graphics were awful, looking more like something from 1995 than 2000, and there were vast, yawning, boring gaps in the gameplay. One got the idea that the publishers became fed up with how long it was taking the developers to release the game and gave them an ultimatum. So here it was, ready or not.

The main thing you're struck by as you play is that it COULD have been great - the basic idea was good and was ambitious, a broad, sweeping time-travel saga through several eras and countries, two sidekicks who help you fight (a novel idea at that time in an FPS), a decent storyline of a quest to find an ancient magical sword (the Daikatana) that has time-altering capabilities. You need to restore the future that should have been, which had been altered for the worse by a madman, Kage Mishima, who stole the Daikatana for his own evil gain.

But sadly, the game itself is a huge letdown. Gameplay is very shallow and repetitive, more reminiscent of the first primitive 3D shooters of the early 90s where just hordes of same-y adversaries descend on you. Disconcertingly, attacking an opponent results in their spontaneously exploding into big chunks of meat, exactly the same effect for each type of character - this looks amateurish, again like bad early 90s shareware.

Armed with a walkthrough this time, I started from scratch, got past the Aegis Stone business and went on to complete the game. And OMG, what hard work. I really had to force myself to keep playing to the end, finding it total torture. This was absolutely the most boring gameplay in a mainstream commercial game I have ever experienced. You begin to wonder, was this game not tested for playability?

The story takes place in 25th century Japan, and you play as Hiro Miyamoto, descendant of the ancient forger of the Daikatana. You have been tasked with finding Mikiko Ebihara, descendant of Inshiro Ebihara who was the Daikatana's original owner. Nasty evil Kage Mishima had stolen the Daikatana from Ebihara back in those dark days, and now Mikiko Ebihara is being held captive in the headquarters of Mishima Industries which is owned by Kage Mishima's descendants.

You start out in a swamp, where you are constantly attacked by irritating metallic dragonflies and frogs (this sets the style for the rest of the game - everywhere you go, numerous rats or frogs nip at your heels and whiney flying things divebomb your head while you're trying to get on with bigger tasks), and have to find your way to the HQ. Here, after mind-numbingly repetitive spontaneous exploding guards, you find Superfly Johnson, a big macho musclebound Afro-American dude, imprisoned in one of the rooms. He explains that he is the company's security chief and had been locked up and condemned to death for opposing Mishima's cruel business practices (a bit harsh, why not just a written warning?).

You free him, and the two of you look for Mikiko. Once you free her, she and Superfly accompany you on your quest which takes you from 25th century Japan to ancient Greece, then medieval Norway, and finally 21st century San Francisco.

Unfortunately, the sidekicks detract even more from the already awful gameplay and slow the game to a crawl. Mikiko and Superfly spend most of their time getting stuck to walls or being killed simply by walking through doors that close on them. You constantly have to push them or even shoot them (gently) to get them to move, and they do things like falling into ditches or jumping into pools and not being able to get out, so you have to save your game constantly so that you don't have to go back too far each time one of them does something stupid to themselves.

They are not only stupid, but fairly useless in fighting. They refuse to pick up weapons and ammo even when you order them to, so that much of the time they are unarmed and you spend much of your time nursemaiding them, trying to keep them from getting killed (as well as stuck to objects). When unarmed, Superfly, for all his macho posturing, runs off screaming like a girl at the first sight of an enemy. Mikiko has such a thoroughly irritating personality that you wish you could leave her behind or even murder her yourself (I did do the latter on a few occasions just to vent my frustration - if you are driven to do the same, save first as the game immediately ends if one of the sidekicks is killed). The only reprieve is when Mikiko becomes ill and Superfly has to carry her for one level - at least then you only have one dork to worry about.

*SPOILER AHEAD - DON'T READ THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO PLAY THIS GAME AND ACTUALLY CARE HOW IT ENDS* At the end, you actually have to kill Mikiko - she turns bad (ie, even WORSE), deciding she wants to be a Dr Evil type and begins spouting her plans for world domination. She first kills Superfly (quickly and unexpectedly, so that this time he doesn't even have the chance to run off screaming like a girl) and then you have to have a duel to the death with her. I must say this was the only satisfying part of the game for me, although I won't go so far as to say it's worth playing the whole game just to get this brief moment of revenge for the preceding several evenings of boredom and irritation. *END SPOILER*

It's incredible to realise that the same year Ion Storm released this turkey, they also released Deus Ex, thought by myself and millions of others to be the BEST game ever made! (Of course, Deus Ex was developed by a totally different team at Ion Storm, led by Warren Spector.)

After I finished playing Daikatana, having witnessed my suffering throughout its course, my Significant Other quipped: 'Just flush it down the toilet or put it on eBay.' Wise words.

HOWEVER, Romero's team at Ion Storm did redeem themselves with their second (and last, before they were disbanded) game, Anachronox, in 2001. This was a very good quirky and unusual adventure game that was well-executed and original, a bit reminiscent in feel to Daikatana in that the hero is somewhat similar and you again have sidekicks, but much better written and more sophisticated, with good gameplay. Unfortunately it didn't sell well, probably to do with buyers being put off by its predecessor, but it has now become a cult classic, and I strongly recommend you give this one a try rather than the subject of this review.

For those who would like to experience what this classic infamous catastrophe of a game is like to play but can't face the idea of either spending money to buy it or actually having to play it through yourself, two very brave souls from the 'Let's Play' forum on the Something Awful website did a full-length longplay throughout winter 2007/2008, which has now been archived to its own proud web page here: http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Daikatana/

However, please be warned that there is some very ripe language used in their longplay, especially as the players become more and more angry at how terrible the game is. So those who don't like bad language will need to give the longplay a miss!

Also on ciao.co.uk as thereddragon, where a commenter on my review there stated that he had bought the game for 50p and still felt cheated, and ciao.com as EsmeraldaDragon.

Summary: Don't. Just, don't.