Daikatana

大刀起兮云飞扬，约翰罗梅罗没爹娘

I can't leave a good review without my buddy Superfly.

"JOHN ROMERO'S ABOUT TO MAKE YOU HIS B1TCH." Oh, Daikatana. The 90s styled FPS that came out in the year 2000 after multiple delays that is responsible for a giant's fall from grace. John Romero, who worked on legendary games like DOOM and QUAKE, leaves ID Software after constantly butting heads with John Carmack. He founds Ion Storm and directs the most unbelievably hyped game of that era, which turned out to be a monumental flop. Basically, DOOM and QUAKE are such masterpieces because Romero had the style and Carmack had the brains. Which means: Daikatana is all style and no brains. Running on the id Tech 2 engine, Daikatana is an interesting piece of videogame history, but it's nearly unplayable without installing patch v1.3, a community effort to make the game bearable. This is a game that makes people either go "This sucks" or "Never heard of it". It's an incredibly difficult game to like. There's probably only a handful of fans of Daikatana, and I actually happen to be one of them. It mostly picks up later on, with Episode 3 being the highlight, but the first level (and Episode 1 to an extent) could very well be used in videogame design courses as an example of what NOT to do. An obtuse swamp layout with frogs you struggle to hit and annoying mosquitos with headache inducing buzzing. No wonder the vast majority of players give up right then and there. They won't see it get better. Companions that help you fight was the selling point of Daikatana due to being a novelty back in the day, but the devs had no idea how to pull it off. The entire game is basically an escort mission with NPCs that get stuck everywhere. There's unskippable cutscenes, and some are 10 minute long exposition dumps, with cheesy and ridiculous dialogue. However, the game is saved by patch v1.3 which makes companions teleport to level exits, completely removing the AI frustration, since we can basically ignore them now. Widescreen resolution, bug fixes, mouse acceleration fixed and we can save anywhere instead of using save gems. I played it running at 120fps fixed, the best experience possible. Daikatana suddenly becomes a solid game, reminiscent of HeXen in terms of progression, with its biggest flaws removed. It feels like Quake due to being on the same engine as Quake II, hence why movement is so smooth and satisfying. Multiplayer must have been extremely fun! Hear me out: Daikatana is a very good game that is severely overhated. If it wasn't completely overshadowed by Half-Life, the advertising not so aggressive and the blatant flaws were ironed out before release, it could've been great. There's a solid game underneath. "SUCK IT DOWN."

Made with surgical precision to be as annoying and unfun as possible.

OK, here's how to play and enjoy the game: get the user made mod that removes the helper AI from game play. Also, potentially get the "save anywhere mod." Use both mods, and the game is a lot of fun! Really, it's the bad partner AI that ruins this game, everything else is great; great movement, unique weapons, satisfying combat. It's too bad Ion Storm didn't remove the partners from the game when they realized they couldn't get them working. Unfortunately, they must have felt this was a cornerstone of the game, but they were wrong. It's a far better game without them.

"I can't leave without my buddy Superfly"

I played it back in 2000s and it was very average video game with ok looks, and not much have changed since. I don't really get the narrative, that with all the community patches, it is "truly amazing game that it could have been". No it isn't. Patches are amazing, great job. But the core gameplay is just not too much fun. It isn't bad but it is just not enough for me to recommend.