2001-07-10 - 12:38 a.m.
#80: No Need for a Daikatana Review
Note to self: Okay, so I kinda lied about the "taking a break" thing, since I haven't really done anything different in terms of choice of lifestyle in the last two days. So I decided to write up this entry to air my thoughts on the Daikatana game before it all oozes out of my ear like a bad case of mind control slug. After that, no more entries from me! Not for at least a couple of weeks! Well, maybe. Had a weird half-awake-half-asleep dream last night about the impending AAC meeting, in which hundreds of people turned up and the line stretched all the way unto some big lawn area where people had set up a barbeque while waiting and some Japanese music was playing in the background. I wonder if that'll turn out to be true? O.o Of course, I also dreamt that I had found some secret anime/manga merchandise section of a big shopping mall somewhere and was rummaging through shelves of bootlegged Dragonball Z, Gundam, Sailor Moon and Transformers stuff. There was also a video/DVD/audio cassette shelf there as well (all in slipshod order, I believe) and I was thinking to myself, "If I found Blood: The Last Vampire DVD here, I could say that I have it.". But I didn't find it though. What I did find was quite a few titles appeared to be hentai (ie anime porn) with one of the titles being.... Angel Nurse Nanko? In the end I picked up a tape of Macross Plus: Special 1 (which I don't think exists. The back of the video box seemed to say that the feature was both 208 minutes and 18 minutes long, which made sense to me at the time. O.o It was also animated footage taken straight out of the game, which also doesn't exist, and the cover itself had Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes from the original Macross, only with slightly different character designs) a CD of something I can't remember now, and a deck of cards with a Jenny Sparks theme. I originally picked up a deck of Superman cards (why Superman was there, I don't know.... I guess it was bootlegged) but then decided Jenny was cooler and picked that up instead; even though the latter was 7.95 as compared to the 5 dollars of the former. And just as I was going to the checkout, I woke up. Why is it that this, one of my more vivid and rememberable dreams, involve anime? @_@ Gwaaaaaaah.... I'm especially worried by the fact that the video shelf had a lot of hentai titles on display. Well, I couldn't really CONFIRM that they were hentai, but the amount of skin on display seemed to indicate so.... Anyway. UNTO THE DAIKATANA REVIEW!
While I haven't TECHNICALLY finished the game (neither playing it all the way nor playing it through properly in the first place) I've played ENOUGH to catch most of the games gist, as well as skipped to the ending to see the storys conclusion. I shall reserve my overall judgement until the end of this entry, and will instead start off with a typical breakdown of the games individual aspects. In this case, I'll choose to focus on: graphics, sound, gameplay and story, and the pros and cons of each. For those of you who want to skip to the bit where I really start ripping on DK, I'd reccomend heading straight to "gameplay" and reading from that point onwards.
Graphics:
One of the first thing one notices when starting up the game (beyond the rather spiffy opening menu) is that the game looks old. Looks very old indeed. Old and unmalleable. It's not helped by the opening cutscene which is (one suspects) meant to be rather cool, but comes off as "I would look better if I had a better engine and animation system" instead. That's what you get for using the Quake 2 engine and not bringing out the game sooner I guess, but let's not dwell too long on that. Yes, the more natural environments look unnaturally jagged due to the low polygon count (I've never seen trees look so blockish in my entire life), and yes, recent advances due to the Quake 3 engine as well as what is technically acheivable on certain console systems has REALLY driven expectations beyond sky high.... But I'm willing to cut them some slack because, for the most part, the amount of effort taken to make the environs look natural in spite of the low poly count is damned impressive.
Take the first episode for instance, which is set in a far flung dark future; in a building of some multi-billionaire corporation which is located in the middle of the swampland. The atomspherics while trapped in the swamp area is actually fairly cool in a pulp comic book sort of way: With will-o-wisps flying around dead trees, a fine layer of mist hovering large pools of water, moss covered rocks and ledges, and a gentle smattering of rain as one tramps around outdoors. There is an overwhelming sense of lush greenery, which is probably helped along by the fact that the water is bright neon green and looks fairly radioactive. ^^;;; Oh well, helps to set the mood anyway.
The second episode, in complete contrast with the first, takes place in ancient Greece: with wide, sunny outdoor areas and running through the large halls of Grecian temples and houses. The palette shift from a moody dystopia to ancient acropolis is a jarring change, which is obviously intended considering the original design philosophy was to have four unique episodes in timespan and setting. The ancient Greece levels are probably the best of the game, with the brightly lit open areas perfect for random chaotic violence. And as one progresses through the episode, there is a subtle shift from daylight to sunset, which is a nice touch on the part of the designers as they redraw textures to look better in a twilight setting.
The third episode takes place in the middle ages, somewhere in Europe. There is a shift again in palette: this time to snow covered houses and castles, as well as underground chambers with lava filled pools (never quite understood that one.... oh well). And the final fourth episode takes place in LA in the near future, only the entire area has been taken over by gangs and is mostly submerged thanks to earthquakes. These final levels reminded me somewhat of Duke Nukem 3Ds first episode.... So much so that I actually developed a bad headache and motion sickness whenever I tried playing more than ten minutes of the ep at a time. Like what happened to me in Duke. O.o So for the most part, atmospherics and the overall look of levels are topnotch. Though in future, someone should remind Ion Storms level designers that flashing fluorescent-like lighting is no longer considered to be a "cool" effect. It was when Doom first came out 7 years ago, but now it just causes gamers to go into epileptic fits.
So the look of the episodes are fairly cool.... What about the monsters? Well, while none of the monsters really stood out for me (with some exceptions in the Grecian and the bosses in the Middle Ages episode) most of them were rendered convincingly enough that I didn't really doubt their prowess as living, breathing things that wanted to tear my flesh apart. Oh wait, some of them were robots so I guess I can't use the "living, breathing" analogy. Oh well. O.o The animations used for some.... well, MOST were rather stiff, however; and most of the creatures moved like animatronics on speed. There was just a general sense that they couldn't move or react to things beyond using default animations of run, shoot and fall down. Again, a limitation of the Quake 2 engine. Also, due to the low polygon count, some of the human enemies (and allies) looked.... over-detailed. Like someone had simply drawn details (like eyes, nose, facial hair.... mainly the facial area, really. as well as muscular definition) to cover up the fact that the texture is being placed over a squared off polygon. Indeed, I remember one character in the game whose head was actually a cube with a texture wrapped around it! O.o Sure, it was a minor character, but you'd think they'd have smoothed out and make it look more natural....
Well, I'd better wrap up this section quickly.... Spent too much time on it as it is. -_-;;; In conclusion: Graphics okay, if old. Strange slowdown in parts too, despite it being run on the Quake 2 engine.
Sound:
Actually, if I were to say any part of this game were the best, I'd go with the music. For the graphics I had to say, "It's good.... BUT only if you consider it's using the Quake 2 engine"; but on the otherhand I can freely enjoy the music without any such holdback statements. Admittedly however, I enjoy it on the same level as I do modular music from old Amiga games; so hence I listen to it with a faint sense of nostalgia that others with different gaming backgrounds may not appreciate. It just has a different sound from a lot of FPS I've played out there.... Well, all except for the last episode anyway, in which the soundtrack reverts back to the yawnworthy grunge/metal stuff we've heard before in other titles. But even then there are tracks that sound noticeably different.... It's game music in the end to be fair, so it doesn't exactly break any molds or genres. But still, I enjoy it quite a bit.
On the otherhand, I don't really enjoy the other aspect of sound in the game. That is to say sound effects. Almost all the monster sound effects in the game annoy the bejeezus out of me without fail. They suck. They really, really suck. And they're too damn annoying to hear over and over again. I'm sure the people at the SFX department decided that "loud and demanding" was the key to making great monster sounds. But there's only so many times you can hear the buzz of a mechanical mosquito and the clanging sound it makes when it dies before you are finally driven insane by it. Having LOUD, OBNOXIOUS unique sounds when a monster spots you, and when it comes at you, and when it attacks, and when it dies.... Simply too much. Overdesign on the part of the SFX staff, I think.
Not only that, sounds are repeated way too often when the monster is in a position that it can't reach/shoot you. For example: In the third episode, an enemy dwarf had spotted me through a barred gate which it couldn't open because it was locked. But he ran at me anyway, just repeating the running animation as it hit the gate, and all the while mumbling "Goshdarnit!" in frustration. Probably both at the fact that he couldn't hit me, and the fact that his legs wouldn't stop running. The first "Goshdarnit!" would have been enough, but no: The dwarf said it again. And again. And again. After a while it became some kind of chant or mantra it wouldn't stop saying (and it wouldn't stop running, either): "Goshdarnit! Goshdarnit! Goshdarnit! Goshdarnit! Goshdarnit! Goshdarnit!". In the end, I had to use the walk through walls cheat to get over to his side and kill him because he was just plain pissing me off. Weapon sounds also fall into the same category of annoyance and boredom as monster sounds.... Though the swish of the Daikatana (once you get it, that is) is quite satisfying.... Especially if you manage to slice something to itty bitty pieces with it.
There's also some voice acting in the game. Nothing really stood out for me, but the voicework was fairly solid, if a little too abundant in racial stereotypes. You can immediately tell who's black, white or Japanese in this game by the voicework. O.o So overall: Music good, sound effects bad, voicework average. End of story, move to next section.
Gameplay:
Okay, first of all: The gameplay is DEFINITELY old school. We're talking pre-Half Life here. Hell, we're probably talking pre-Jedi Knight and Quake here. Design philosophy revolves around you, the player, picking up floating weapons, ammo, armour and random powerups from improbable locations (what the hell are ion packs ammo doing littered around a swamp? Why are weapons stashed in the ventilation ducts? Who put this suit of armour in the fridge? How did a Strength powerup find its way to the bottom of this underwater chamber? etc. etc. etc.) and using them to fight monsters who don't so much display AI as they do an insatiable need to throw themselves at you once they spot your "presence" (which could be anything from spotting you from a great distance, to somehow sensing you on the otherside of a steel wall). And in the episodes after one, you'll have to start collecting *gasp* KEYS. For gods sake, why am I reduced to collecting keys in a historical landscape? Aren't there better ways to keep the players occupied beyond collecting friggin KEYS? Gwarh.... But in any case, I shouldn't hold it against them that the gameplay is so old school. Even if John Romero (the lead designer and conceptualist for the game) DID say he was going to rock the FPS world with new ideas when he first started. Though that was 4 years before the game was actually released, and by that time quite a bit had changed in the FPS world. Like Half Life, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 and a whole lot of other titles. But what I WILL hold against the Daikatana team is how badly they went about actually executing this. Because there's old school, and then there's badly designed and broken old school.
Let's start with the weapons.... For the most part, weapons are either too weak or too powerful. Or sometimes even with a combination of both. O.o Like the first weapon you have in the first episode, the trusty Ion Blaster. Spews green bolts of ion energy that quickly dispatches the foes in the first half of the episode. Bad things about the weapon: It's too bright, sparks from the weapon tend to blind the user with its (admittedly cool) visual effects and makes tracking enemies difficult; and as well as that it doesn't work underwater, which is not good for a level whose entire theme revolves around treading through a marshy swampland, followed by a brief trip through a sewer system. Other weapons have the same kind of useless flavour about them.... There's the shotgun cycler which shoots 6 shotgun shells in sequence, tearing through most foes in an instant. Only problem is, most foes rarely stand up to 2 or 3 of those shotgun blasts, much less 6, so you waste a lot of valuable ammunition that way. But that said, there ARE a few weapons in the game that are actually pretty cool. Like the discuses from the Greecian levels: in which you could fling multiple discus shots and have them bounce off surfaces and other enemies and then fly back to your hand, Xena style. And there's the wizard staff in the Middle Ages episode, which you could use to summon a demon and have it tear through an entire room of monsters. Neat.
The other cool weapon you could have in the game was the Daikatana itself. When you initially wield it, (at the start of the Grecian episode) it's fairly dull and useless, requiring you to go toe to toe in melee combat and just clicking the mouse button to direct swings at an enemy creature; but kill enough enemies with it and it starts to become more powerful and swings faster as well. That's because the Daikatana actually gains experience as you kill monsters, one of the neater aspects of the game. If you use the Daikatana consistently to finish off foes, by the time you reach the fourth episode it should attain a blue nimbus (that acts as a light source), will swing faster than any normal human is capable of doing so, and can kill most enemies in a single hit. Which is a bit of a problem, since it basically throws gameplay balancing out of the window at that point. But hey, it looks cool, so I'm not too fussed. ^_^
But enough about the weapons, now we come to the monsters.... Monsters, yes, what can I say about them? Well, like I mentioned before, the AI is basically "run at you and try to rip your larynx out" and that they're not too smart. Actually, they're fairly dumb. Actually, they're so dumb, they tend to get stuck in a lot of places. This is especially true of melee ranged attack monsters who can't get at me because there's a bulletproof window in the way, or because they're on a ledge higher than I am and can't jump down. Someone at the Daikatana design team must have really wanted me to notice how bad the AI is, because there's often a door or elevator nearby which they could use to reach me.... But they don't. They just keep trying to run towards me, as if hoping that the wall or height difference will suddenly disappear and let them have at me. Even Quake AI wasn't as bad as this. So forget the team tactics displayed in Half Life and Unreal Tournament, we get monsters that just try to run at you no matter how incongrous the situation may be.
The bad AI for the monsters is a bad signal for the AI controlled sidekicks. Y'see, John Romero thought it would be cool to have AI controlled sidekicks for the player for him to play beside. They would fight with him, back him up, provide cover and in the end one would have some kind of empathic relationship with them, in that you would come to rely upon them as team mates and buddies. Great idea, bad execution. The sidekicks have a difficult time negotiating ladders. The sidekicks have a difficult time negotiating jumps. The sidekicks have a difficult time negotiating doors. The sidekicks have a difficult time negotiating a flat corridor. The sidekicks have a difficult time negotiating a sense of not wanting to kill them off out of me. Getting them to just FOLLOW you is a hassle. And the bad thing is: You HAVE to have them with you. You HAVE to keep them alive, otherwise the game over screen will appear at the sound of their screaming death. This is especially frustrating in areas with clear hazards that the sidekicks walk into with little regard for their own life.... Like lava pools, electrified floors and a closing door that crushes their spine. The only thing that they ARE good for is when they enter battle, and even then they just display the mindless mentality of "rush 'n shoot" that the normal monster AI displays.
And then there's the RPG experience points system. Apart from leveling up the Daikatana, you can also level up your character and distribute points amongst a stat system which increases your particular attributes. These attributes includes Strength, Attack, Speed, Agility and Vitality. While the experience points system does provide a neat bonus (and makes your character godlike in the final levels to boot, which is always nice) it's not particularly well integrated into the game balance, much like the Daikatana. But like I said before, it's pretty cool so I'm not going to complain.
So overall: Gameplay bad. AI suck overall (except for the few times the sidekicks actually followed me correctly and didn't get stuck anyway. They make me proud sometimes. *sniffs*), weapons suck overall (except for a few cool ones) and.... Oh wait, I didn't mention the level design did I? Well, I did mention the keys. Collecting keys suck. Hence the level designers should be shot for making me collect them. And jumping puzzles. God, jumping puzzles. If I have to go through one of those pointless Mario-like jumping puzzles again, I SWEAR I'll-- *rant rant rant etc. etc. etc.* Let's move on. There's so much to say about why it sucks, but.... It just plain sucks. Okay? ^_^
Story:
Virtually non-existent. I mean it. The intro sets things up very nicely, about Hiro Miyamoto being the ancestor of the one who created the Daikatana (Bunn-- I mean, Usagi Miyamoto) and how he must now wrest it from the possession of Kage Mishima. Who was a descendant of an ancient rival of Miyamotos who had changed the timeline of the world to suit his dark vision. Hiro had to restore the "real" timeline, along with the help of his two friends (picked up from Mishimas fortress prisons) Superfly Johnson and Mikiko Ebihara. That basically sums the entirety of the first episode, and that's an awfully thin amount of material to stretch over an entire quarter of the game. But after that, one might as well skip to the ending and see the great finale against Kage after the series of wacky time travelling adventures Hiro experiences with his buddies. Because you see, after the end of the first episode, almost everything about the storyline is filler material. You gain no insight into the characters, no character-driven narratives, no heart felt speeches about their individual (and possibility conflicting) philosophies, nothing. Instead, what you do get is something like this at the end of each level:
Hiro: Well, we've finished the (name of level just completed).
Mikiko: What's next?
Superfly: I think it'll be (name of next level).
Hiro: It'll be tough.
Mikiko: Yeah.
Superfly: Let's go! But first, I'm going to have sex with this monkey.
Okay, so the bit about the monkey isn't true.... But it's funnier than whatever he was planning to say. And that's how most of the cutscenes in the game went. Cutscenes explaining the levels you'd gone through, cutscenes explaining exactly WHY you needed to collect all those damnable keys.... Plain filler material and an underhanded way of hiding the games obvious artifices. Quite frankly, I expected more after reading in CGWs preview article on Daikatana (way back in '97!) with John Romero saying he was planning to have the players "become so emotionally attached to the characters that certain events in the game will make you break down and cry, just like in the opera scene in Final Fantasy III". Well John, you did make me cry. You made cry by comparing any section of Final Fantasy III to the tripe in Daikatana. I will forever hate you for making me believe there was an actual salvageable story in this game. The only story bit in the game that really surprised me with a plot twist was the ending, and even that is nothing to rave about, as it features the age old "ha ha! One of your companions is a traitor!" turnabout.... And for a game that has immensely long (and boring) cutscenes, the ending is eyebrow raisingly short. Like the game scriptwriter finally decided that torturing the player through the entire game was enough, and that he should let us off so lightly. Phew
Overall: Story bad. Story boring. Story features characters I don't give an expletive about at all. Not good for what is meant to be a narrative driven shooter.
So, we finally come to my closing statements. What do I REALLY think about the game as a whole? Well.... If I were to operate in a complete vacuum, I would say: It's not that bad a game. It's not that good a game either, but it doesn't deserve all the massively negative hype heaped upon it. With a little bit more work, it could actually have pulled off being a good game. With some better AI, a better story and less level design reliant upon collecting keys.... Well, something might have clicked. The AI controlled sidekicks weren't a bad idea, and neither is a narrative driven shooter. They just weren't executed properly. Plus, I had the good fortune of not playing the game in its original form, with (bleargh!) save crystals. And I did play through the entire game in god mode and on easy, so I had less frustrations to deal with than did players who went through the game the hard way. And there is a possibility that the levels I didn't play in the fourth episode due to motion sickness could have been the best levels ever created. Yeah. And the game actually ran out of the box, which is more than I can say for certain other games which were even worse than Daikatana.
But....
But I do not operate in a complete vacuum. I know the turbulent story behind this game. I know the fact that it was delayed for 4 years. I know the fact that John Romero SHOULD be capable of far better than this (he co-created Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake for gosh sakes!) and that the self confidence he displayed at the start of the development cycle (the "This Summer: John Romero is going to make you his BITCH!" ad campaign for Daikatana was a REALLY bad idea) vanished very quickly near the end. I know the fact that the development team spent more of their time arsing around in their magnificent offices then they did devoting it to the finishing of this game. And I know (gods, I wish I didn't) that they pulled people off the more worthy Deus Ex to work on Daikatana. They. Pulled. People. Off. Deus Ex. To. Work. On. Friggin. Daikatana. I can never forgive them for possibly not giving the people on Deus Ex the manpower to make it the best game of the year, and not just one of the most notable game of the year.... BASTARDS! @_@ Unless you've played Deus Ex and know it's "almost but not quite game of the year" feel you probably won't understand my frustration....
So. Daikatana. Bad game. Anybody want a copy of their own to play? I can guarantee you'll experience the slow, creeping sensation that you were weaselled out of your money. Even if you didn't pay for it in the first place. Anyone? Ah well. Time to play Black and White and get that bad taste out of my mouth.... And wow, this entry is waaaaaaaaaaay too long.
(BTW, for anyone who's interested: Ion Storms last game from their initial line up proposal (way back in 97) is Anachronox, which uses the Quake 2 engine for an RPG in the mold of Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger. While I'm reserving judgement until I get a copy for myself, the movies look pretty cool.... While dated. Looks something like a combination of FF7s setting with FF9s detailed characters and with voice actors. Neat.)
