My expectations were low. They were somewhere between my ankles and two feet below the earth. After playing through the first level, they were easily surpassed. The mosquito enemies were nigh impossible to see in the dark Marsh, and their incessant buzz had me darting about the level, scanning anything and everything above head level. I dreaded the break in their constant drone that signified an incoming melee attack, and this distraction led to the loss of my life multiple times due to the efforts of the (robot?) frogs and alligators. My trusty Ion Blaster's projectiles would bounce off of surfaces, resulting in the occasional self-inflicted wound. Firing the gun would release a burst of sparks trailing after the blast, giving the weapon a very unstable feeling. During the boss fight near the end of the mission I would later learn that it was quite unstable, as it would backfire if shot underwater. Combat flowed well, but the small number of encounters (or at least any large ones) in the Marsh never presented the game in the way that Romero originally intended: a hardcore experience for "expert" FPS players.
With larger regions in which to fight, the first level could have accommodated sizable encounters. With the music removed, the tension I felt during my meetings with the aforementioned airborne menace would have been greater, as its quite difficult to feel on edge when you're absentmindedly tapping your foot with the beat. Even just one of these changes would have been a significant improvement. The Marsh had great potential. The next few levels did not.
While playing through the second and third levels, I discovered Daikatana's most egregious flaw is the NPC AI. Mishima guards would stand stock-still, rarely shooting (if at all). Twelve feet tall rocket bearing mechs would hesitantly approach our intrepid protagonist, only firing their massive payload once they had reached a distance of fourteen or fifteen feet to the player. Simply put, they presented no challenge in the slightest. The enemies however, were not the worst offenders. A friendly NPC was just around the corner, waiting to be rescued, and escorted.
Him. That man. The bane of my existence. Superfly Johnson. This gentleman is without a doubt in my mind, the worst NPC I have encountered in any game, ever. Armed with nothing but his good looks, Johnson walks with steadfast determination towards enemy units (who upon seeing our dear friend, will become expert marksmen) until he expires, resulting in a game over. His suicidal tendencies were not his greatest flaw, however. Upon reaching the fourth level, the Crematorium, I ran into a bug that prevented me from continuing my increasingly bleak adventure into Daikatana.
A minute or so into the Crematorium, you enter a small parking lot. To reach the lot, there is a walkway that winds its way around a small pond. This is as far as I made it, as Hiro is incapable of progressing without his buddy Superfly attached to his hip. I hopped the railing, continued for a short time, and later found Superfly walking in circles in the water. No amount of pushing, hitting, or shooting would deter him from his solemn mission of getting his feet wet. I restarted, time and time again attempting different ways of passing this dangerous obstacle, sometimes slowly hugging the rail of the walkway, other times pushing Superfly down the path. A total of seventeen restarts (which took about twenty six minutes) later, I had to stop. I tried starting the entire game over, but it is most likely that you, dear reader, are capable of guessing what I was rewarded with upon returning to the Crematorium: a grown man splashing dirty water for eternity.
What do I have to say about the narrative? The models, or textures? I don't cover these in the review because I didn't get to see enough of the game to form a real opinion about them.
I wanted to like Daikatana. I was hoping that it was a diamond in the rough, that had endured unfair criticisms as years passed. This game had potential, it has some interesting ideas (even some good ones), but they don't save, or redeem the product. John Romero's Daikatana is a shambling mess of a game, and is in my experience, unplayable.