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 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.
OMG, what hard work this game was to play. 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 most 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* 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.
All things considered, if you're looking for a few good retro games to play around with, for the sake of your sanity don't touch this with a bargepole.
*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, unusual 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.
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