Fun fact: during Daikatana development, a lot of money was splurged on making a nice development space for the devs during a blistering summer. So they got this very well air conditioned office that had a huge dome skylight window on the ceiling. The airconditioning was TOO good though, and most people were absolutely freezing...except for a select few people in one spot directly below the skylight. Turns out, it gathered sunlight like a giant magnifying lens, making the space directly below it annihilatingly hot. Thus, the workspace was at once way too hot and way too cold, somehow.
I've heard the argument that Romero and Ion Storm killed the idea of game devs as the new rock stars because of their excess. No one wanted to splurge so much money and come off as tools like they did.
@@yy-hj4br It also led to Eidos themselves losing a ton of money trying to keep what little that was left of Ion Storm afloat(most of that capital was levied by Eidos themselves, and it also explains why they were so lenient with giving Ion Storm more money as Daikatana was getting delay after delay). It additionally left them in such a precarious financial situation, that they forced Core Design to rush another overly-ambitious, complicated and buggy game, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness unfinished. This was after Sony changed the specs of the PS2's dev kits to improve the reliability of the console after early models had a habit of blowing up and breaking down at launch, further complicating that game's development.
When you play Daikatana with the mod a lot of it is surprisingly excellent. Some levels are phenomenally bad though so you really need to cheat a little when you hit a wall because the game is huge and challenging enough anyway. The multiplayer is very underappreciated.
@@lasskinn474 I really enjoyed much of the level design. It held my interest enough to get to Episode 4 anyway then I got a bit browned off with it because the level design began to deteriorate again. 2nd and 3rd Episodes are definitely the highlights the rest not so much.
I beat it on PC, no patch, without cheating, recently. It's not really that bad. You can just leave your AI counterparts at the entrance, clear the stage and come back for them. The most frustrating part of the game is the first few levels where you are underwater but firing guns underwater damages you which means you have to pretty much plan pixel by pixel how you're going to clear the sewer area.
Daikatana is a good game if played with fan-made patch 1.3. You can either play with sidekicks that have 10 times more health (thus require far less babysitting) or disable sidekicks completely and play it like any other FPS of that era with no babysitting at all. I recommend the latter. And then once you remove that shit part, it's fun to play. Sure Ep1 is not the best one. But Ep2 is the best and Ep3 is still good. Ep4 is kinda meh though. And game is actually easier on hard than on lower skills because you gain much more XP. On hard you're able to nearly max out your character in every single skill without even tryharding to do so. You'll be running at 60 mph with 350 max health blasting your enemies like crazy.
It makes you wonder how it would have been with fixed ai (even something as basic as 'teleport to player if stuck' and if they thought of the Half-Life 2 system for health which is iirc "Massive health regen" so you don't have to babysit in a fight but you can't just leave them to solo either. It's defnitely a frustrating game, for me, because I keep seeing glimpses of what it could have been, like looking through a cracked window or something.
I think part of the reason movies like Plan 9 get undeserved "worst ever" reputations is because you can have a fun time mocking them with friends, whereas worse films tend to be soul-crushingly boring and/or irritating to watch, so nobody mentions them. Daikatana on PC already had an exaggerated reputation of "one of the worst games ever," and since the N64 port is simply mentioned as "Daikatana except worse," this makes it easy for people to assume it's an unholy abomination.
it's not the easiest thing to have a so bad it's good movie, but it's way harder to have a so bad it's good game, because the game needs to be terrible but also functional? like you can just pop a dvd in of the room or plan 9 and laugh it up, but with a game, it'd be like trying to watch it on ed wood's hand made DVD player and tommy made the disc.
I love gmanlives he sticks to what he does well and keeps it 100, it’s a comforting familiarity I have with this channel cause not only does he look at obscure games I use to play but he has similar opinions to me or I can understand his criticism of said games, the humour and information is always on point, you are one of them rare channels who are still honest and keep it 100, don’t want to sound corny or anything but your videos are like an antidote to depression at times, binge worthy epic content keep it up my guy
The game mechanics you are used to today you think are perfect will take getting used to tomorrow. Good point that a lot of people ignore that you may need to learn some new controls jumping back 20 years in games. It’s usually not that bad.
This was really a creative and ambitious game. I wish it could be fixed. Especially the AI companions Maybe a remake if someone is brave enough to pour money
The A.I. companions have been fixed. The unnofical 1.3 update allows you to make them invincible (and not needed to finish a level) or remove them outright
It wasn't, it was just a poor man's Quake 2 with poor design choices, the weapons for example are uber gimmicky, the movement has to be levelled up for it to be worthwhile, and the models were considered dated and underwhelming back in 2000. To assert that Daikatana is a creative and ambitious game is a fairy tale and a delusion.
2:01 In the US, it wasn't even sold in stores initially, it was a Blockbuster Video rental exclusive before being eventually getting a unceremonious retail release.
As scary as things are at the moment, most, if not all, generations go through a very trying period. Hang in there! Survival of the fittest includes mental health and happiness.
I like the point you brought up about general N64 FPS controls. For some reason I think a lot of people legit don't know you can use the d-pad to move and stick to aim in Goldeneye (either that or no one ever brings that up). It's just like normal dual stick controls or using WASD/mouse so a lot of the games still control pretty smoothly. There's nothing technically wrong with the C-Button setup, it's just that since its backwards you have to rewire your muscle memory like you said.
@@thealchmst The Cyberbug devs could of ditched last gen hardware, but instead got greedy. If this game was made to play on PS5 or god forbid PC it would have been released in a better state.
@@killbabies0341 Even if the game released only on pc and ps5 it would still get the same reputation, because the game simply wasnt finished but they released it anyway
Hey Gmanlives. Thank you for your video on Prodeus. I recently got a gaming laptop, and I recovered my Steam account. Prodeus is a blast, along with Selaco!
I was someone who stuck with the c-pad control scheme for these shooters back in the day, so even the controls weren't a problem for me. What a crazy time. Weird ass control schemes and, what seemed like, random pricing for any given game.
I appreciate the point you made about adapting to controls, I haven’t played this specific game but I’ve always found it pretty easy to get used to older control schemes. I rarely have a problem as long as they’re consistent & the game is designed around them. I don’t expect everyone to have a blast learning how to play older games, but personally I find it fun to learn & master an unconventional control scheme. Convenience is nice, but I feel like standardized controls have kinda made newer games a bore.
C buttons for movement and thumbstick for aim was how i learned how to play FPS on the N64. and games like duke nukem 64, turok 64 and goldeneye 64 is the reason why i play with invert aim to this day. yeah.
11:11 I always loved this song. As a kid I would stay on this level and just sit there because of how much I loved it. It does have its own version in the PC version of the game but for some reason I always liked the more midi sound of this one. Generally though the PC's soundtrack is criminally underappreciated. It's surprisingly, probably one of the better game soundtracks of the early 2000s.
I think it's fun to swim in all the drama that surrounds Daikatana's development because it's like one of the most talented game designers made every single bad mistake executing some very interesting ideas while he was clearly young and inexperienced managing a company and an entire game project, which he'd never had to do before. That said, while this version was clearly Eidos trying to make more of their EXTENSIVELY HUGE AMOUNT OF INVESTMENT back on Ion Storm Dallas, it looks like it's probably the better version because the Nintendo 64's hardware was so hecking limited. They literally couldn't put in all the bad stuff from the base game because they couldn't put in all the good, high-fidelity stuff either. As someone who did put a few hours into the PC version, it genuinely looks like a relief to not have to go through as many endless, drab levels while one-shotting baddies versus pixel-hunting dragonflies and frogs while navigating complex, non-sensical levels in exchange for not having voice-acting or functionally broken AI companions. I almost wonder if this version had come out first, maybe the reception to both games wouldn't have been so absolutely horrific and this version would've been more of a middling N64 shooter than the "just as guilty" dirty port people treat as poorly as the base game based on, again, a bunch of extrinsic factors to the game itself.
In Japan, the N64 version was released first. On the 7th of April 2000. And the game still sucks balls across the board, regardless of the ports (excluding the GBC version, which was a bland Zelda clone that I don't recommend touching because better Zelda clones exist for the GBC). Don't let the revisionists tell you otherwise.
I have the PC version with the fan patch, but still was not into it. That said I barely gave it a chance, so maybe I should do so and play it a bit differently. That said, great vid. Killed me with that Medusa bit.
there's a lot of better that era pc games to play if you haven't played them all. heck, just give deus ex an another playthrough instead or even blood 2.
I do admittedly really love this game with the 1.3 patch and without sidekicks. Also really like the GBC version. This N64 port is incredibly impressive tech-wise.
Congratulations on your addition to the family. Love your channel. Please do a review for "Project IGI" Wonder if it withstood the test of time. Because i remember it being groundbreaking.
Great video as always, I did get hung up on the controls topic though at about 5:00 Like half of N64 games don't even use the Dpad at all by default, except for maybe tertiary functions like map toggles or weapon modes etc., Goldeneye and PD defaults to analog for forward/ back and turning left and right, and C left/right for strafing. Daikatanas control scheme is just Solitaire control scheme from Goldeneye, they did make a huge mistake not allowing multiple schemes though. But crossing your arms over each other? Why wouldn't you just hold the right side of the controller with your right hand and hold the center part with your left... like a normal person. XD Disclaimer: Not a Daikatana fan.
When I was moving from Puerto Rico to Florida my brother and I would rent video games for the n64 from blockbuster every week as all of our stuff was already shipped to Florida. We rented this and got up to the medieval village and had no fucking idea what to do. To this day I always thought about this damn game
Had no idea there was a Daikatana version for the 64. In Portugal, the third party N64 games were freaking expensive. Almost 1/4 of the minimum wage, back then.
WHen you are a young kid, sometimes you simply dont realize what you are playing is shit. I grew up with the commodore 64.....there was A LOOOOOT of SHIT on that system....but i did not get it was shit. Not until i revisited stuff as older....thats when it hit me....ye it was shite. Haha. Life is easier when young :) And as long as you are enjoying it....it does not really matter. I have never played Daikatana myself though so i have no idea how bad it actually was....but it sure dont have a good reputation.
N64 controls can be weird, especially how hard wired they'll end up in your brain if you grew up with them. I played Turok a lot as a kid so was really used to moving with C-Buttons and looking with analog. Years later after playing modern shooters I went back to Turok and decided to swap the controls to moving with D-Pad instead. Despite being a bit more modern I couldn't wrap my head around it since the default was so hard coded into me.
Oh look, it's Gmanlives with his hot takes again, oh my! Nah seriously though, I agree with Daikatana being hated a little too much. Considering the development and ambition surrounding the game the fact it even released in a playable state was an accomplishment in itself. I'd say it was more disappointing then outright bad, At least Ion Storm ended on a high note, Deus Ex is incredible, and I don't think we would have gotten it if Daikatana didn't exist.
Thank you for the videos gman. It's been rad seeing your channel grow over the years! I've actually re-visited a lot of these games because of your reviews!
I need you to be honest with me rn, are we ever gonna get to see you cover the leaked Duke Nukem forever gameplay bc I been on the edge of my seat since I heard the news, waiting for your take on it.
I got the game back in the day and honestly loved it. To be fair, I loved pretty much everything, because I didn't have that many games and basically NEEDED to like them. 😂 But yeah, I managed to complete it without a guide or anything an remember being stuck in the village for quite some time. If I recall correctly, the melody you need to play, is the same time as the BGM, or something.
It's good now. It got a fan patch a few years back.. plays great in 4k and extra options such as wide screen support. Fov. Even multiplayer works lol and it's glitch free. I remember downloading this from kazaa back in the day 😀 Some of the maps and level design is pretty good when you get to later mission's.
Hey, antialiasing on the N64 was pimp. It also had a Z buffer AND perspective-correct texture mapping which the PlayStation lacked. The N64 had absurdly low video RAM which is why the textures were often blurry. But it was state of the art 3D hardware for the time and, ceteris paribus, blew away the PlayStation. As for Daikatana, it was just... a bad game. Trying to fix it is like trying to fix Sonic '06. You'll get some mechanical improvements, but you can't repair the overall design. It wasn't the worst game on PC or N64 but it was a huge disappointment, especially with Romero's name on the box. The GBA one was really fun.
Yeah, completely agree. The N64 might look blurry by modern standards, but graphically it was the strongest console of it's own generation. It might have been held back by the tiny texture cache, but that was nothing compared to the issues the PS1 had. Early 3D was just a mess.
Insulting Sonic 06 is how you prove nothing you said has any merit. That, and people actually having fun with both fixed games. I've defended 06 since 2010, and I'm not stopping now, not when P-06 exists. Just because you won't enjoy something no matter how many of its problems are fixed doesn't mean everyone else is gonna be the same. Learn to differentiate between your opinions and actual reality.
@@iminyourwalls8309 Except that cartridges didn't really impact the look of the games. Just compare any cross-platform game from that era, like Resident Evil 2 for example. The disadvantage cartridges had were that they were more expensive to manufacture, so publishers preferred CDs; and they didn't have the storage space for pre-rendered videos, which were very popular at the time for eye-catching cut-scenes, so developers preferred CDs. But in terms of gameplay, the look of the actual game outside of cutscenes, cartridges were almost always superior. The decision to stick with cartridges was the wrong business decision, in retrospect, but not because the games looked bad.
Theres actually a Fan Project for Doom32X where they’re fixing all the gameplay issues, Soundtrack and adding in all the levels that were left out. Its called Doom Resurrection 32x
Ah yes the c buttons for movement and the stick for looking. Way ahead of it’s time, I used to configure my controls like that for goldeneye and Turok 2 and just ran circles around my stick only scrub friends.
In Canada the N64 games was 110$ to 125$, this was insane! I still remember buying Cruising USA for 110$ with me brother, that was so mush money for 8 and 11 years old kids 😅
Nintendo 64 games were expensive in Canada, too. A game like Doom 64 was $120 and it was never available to rent where I lived. At least that one got an official port in 2020 thanks to Nightdive Studios.
I remember playing this game when it came out as a kid on N64. Honestly to this day It is one of my favorite games on N64 lol. Anyways I never got past the music note level in the 3rd episode. I remember searching online at the time but there was no information on the correct order of the notes lol. sad to see I barely got halfway through the game
I think it looks fun. Idk how you recorded this but that looks like really clean n64 capture. It'd be cool if you reviewed the other n64 fps games. Also what game is that at 29:06?
I actually never found the c-pad being used to move, and the thumb stick being used to aim as a problem. In fact, probably thanks to this game, that's how I played all of my N64 shooting games going forward. I liked the preciseness that the thumb stick offers, and how these games try to take advantage of said preciseness anyways, it reminds me of Metroid Prime 1 & 2 on Gamecube, and your typical Wii shooter controls, which, I guess it helps that I literally grew up with all of this, and continue to with my ever-expanding library. I should probably add that this never impacted the way I play modern shooters, or at least other shooters on the GameCube and so on. In fact, I once tried to go N64-like lefty with Goldeneye Rogue Agent on Gamecube to try and take advantage of the left stick's apparent extra preciseness, and it was like trying to learn how to use a controller all over again, lol. Switched back, after an hour of struggling.
From what I can tell, Daikatana was intended to be an "Advanced FPS" for people who had mastered the movement mechanics of Quake. Seeing as how an N64 controller is less precise than mouse and keyboard, I suspect that's why the map design is completely different.
Daikatana! Damn, I totally forgot about this crap but I do remember all the hype surrounding its announcement and all the frustration around its prolonged development!
Damn, that medusa joke can be retro-fitted to be anybody. could of been my wife, my girlfriend, but you being the man of culture went right to the jugular.
This was like a Civvie asylum flashback with extra pain. Completely forgot this ever existed and if the PC port is anything to go by then buckle chums. G, your mum says Hi.
You can tell they had the same voice actors for Deus Ex. The dude sounds like the NSF guy at the top of the statue of liberty and the girls damage and death sounds sound identical to female NPCs from Deus Ex.
"a fresh look at maligned or forgotten console FPS" could be a fine series. Stuff like Kileak, Codename: Tenka, Brahma Force, Crime Crackers (Gman suffers through the excesses of anime is popular right?) and MANY more.
I used to play N64 FPS with movement on the C buttons and look on the analog stick, it was the 1.2 Solitaire option in Golden Eye, and it wasn't till years later that I realized how painful that was.
This game could’ve been a very good and potential FPS game if John and his team,ION Studios would taken enough time to make a very enjoyable game. It’s nice that they’re people who’re making MODS to fix all of the flaws,and it’s a good thing too. It would be nice if Night Dive Studios will make a remaster version of this and fixes the games issues that the original one had. It’ll make a very good comeback for Daikatana.
Fun fact: during Daikatana development, a lot of money was splurged on making a nice development space for the devs during a blistering summer. So they got this very well air conditioned office that had a huge dome skylight window on the ceiling. The airconditioning was TOO good though, and most people were absolutely freezing...except for a select few people in one spot directly below the skylight. Turns out, it gathered sunlight like a giant magnifying lens, making the space directly below it annihilatingly hot. Thus, the workspace was at once way too hot and way too cold, somehow.
I've heard the argument that Romero and Ion Storm killed the idea of game devs as the new rock stars because of their excess. No one wanted to splurge so much money and come off as tools like they did.
One of my favorite parts of Masters of Doom XD
@@yy-hj4br It also led to Eidos themselves losing a ton of money trying to keep what little that was left of Ion Storm afloat(most of that capital was levied by Eidos themselves, and it also explains why they were so lenient with giving Ion Storm more money as Daikatana was getting delay after delay). It additionally left them in such a precarious financial situation, that they forced Core Design to rush another overly-ambitious, complicated and buggy game, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness unfinished. This was after Sony changed the specs of the PS2's dev kits to improve the reliability of the console after early models had a habit of blowing up and breaking down at launch, further complicating that game's development.
Why couldn't they just turn down the ac? I hate fake or exaggerated stories and rumors like this.
@@alphaotakux Because it was in the middle of Cowpoke Dallas, TX during the summer.
I can totally confirm the Gameboy Color port is superior
It is a phenomenal Zelda-like game.
It is pretty damn good
It actually is
@@theunbearablejuan huh isnt it more a rpg ?
@@Phantron You'd think, but not really. The progression, item usage and combat are almost 1:1 Oracle. Some cool puzzles, too. Solid 7/10.
Honestly, it's a pretty ok looking 64 game.
Love your channel Avalanche. Very cool seeing your comment here since I also love Gman channel
Yeah, but Romero talked it up like the second coming of jesus and developed it for years. Victim of his own hubris.
@@Jesusluvz Consoles are for platformers not FPS.
the colored lighting and temples remind me of Unreal
@@Jesusluvz Romero must have been a man ahead of his time because alot of developers and publishers do that now.
When you play Daikatana with the mod a lot of it is surprisingly excellent. Some levels are phenomenally bad though so you really need to cheat a little when you hit a wall because the game is huge and challenging enough anyway.
The multiplayer is very underappreciated.
that's a bit strange definition for excellent. sure it's better but.. excellent? with all the games from around the same time?
@@lasskinn474 I really enjoyed much of the level design. It held my interest enough to get to Episode 4 anyway then I got a bit browned off with it because the level design began to deteriorate again. 2nd and 3rd Episodes are definitely the highlights the rest not so much.
I feel like you may enjoy the game “GORE”. Forgotten fps from the early 2000s/90s.
I beat it on PC, no patch, without cheating, recently. It's not really that bad. You can just leave your AI counterparts at the entrance, clear the stage and come back for them.
The most frustrating part of the game is the first few levels where you are underwater but firing guns underwater damages you which means you have to pretty much plan pixel by pixel how you're going to clear the sewer area.
Imagine asking for Doom 64 for Christmas but getting Daikatana instead
🤣🤣
I'd never forgive my parents
a lot of kids must've had a really disappointing christmas.
Both are good, even with terrible graphics Daikatana64, imagine getting PC DAIKATANA INSTEAD!!!
Imagine preordering the collectors edition of Duke Nukem Forever. I still haven't let him live that one down.
Daikatana is a good game if played with fan-made patch 1.3. You can either play with sidekicks that have 10 times more health (thus require far less babysitting) or disable sidekicks completely and play it like any other FPS of that era with no babysitting at all. I recommend the latter.
And then once you remove that shit part, it's fun to play. Sure Ep1 is not the best one. But Ep2 is the best and Ep3 is still good. Ep4 is kinda meh though. And game is actually easier on hard than on lower skills because you gain much more XP. On hard you're able to nearly max out your character in every single skill without even tryharding to do so. You'll be running at 60 mph with 350 max health blasting your enemies like crazy.
It makes you wonder how it would have been with fixed ai (even something as basic as 'teleport to player if stuck' and if they thought of the Half-Life 2 system for health which is iirc "Massive health regen" so you don't have to babysit in a fight but you can't just leave them to solo either. It's defnitely a frustrating game, for me, because I keep seeing glimpses of what it could have been, like looking through a cracked window or something.
Not needing to carry around MY BUDDY SUPERFLY and the Japanese Backstab bot makes the game sound like a million times better.
Babysitting/escort missions have always been the liquorice jellybean of videogame levels.
They should port that version to consoles
@@bldontmatter5319 Exactly, and you can see the good bits buried under it.
I think part of the reason movies like Plan 9 get undeserved "worst ever" reputations is because you can have a fun time mocking them with friends, whereas worse films tend to be soul-crushingly boring and/or irritating to watch, so nobody mentions them. Daikatana on PC already had an exaggerated reputation of "one of the worst games ever," and since the N64 port is simply mentioned as "Daikatana except worse," this makes it easy for people to assume it's an unholy abomination.
Daikatana still crashes to desktop with patches, it is a brazenly unstable pile of wank.
it's not the easiest thing to have a so bad it's good movie, but it's way harder to have a so bad it's good game, because the game needs to be terrible but also functional? like you can just pop a dvd in of the room or plan 9 and laugh it up, but with a game, it'd be like trying to watch it on ed wood's hand made DVD player and tommy made the disc.
I love gmanlives he sticks to what he does well and keeps it 100, it’s a comforting familiarity I have with this channel cause not only does he look at obscure games I use to play but he has similar opinions to me or I can understand his criticism of said games, the humour and information is always on point, you are one of them rare channels who are still honest and keep it 100, don’t want to sound corny or anything but your videos are like an antidote to depression at times, binge worthy epic content keep it up my guy
The game mechanics you are used to today you think are perfect will take getting used to tomorrow. Good point that a lot of people ignore that you may need to learn some new controls jumping back 20 years in games. It’s usually not that bad.
unless we are talking about tractor/tank controls + no mouselook. Then yes, it is that bad...
I remember buying this from a blockbuster, honestly a bad game but better than the unmodded pc version
John Romero made me his bitch back in 2000, so I'm legally not allowed to play Diakatana.
same.......until romero had mercy on me and allowed me to.
This was really a creative and ambitious game. I wish it could be fixed. Especially the AI companions
Maybe a remake if someone is brave enough to pour money
The A.I. companions have been fixed. The unnofical 1.3 update allows you to make them invincible (and not needed to finish a level) or remove them outright
there is a fan patch that fixes a lot of the issues.
They were fixed, although it is better to play with the option that disables sidekicks altogether
@@UnbornDecay Civvie's video debunks this. While the A.I. can be made unkillable, their pathing is still broken.
It wasn't, it was just a poor man's Quake 2 with poor design choices, the weapons for example are uber gimmicky, the movement has to be levelled up for it to be worthwhile, and the models were considered dated and underwhelming back in 2000. To assert that Daikatana is a creative and ambitious game is a fairy tale and a delusion.
perfect timing, man. I was wondering when your next video would come out just this morning.
Are you gonna do a video going over all the n64 fps games? That would be epic, but lots of work!
2:01 In the US, it wasn't even sold in stores initially, it was a Blockbuster Video rental exclusive before being eventually getting a unceremonious retail release.
To be honest, I'd love to see a Daikatana remake in a modern engine.
hearing gman speaking again just makes my mind going back to civilization as a normal human being
As scary as things are at the moment, most, if not all, generations go through a very trying period. Hang in there! Survival of the fittest includes mental health and happiness.
@@merces47letifer4 GANG 🔥
I like the point you brought up about general N64 FPS controls. For some reason I think a lot of people legit don't know you can use the d-pad to move and stick to aim in Goldeneye (either that or no one ever brings that up). It's just like normal dual stick controls or using WASD/mouse so a lot of the games still control pretty smoothly. There's nothing technically wrong with the C-Button setup, it's just that since its backwards you have to rewire your muscle memory like you said.
I still remember Jontron's review of this game.
I mean it’s a wild combination of over ambitious game and underperforming hardware. What could possibly go wrong.
*cough* *cough* *cough* Trespasser *cough* *cough* *cough*
Don't forget the unfinished ai.
It'll always be a harsh reality in video games, even nowadays. Looking at you, Cyberpunk.
@@thealchmst The Cyberbug devs could of ditched last gen hardware, but instead got greedy. If this game was made to play on PS5 or god forbid PC it would have been released in a better state.
@@killbabies0341 Even if the game released only on pc and ps5 it would still get the same reputation, because the game simply wasnt finished but they released it anyway
The Gameboy Color version is great. I stumbled across it as a kid during my early gaming days and have fond memories of it.
Hey Gmanlives. Thank you for your video on Prodeus. I recently got a gaming laptop, and I recovered my Steam account. Prodeus is a blast, along with Selaco!
@@Shilorius thanks! I'll check it out.
Gman confirmed a truther, dropping that line JUST before 5:40.
I was about to log on Reddit to point out that. Damn man, no chill. lol.
@@amaliomontana No time to chill!
@@keihinherault9577 no reply I refuse.
honestly this game was ambitious, and at least romero made the source code freely available for modders to fix, and hilarious vid as always.
I was someone who stuck with the c-pad control scheme for these shooters back in the day, so even the controls weren't a problem for me.
What a crazy time. Weird ass control schemes and, what seemed like, random pricing for any given game.
I appreciate the point you made about adapting to controls, I haven’t played this specific game but I’ve always found it pretty easy to get used to older control schemes. I rarely have a problem as long as they’re consistent & the game is designed around them. I don’t expect everyone to have a blast learning how to play older games, but personally I find it fun to learn & master an unconventional control scheme. Convenience is nice, but I feel like standardized controls have kinda made newer games a bore.
C buttons for movement and thumbstick for aim was how i learned how to play FPS on the N64. and games like duke nukem 64, turok 64 and goldeneye 64 is the reason why i play with invert aim to this day.
yeah.
11:11 I always loved this song. As a kid I would stay on this level and just sit there because of how much I loved it. It does have its own version in the PC version of the game but for some reason I always liked the more midi sound of this one. Generally though the PC's soundtrack is criminally underappreciated. It's surprisingly, probably one of the better game soundtracks of the early 2000s.
Do you know the name of the song for that level I wanna give a listen it sounds dope af
@@darkk_darkk Yeah, just look up "Daikatana N64 ost - Mission 2"
I think it's fun to swim in all the drama that surrounds Daikatana's development because it's like one of the most talented game designers made every single bad mistake executing some very interesting ideas while he was clearly young and inexperienced managing a company and an entire game project, which he'd never had to do before. That said, while this version was clearly Eidos trying to make more of their EXTENSIVELY HUGE AMOUNT OF INVESTMENT back on Ion Storm Dallas, it looks like it's probably the better version because the Nintendo 64's hardware was so hecking limited. They literally couldn't put in all the bad stuff from the base game because they couldn't put in all the good, high-fidelity stuff either. As someone who did put a few hours into the PC version, it genuinely looks like a relief to not have to go through as many endless, drab levels while one-shotting baddies versus pixel-hunting dragonflies and frogs while navigating complex, non-sensical levels in exchange for not having voice-acting or functionally broken AI companions.
I almost wonder if this version had come out first, maybe the reception to both games wouldn't have been so absolutely horrific and this version would've been more of a middling N64 shooter than the "just as guilty" dirty port people treat as poorly as the base game based on, again, a bunch of extrinsic factors to the game itself.
In Japan, the N64 version was released first. On the 7th of April 2000. And the game still sucks balls across the board, regardless of the ports (excluding the GBC version, which was a bland Zelda clone that I don't recommend touching because better Zelda clones exist for the GBC). Don't let the revisionists tell you otherwise.
The AVGN reference was top tier
JonTrons first episode was how I learned of this game.
I have the PC version with the fan patch, but still was not into it. That said I barely gave it a chance, so maybe I should do so and play it a bit differently. That said, great vid. Killed me with that Medusa bit.
I'm in the same place with you, I gave it a try and was like eeehhh. Maybe I'll give it another go in the future.
there's a lot of better that era pc games to play if you haven't played them all.
heck, just give deus ex an another playthrough instead or even blood 2.
I do admittedly really love this game with the 1.3 patch and without sidekicks.
Also really like the GBC version. This N64 port is incredibly impressive tech-wise.
"but I don't wanna hurt MIDI music's feelings"--big lol moment for me.
Congratulations on your addition to the family. Love your channel.
Please do a review for "Project IGI"
Wonder if it withstood the test of time.
Because i remember it being groundbreaking.
Second. Played that demo a lot....
Its mad thinking Romero lives like an hour away from me now in Ireland.
Imagine a remake of it.
"John Romero is about to make you his bitch, again."
@@Aftertaste_ I'd trust 2022 Romero to make decent stuff when given a decent crew of people to work with him.
"George Romero is about to make you his they/them"
@dsdsd jklds Who ripped open a portal to Super Hell?
Great video as always, I did get hung up on the controls topic though at about 5:00 Like half of N64 games don't even use the Dpad at all by default, except for maybe tertiary functions like map toggles or weapon modes etc., Goldeneye and PD defaults to analog for forward/ back and turning left and right, and C left/right for strafing. Daikatanas control scheme is just Solitaire control scheme from Goldeneye, they did make a huge mistake not allowing multiple schemes though. But crossing your arms over each other? Why wouldn't you just hold the right side of the controller with your right hand and hold the center part with your left... like a normal person. XD Disclaimer: Not a Daikatana fan.
Lol I think he wants to aim with his right and move with his left. I actually knew people back in the day that played this way
@@low2833 I understand that, but to present using dpad for movement as the "normal/ default" way to play is a bit silly, no one uses the dpad lol
@@Bulbman123 true lol i know i never used the d-pad for fps games
@LOW It makes way more sense if he has one of those new controllers that isn't made for mutants.
For a nineties cartridge based console FPS this doesn`t look half bad TBH. And the lack of those buggy sidekicks seems to be an improvement, really.
subtle AVGN reference thrown in there ! nice stuff Gman
He was talking about Jontron
When I was moving from Puerto Rico to Florida my brother and I would rent video games for the n64 from blockbuster every week as all of our stuff was already shipped to Florida. We rented this and got up to the medieval village and had no fucking idea what to do. To this day I always thought about this damn game
bro that editing at 11:20 is just superb
What song was it?
@@Nodux359 Mishima Groove
Had no idea there was a Daikatana version for the 64. In Portugal, the third party N64 games were freaking expensive. Almost 1/4 of the minimum wage, back then.
I feel the C button movement felt really natural on the N64.
I had the N64 version. Finished and loved it as a kid 😂
WHen you are a young kid, sometimes you simply dont realize what you are playing is shit. I grew up with the commodore 64.....there was A LOOOOOT of SHIT on that system....but i did not get it was shit. Not until i revisited stuff as older....thats when it hit me....ye it was shite. Haha. Life is easier when young :) And as long as you are enjoying it....it does not really matter. I have never played Daikatana myself though so i have no idea how bad it actually was....but it sure dont have a good reputation.
@@karlandersson4350 Its not shit my friend it is what it is not shit not good either
@@NeilusNihilus if it's shit it implies it is good 👍
@@NeilusNihilus so it's good great i thank you for seeing my way👌
@@NeilusNihilus nah I speak American English not bri ish english
did not expect a rehabilitation of Daikatana 64 on this timeline, but I'm here for it
I picked this cart up for £10 many years ago with low expectations. It's actually not that bad.
Wow! I’m actually playing this game on my iPhone 15 Pro Max with the “Delta” emulator.
N64 controls can be weird, especially how hard wired they'll end up in your brain if you grew up with them.
I played Turok a lot as a kid so was really used to moving with C-Buttons and looking with analog. Years later after playing modern shooters I went back to Turok and decided to swap the controls to moving with D-Pad instead. Despite being a bit more modern I couldn't wrap my head around it since the default was so hard coded into me.
Oh look, it's Gmanlives with his hot takes again, oh my!
Nah seriously though, I agree with Daikatana being hated a little too much. Considering the development and ambition surrounding the game the fact it even released in a playable state was an accomplishment in itself. I'd say it was more disappointing then outright bad,
At least Ion Storm ended on a high note, Deus Ex is incredible, and I don't think we would have gotten it if Daikatana didn't exist.
I don't, because a polished turd is still a turd and the quality issues have not been solved after 20 years of fan patches.
Appreciate the AVGN reference, thanks
If the purpose of this video was to make me hope this game gets a reboot, then it succeeded.
Thank you for the videos gman. It's been rad seeing your channel grow over the years! I've actually re-visited a lot of these games because of your reviews!
Love your reviews.
Funny how the N64 version looks like the low-poly retro throwback games that are coming out these days.
Yeah but isn't that the point of the low poly throw back games, that they look like old games.
2:39
holy shit, I didn't know you're a father now, that's great news!
been watching vids since 2015, it's nice to see you grow.
You have a good life.
Haha, so glad I stuck around to the end. The 32x Doom fart music always cracks me up 🤣
I can't leave a comment without my buddy Superfly.
I need you to be honest with me rn, are we ever gonna get to see you cover the leaked Duke Nukem forever gameplay bc I been on the edge of my seat since I heard the news, waiting for your take on it.
Probably not.
@@Gggmanlives I see you have chosen not to be honest. Bold. Hurtful 😔 but bold.
I can't watch this video without my buddy Superfly.
I got the game back in the day and honestly loved it. To be fair, I loved pretty much everything, because I didn't have that many games and basically NEEDED to like them. 😂
But yeah, I managed to complete it without a guide or anything an remember being stuck in the village for quite some time. If I recall correctly, the melody you need to play, is the same time as the BGM, or something.
It's good now. It got a fan patch a few years back.. plays great in 4k and extra options such as wide screen support. Fov. Even multiplayer works lol and it's glitch free. I remember downloading this from kazaa back in the day 😀 Some of the maps and level design is pretty good when you get to later mission's.
What really hurt the game more was you could only get it as a rental
They didn't put it out to market for regular sale.
maybe romero should make this game again in todays tecnology
Hey, antialiasing on the N64 was pimp. It also had a Z buffer AND perspective-correct texture mapping which the PlayStation lacked. The N64 had absurdly low video RAM which is why the textures were often blurry. But it was state of the art 3D hardware for the time and, ceteris paribus, blew away the PlayStation.
As for Daikatana, it was just... a bad game. Trying to fix it is like trying to fix Sonic '06. You'll get some mechanical improvements, but you can't repair the overall design. It wasn't the worst game on PC or N64 but it was a huge disappointment, especially with Romero's name on the box.
The GBA one was really fun.
Yeah, completely agree. The N64 might look blurry by modern standards, but graphically it was the strongest console of it's own generation. It might have been held back by the tiny texture cache, but that was nothing compared to the issues the PS1 had. Early 3D was just a mess.
RAM was fine, cache was the problem
I don't really agree. I don't think it's bad at all, at least when sidekicks are disabled altogether and having the 1.3 patch.
Insulting Sonic 06 is how you prove nothing you said has any merit. That, and people actually having fun with both fixed games.
I've defended 06 since 2010, and I'm not stopping now, not when P-06 exists.
Just because you won't enjoy something no matter how many of its problems are fixed doesn't mean everyone else is gonna be the same. Learn to differentiate between your opinions and actual reality.
@@iminyourwalls8309 Except that cartridges didn't really impact the look of the games. Just compare any cross-platform game from that era, like Resident Evil 2 for example.
The disadvantage cartridges had were that they were more expensive to manufacture, so publishers preferred CDs; and they didn't have the storage space for pre-rendered videos, which were very popular at the time for eye-catching cut-scenes, so developers preferred CDs. But in terms of gameplay, the look of the actual game outside of cutscenes, cartridges were almost always superior. The decision to stick with cartridges was the wrong business decision, in retrospect, but not because the games looked bad.
You have some surprisingly good insights, man.
Theres actually a Fan Project for Doom32X where they’re fixing all the gameplay issues, Soundtrack and adding in all the levels that were left out. Its called Doom Resurrection 32x
Ah yes the c buttons for movement and the stick for looking. Way ahead of it’s time, I used to configure my controls like that for goldeneye and Turok 2 and just ran circles around my stick only scrub friends.
Splurged on a copy of this when I had a credit at a video game store. I knew it’s reputation but I’m glad to see a fair review of it.
It would be awesome to see a reboot considering that if done well, this could actually be a really immersive experience.
In Canada the N64 games was 110$ to 125$, this was insane! I still remember buying Cruising USA for 110$ with me brother, that was so mush money for 8 and 11 years old kids 😅
Bet you played the shit out of it.
@@mikeymaiku oh man I did! Good memories
Nintendo 64 games were expensive in Canada, too. A game like Doom 64 was $120 and it was never available to rent where I lived.
At least that one got an official port in 2020 thanks to Nightdive Studios.
That’s so fucked up. Why did they overcharge them so bad?
Here in America there were $60.
Pokémon stadium was the most expensive at $70.
@@dookylove 100$ canadian was like 60-70$ US back then
I remember paying $140 for super street fighter two turbo with the new challengers on the super Nintendo in my small town in northern BC
I remember playing this game when it came out as a kid on N64. Honestly to this day It is one of my favorite games on N64 lol. Anyways I never got past the music note level in the 3rd episode. I remember searching online at the time but there was no information on the correct order of the notes lol. sad to see I barely got halfway through the game
I feel you on that Plan 9
Used to play this together with a friend of mine when we were kids, good times.
I think it looks fun. Idk how you recorded this but that looks like really clean n64 capture. It'd be cool if you reviewed the other n64 fps games. Also what game is that at 29:06?
Cultic would be my guess
I can't leave without my buddy Superfly.
I actually never found the c-pad being used to move, and the thumb stick being used to aim as a problem. In fact, probably thanks to this game, that's how I played all of my N64 shooting games going forward. I liked the preciseness that the thumb stick offers, and how these games try to take advantage of said preciseness anyways, it reminds me of Metroid Prime 1 & 2 on Gamecube, and your typical Wii shooter controls, which, I guess it helps that I literally grew up with all of this, and continue to with my ever-expanding library.
I should probably add that this never impacted the way I play modern shooters, or at least other shooters on the GameCube and so on. In fact, I once tried to go N64-like lefty with Goldeneye Rogue Agent on Gamecube to try and take advantage of the left stick's apparent extra preciseness, and it was like trying to learn how to use a controller all over again, lol. Switched back, after an hour of struggling.
Next remake for night dive studios!
this game should get remade
Soundtrack was great on PC.
I cant stop playing the music comparison at 11:10 haha!
18:38 The way Gman is about to lose it makes this one of my favorite 'your mum' jokes
From what I can tell, Daikatana was intended to be an "Advanced FPS" for people who had mastered the movement mechanics of Quake. Seeing as how an N64 controller is less precise than mouse and keyboard, I suspect that's why the map design is completely different.
John had high expectations for this
Daikatana! Damn, I totally forgot about this crap but I do remember all the hype surrounding its announcement and all the frustration around its prolonged development!
5:35 classic AVGN
When the best version of your game is the gameboy color version, you know something is bad
The best Zelda is Link's Awakening.
@@Ponaru That was on the origonal game boy though.
Damn, that medusa joke can be retro-fitted to be anybody.
could of been my wife,
my girlfriend,
but you being the man of culture went right to the jugular.
Honestly that was the best gmanlives mum joke I've ever heard.
This was like a Civvie asylum flashback with extra pain. Completely forgot this ever existed and if the PC port is anything to go by then buckle chums. G, your mum says Hi.
You can tell they had the same voice actors for Deus Ex. The dude sounds like the NSF guy at the top of the statue of liberty and the girls damage and death sounds sound identical to female NPCs from Deus Ex.
Really appreciate the Portal joke
you play as miamoto kojima soccer guy, that's pretty epic 8/10 you feel like batman
Love the memes used and the Angry Video Game Nerd references haha
"a fresh look at maligned or forgotten console FPS" could be a fine series. Stuff like Kileak, Codename: Tenka, Brahma Force, Crime Crackers (Gman suffers through the excesses of anime is popular right?) and MANY more.
That fart at the beginning ... that's some epic foreshadowing there
I used to play N64 FPS with movement on the C buttons and look on the analog stick, it was the 1.2 Solitaire option in Golden Eye, and it wasn't till years later that I realized how painful that was.
One of my favorite and most memorable rentals as a kid
This game could’ve been a very good and potential FPS game if John and his team,ION Studios would taken enough time to make a very enjoyable game. It’s nice that they’re people who’re making MODS to fix all of the flaws,and it’s a good thing too.
It would be nice if Night Dive Studios will make a remaster version of this and fixes the games issues that the original one had. It’ll make a very good comeback for Daikatana.
Time would not have changed anything this game was in development for ever and still run like shit
It real problem it was way too much ambitious