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I’ve been looking forward to this one. In circles of fans of Deus Ex, E.Y.E. and similar titles I’ve always heard whispers of a game called…
Daikatana is another fast-paced FPS wrought in what some might consider the golden age of FPS’s. Quake, Unreal, Goldeneye, Heretic, Hexen, DOOM, Duke Nukem, Shadow Warrior–it was a time of exciting level design, frantic gunfights and weapons that ranged from realistic to ridiculous. Daikatana fits right in with this and potentially on a more brutal level. Daikatana is brutal. Expecting it to be about on par difficulty-wise with the aforementioned FPS’s, (and having beaten most of the aforementioned FPS’s) I didn’t anticipate much resistance from the game. I was wrong. After dying a few times on the second section of level 1, I decided I should probably start trying. So I did. And I kept dying. So I decided to try harder. I still kept dying. I decided to give the game my full attention, using every piece of information available to me in order to achieve success. I did not beat level 1.
The nice thing about Daikatana, is that the game didn’t feel cheap–simply hard. When I died, I understood why I died and I could clearly see what I was supposed to avoid it. Health pickups seemed rather uncommon for a game of this nature and I found myself actually trying to avoid combat via way of speed. This created a high-energy style of play involving dodging past turrets, acid-spitting frogs, deadly dragon flies and mutant alligators. There’s nothing about that sentence that I didn’t like.
But what is the story of Daikatana or the lore behind the actual blade itself, the Daikatana? Back in ancient-time Japan, some guy made a crazy awesome sword called the Daikatana. Not only did it let an ancient Samurai slaughter literally thousands of his foes, the creator also gave time-traveling powers. They decided that the sword was far too powerful, so they threw it into the fires of Mordor–er–some volcano. In present day 20-something-future-world, some old-dude spent all his money on an expedition to get the sword back. One of the old dude’s rivals, some rich leader of a corporation, shows the old man that once again, there is nothing that the old man possesses that he cannot take away by stealing the Daikatana. He then goes back in time and completely changes history by stealing the cure to a deadly disease and selling it off in minor doses, thus becoming insanely rich. Hiro, our protagonist, lives in this altered world, unaware that history has been changed. The old man shows up at his doorstep one day, asks him to steal back the Daikatana and rescue his daughter. He then dies of course, as a pair of ninjas assassinate him in front of Hiro. Hiro suits up and sets off for a futuristic fight against an evil ninja corporation tyrant and his army.
Compared to the titles referenced at the beginning, the speed of play and difficulty of Daikatana set it apart. Otherwise, it’s pure old-school FPS goodness. Probably nothing I haven’t seen before but still worth taking a look at if not for the simple fact that awesome is still awesome, giving it the accolade of Tier 1.
