/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.8924721]

Why is this considered sinfully bad? It's just an okay clone of Quake/Unreal. Were people just bored of games like this by the year 2000?

[Anonymous No.8924723]

>>8924721
Because of this cringe

[Anonymous No.8924741]

>>8924721
>lots of hype
>60/100 game
>ambitious use of AI partners - they are shit and mandatory
>worst level of the game is the first one and people assumed it was all down hill from there and noped out pretty fast
I purchased it because its name seemed cool from a used PC store with no knowledge of it's reputation. The guy behind the counter legitimately laughed at me buying that and after playing it for an hour or two it was shit compared to complete one off FPS games from nobody studios. It just is not a very good game and no one can say I had a preconceived idea that it was bad

[Anonymous No.8924767]

>>8924741
This. Also the worst part of the game is the first quarter which really hurt its image

[Anonymous No.8924772]

>>8924721
a broken mess of a game with garish looks, tiny enemies, useless weapons, tacked on upgrades, AI babysitting, retarded save system and annoying loading screen.
it's at best bearable once you install a patch that toggles most of that off, but there's still nothing worth playing it for.

[Anonymous No.8924798]

>>8924741
I've heard the AI partners being outright shit is the reason they were removed from the N64 port, is this true?

[Anonymous No.8924805]

>>8924721
Your first weapon does splash damage and there's almost no room to use it.

[Anonymous No.8924940]

>>8924798
Probably true, removing them could do nothing but improve the game

[Anonymous No.8925029]

I just beat Daikatana coincidentally. The AI teammates were the most frustrating part, but overall I had a lot of fun with it. I think what killed its popularity is that it's one of the rare few games that is backloaded rather than frontloaded. Episode 1 is by far the worst, especially the first two levels. If you can make it past level 2, then you can rest assured that the game never gets that bad again. Episode 2 has Unreal vibes and begins to introduce more non-linear level design. The main problem with Episode 2 is that it's very easy and most of the weapons are pointless. Episode 3 is where Romero's influence feels the strongest. Episode 3 is like Quake, with a touch of Hexen. Episode 4 has banging music and all of the weapons were fun to use, although the story cutscenes got excessive.
>E4 > E3 > E2 > E1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_Pp9yEmJ70

[Anonymous No.8925065]

>>8924721
It's a cool game :)

[Anonymous No.8925140]

>>8924721
Has anyone asked John how he feels about the source leaking out? He gave it out to a small group to port and patch the game and they ended up leaking it out.

[Anonymous No.8925143]

>>8924721
Because your AI partners are fucking broken, the first level is an obnoxious mess and most of the weapons suck, play the modded version without AI partners and guess what, it's pretty good.

[Anonymous No.8925251]

>>8924721
I couldn't get invested in it. I completed it but didn't give two fucks about anything. You can change your theme for each episode, that's okay, I don't mind. But if you change the enemies, I don't want to learn their patterns, how much damage they deal, how much abuse they can take, because I will have to learn it all again next chapter. By the end I just saw something move and shot without second thought of what it was or what's the best way to handle it.
Weapons change every chapter. Same deal. Why would I bother learning what's the best use of each weapon if they will be taken away? I need to experiment each new weapon with each new enemy every time? No thank, I'm good. Most enemies are ankle-level anyway, let's just melee everything.
I was probably "playing it wrong", but there's no incentive to "play it right" either. If the game design makes no effort, why should I?

[Anonymous No.8925798]

>>8924721
>1. John Romero was very hot shit at the time.
>2. John Romero was very hot shit at the time, because he created a narrative that he singlehandedly created Doom and Quake.
>3. Dai-Katana was promised to be better than both.
>4. The game got delayed a bunch of times.
>5. Word spread out that the development of the game was a big fat circus, engine changes, people getting fired, embezzlement, drama, drama, drama.
>6. The game FINALLY comes out, and it isn't the best game in the world as promised.
>7. It also isn't anywhere near the worst, but it's damn buggy and has some annoying gameplay quirks, and public opinion turned on John Romero in all this time (because he had been a real asshole at the time) and people wanted to come down hard on him.
So what you have is a lot of noise, time, and money, resulting in something which didn't take the world by storm. It's by no means an atrocity of a game, especially if you patch it, and even more so if you mod out the AI companions, it's actually largely decent to good, with some bad parts at places.

Compare to the legendary E.T for the Atari 2600, which bankrupted Atari and almost destroyed the industry (it didn't, and it didn't), and is the worst game in the entire history of the universe (it's not exactly good, but it's not even close to the worst game on the 2600), and was so bad that they buried it in the desert (basically true, but not the way the legend always told of it).
Games touted as The Worst Ever are seldom the worst of their kind, and sometimes they're actually not half bad. Dai-Katana is no perfectly cut jewel, but I would say that it's a rough and flawed, but also fairly clear and sizeable little gem which ends up looking quite nice if you clean and polish it up a bit, and don't look at the really rough and uneven backside too much. There's some very good stuff in there.

[Anonymous No.8925925]

>>8924723
1999: john romero is going to make you his bitch (rape you)
2022: he/him. donate to mermaids uk folx

[Anonymous No.8925950]

>>8924721
A lot of promises and none of them were actually fulfilled.

Same as with Peter Molyneux's Fable, but at least that game was minimally playable and liked by some people
For Daikatana, go play Turok instead.

[Anonymous No.8926170]

>>8924721
hello john

[Anonymous No.8926174]

>>8924721
It was hyped to hell and back, had a long dev-cycle so it was obsolete when it dropped, and was riddled with game-breaking bugs.

[Anonymous No.8926319]

>>8925925
>(rape you)
stretch before you reach that hard

[Anonymous No.8926331]

Speaking of, what happened to that Romero game that was announced some time in the distant past

[Anonymous No.8926340]

>>8926331
SIGIL 2 was only last year. BLACKROOM was 6 years ago and they gave up after a lukewarm reception on Kickstarter. I heard they would try to build some kind of prototype (again, 6 years ago) so they could try another crowd-funding campaign. The KS page for the slowpokes:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nightworkgames/blackroom-a-new-fps-from-romero-and-carmack?token=07458251

[Anonymous No.8926356]

>>8926340
Oh shit, I forgot about Severity. It was (is?) a "pro-gamer fast-paced arena shooter++" meant to be designed by (or at least taking feedback from?) people like Angel Munoz (no idea who this guy is), Tom Mustaine (ex Ritual Entertainment), Randy Pitchford (yeah... him) and John Romero. It was announced around 2006 and two years later, Romero publicly announced it was cancelled... before Tom Mustaine corrected him on Twitter and said the project wasn't cancelled. Still no news about that thing but the implication is that Romero got kicked out of the project.

[Anonymous No.8926364]

>>8926340
>Blackroom
That's the one. Seems like everyone stopped talking about this game without it ever being officially cancelled, hence my curiosity.
I actually didn't know about Sigil.

[Anonymous No.8926369]

>>8926340
>>8926364
Just to make it clear: I meant to say "sigil 2 was only [ANNOUNCED] last year"

[Anonymous No.8927674]

>>8925140
when did this happened?, I see a good game if someone fix its shit

[Anonymous No.8927678]

>>8924721
I played this on n64, ask me anything

[Anonymous No.8927690]

>>8926364
Sigil is a single episode mapset for Doom 1. It's nothing revolutionary or anything, and mostly uses stock Doom 1 textures, but the quality of the levels are all very good and well made. On Ultra-Violence, it's tough as nails, a bit like of Romero had made all of Thy Flesh Consumed for Ultimate Doom, but it's more reserved on Hurt Me Plenty.
The base version is free, with MIDIs by modding community people like Jimmy Paddock, but you can get a special version for £6.66, which has a recorded soundtrack by Buckethead. There was also a bunch of physical boxed versions with a bunch of trinkets/knicknacks, infamously it was delayed, allegedly because of the distributor.

Sigil 2 is supposed be a Doom 2 mapset, apparently a full 32 levels. Who knows what the music will be, but it'll probably be much the same, just bigger and with Doom 2's additional monsters. Just the same, it'll probably not break any new ground, but you don't need think outside the box to grill a damn good and satisfying steak, the levels will beyond the shadow of a doubt be very well made, and there'll be a free version.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Romero, for his quirks and flaws, is a rock solid level designer, and still better than the overwhelming majority of AAA level designers in the 2020s.

[Anonymous No.8927701]

>>8926340
This the one I remember. I remember all the edits people made of the guy fist bumping other characters.

[Anonymous No.8927718]

>>8925798
>2. John Romero was very hot shit at the time, because he created a narrative that he singlehandedly created Doom and Quake.
Oi, that's not true, the narrative was that Romero was responsible for the visuals and design ideas, it was very much "Carmack coded everything solo because he is an inhuman computer and Romero made everything else".
>>8926340
Oh shit, didn't know Sigil 2 was announced, that sounds radical.

[Anonymous No.8928242]

>>8926319
wym? thats exactly what the literal meaning of making someone your bitch entails
not even him btw

[Anonymous No.8929620]

>>8924721
>It's just an okay clone of Quake/Unreal
You've never played 5 minutes of this game in your life. Why did you make this thread?

[Anonymous No.8930084]

>>8927678
why do you hate life?

[Anonymous No.8930173]

Why is this game like 90$ cart only now on the n64? Is there a contrarian renaissance I don’t know about?

[Anonymous No.8930253]

>>8924721
It was hyped up way too much and didn't deliver. The Cyberpunk of that era

[Anonymous No.8930268]

>>8924721
You can at least fix it to being passable by nuking AI and applying patches, but then you get pic related so who cares?

[Anonymous No.8930273]

>>8927690
>Goofus is still putting out vanilla wads like it's 1995
>Gallant moved on to several other exponentially improved engines, rocketry, and VR

[Anonymous No.8930440]

>>8930273
Carmack is a tech man, and not all that much of gamer, the engine and presentation was always much more important to him than the game itself.

[Anonymous No.8930783]

>>8926319
Not before JoRo stretches my asshole after he beats me at Doom deathmatch

[Anonymous No.8930795]

>>8930783

[Anonymous No.8930819]

>>8930273
Honestly, if Doom ports are handled like EDuke32, I'd rather stick to vanilla specs too.
>Oh no, we broke Duke Hard. Who cares? Just bundle the mod with its own executable.
>Hey guys, we "fixed" the doors, it's creating other bugs and enemies are getting stuck more often, but at least, they can't crush you anymore.
>Yay! True room-over-room (we cannot guarantee this feature will not be completely rewritten within the next ten updates, which will make your maps work only on specific version of EDuke - just update your map indefinitely to the new specs)
Not saying it's what's going on with Doom. I mostly play vanilla stuff anyway.

[Anonymous No.8931049]

>>8930819
EDuke32 is such a piece of fucking shit, I love how every single update breaks every single mod.

[Anonymous No.8931060]

>>8931049
Agree. When I build levels for Duke3D, I always test them with the original game in DOSBox. All I want is a decent port, no bells, no whistle, the bare minimum (native Windows executable, mouse support and desktop resolution)... as long as it's accurate to the real thing, it's perfect.
I really don't understand what they're doing with the code base. If they want to create an all-purpose Build engine, they should fork the Duke3D code, not experiment on it. Baffling.

[Anonymous No.8931130]

>>8930819
Except no one was talking about Duke. The community has made things a million times more impressive than this social media addict, bride ordering, grifter.

[Anonymous No.8931884]

>>8924721
>play demo (on game disc with a pc mag)
>it's the first level (the marsh)
>frogs, turrets and dragon flies, oh my!

[Anonymous No.8931895]

>>8931884
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-bg_YWGpTU&t=1880s

[Anonymous No.8931904]

>>8925925
>he/him. donate to mermaids uk folx
Woah, based.

[Anonymous No.8932064]

>>8924721
>Why is this considered sinfully bad?

You're probably playing it today after a series of official and unoffiical patches make it way more playable. On release the game was a buggy mess that couldn't even run right and would often crash. Then there was the partner AI which was dreadful. Then you had the hype that this was gonna be the best game ever, and people hated it.

So if you strip that all away it's probably a 7-8/10 game if you just focus on the actual game itself.

https://daikatana.fandom.com/wiki/1.3_Patch

>>8924741
And the people who whine about the first level forget that Metroid Prime, a game that is nothing but shooting little bugs in swamps is consdered a 10/10 masterpiece.

[Anonymous No.8932132]

>>8932064
The first level was just boring. It's the second level in the sewer that is genuinely bad. First impressions mean a lot.

[Anonymous No.8932148]

>>8932132
But as I said, there's different expectations. Metroid Prime starts hella slow as well as you're just trudging through swamps shooting rats and bugs. In fact, when playing Daikatana I sorta wish you could just run around and explore more. A combination of exploration and Quake style shooting would have been revolutionary at the time.

[Anonymous No.8932540]

>>8931884
>frogs, dragon flies
That's the whole game. You punch rats in the face until Alcatraz (included)... in fact there are still some in the final Mishima building. The game even introduce more tiny critters as it progresses (like worms and spiders). However, IIRC they calm down with flying tiny enemies like bats after the medieval section... so at least you're somewhat spared in the last chapter.
Those annoying little "enemies" are the only one trope I'm glad FPS left behind. I guess it's a vestige from paper RPG games, but Kingpin had fucking rats and SHRIMPS! Come the fuck on.