This is a frustrating game to rate, so I'll be writing a review. Unpatched, this game is borderline unplayable, or at least you're not going to want to keep playing because of the buggy AI companions, constantly having to babysit them, and the limited saves. However playing with the community patch actually makes this game pretty decent, and since the patch is endorsed by Romero himself that's what I'll be basing my rating on.
It still suffers from having probably one of the worst first impressions to a video game I've ever experienced though. The first two levels are a swamp followed by a sewer, the enemies you fight are annoying, everything is green, and most of the weapons you get are garbage. The first episode is by far the worst part of the game, but the 2nd and 3rd episodes are genuinely pretty great and remind me a lot of Hexen II, which I like a lot. The weapon variety is sweet and besides most of the episode 1 guns, are satisfying and fun to use. I particularly like the ballista that you can "rocket jump" with and the demon summoning staff that uses gibs as ammo, which is such a Romero thing to design it made me lose my shit. Having unique weapons and enemies depending on which time period you're in works pretty well and is definitely a highlight of the game for me.
Another thing I personally feel works well enough is the rpg mechanic where you can put a point in a stat of your choosing. It allows flexibility in how you want to play and I like it. I focused on damage and health because I figured I'd probably have a hard time eventually but by the time I reached the 4th episode I was practically unkillable. I do feel like you already move quickly enough without points in the speed stat, and the acrobatics stat feels kinda useless besides for getting certain secrets, but they're there for people who want to run and jump around like crazy. Getting kills with the Daikatana will level up the sword instead of yourself so it gets more powerful, but I feel like it isn't really worth it. The story is nothing special and it has the habit of dumping you with exposition all the time. Personally I don't really care about story in an fps game but if you're expecting good writing then it isn't here. The music however is really good and fits the theme of each time period well. Check out the songs "Iced Passage I", "Gangland", and "Modern Mystery" if you want a taste, those are my highlights.
Would I recommend Daikatana? Well, if you can stomach the first episode of the game, then I think there's stuff to like here. I could only recommend playing it with the 1.3 patch though and to be honest, playing with AI companions disabled wouldn't be a bad idea since I feel like they don't add much to the game anyway and just serve as an annoyance. All you'd be missing out on are some comments they make on things during gameplay. Do I think Daikatana is overhated? No, not really. I think the hate for the unpatched game is 100% deserved and I can understand how it'd be hard to appreciate the good in this game when you're constantly dealing with the AI shenanigans. It's frustrating because this game is way too ambitious for it's own good and could have easily been so much better, but unfortunately that's not what we got.
It still suffers from having probably one of the worst first impressions to a video game I've ever experienced though. The first two levels are a swamp followed by a sewer, the enemies you fight are annoying, everything is green, and most of the weapons you get are garbage. The first episode is by far the worst part of the game, but the 2nd and 3rd episodes are genuinely pretty great and remind me a lot of Hexen II, which I like a lot. The weapon variety is sweet and besides most of the episode 1 guns, are satisfying and fun to use. I particularly like the ballista that you can "rocket jump" with and the demon summoning staff that uses gibs as ammo, which is such a Romero thing to design it made me lose my shit. Having unique weapons and enemies depending on which time period you're in works pretty well and is definitely a highlight of the game for me.
Another thing I personally feel works well enough is the rpg mechanic where you can put a point in a stat of your choosing. It allows flexibility in how you want to play and I like it. I focused on damage and health because I figured I'd probably have a hard time eventually but by the time I reached the 4th episode I was practically unkillable. I do feel like you already move quickly enough without points in the speed stat, and the acrobatics stat feels kinda useless besides for getting certain secrets, but they're there for people who want to run and jump around like crazy. Getting kills with the Daikatana will level up the sword instead of yourself so it gets more powerful, but I feel like it isn't really worth it. The story is nothing special and it has the habit of dumping you with exposition all the time. Personally I don't really care about story in an fps game but if you're expecting good writing then it isn't here. The music however is really good and fits the theme of each time period well. Check out the songs "Iced Passage I", "Gangland", and "Modern Mystery" if you want a taste, those are my highlights.
Would I recommend Daikatana? Well, if you can stomach the first episode of the game, then I think there's stuff to like here. I could only recommend playing it with the 1.3 patch though and to be honest, playing with AI companions disabled wouldn't be a bad idea since I feel like they don't add much to the game anyway and just serve as an annoyance. All you'd be missing out on are some comments they make on things during gameplay. Do I think Daikatana is overhated? No, not really. I think the hate for the unpatched game is 100% deserved and I can understand how it'd be hard to appreciate the good in this game when you're constantly dealing with the AI shenanigans. It's frustrating because this game is way too ambitious for it's own good and could have easily been so much better, but unfortunately that's not what we got.