2025 Special - Daikatana

Let me go ahead and say it outright, Daikatana for the Game Boy Color was a disappointment. I had heard about this port for quite some time. Everyone claims that it's better than the PC original, and maybe they're right, but that doesn't make the GBC port good. I'm going to try and keep this review as short and sour as possible. There's not a whole lot of game here anyway. The average play-though takes two or so hours, and there isn't any real exploration or sidequests to engage in. In some ways, this felt like a scaled-back port that follows the same basic storyline but squishes entire levels into a handful of screens. It's like Kemco was trying to push me towards buying the "full version" available wherever PC games are sold. That's never going happen.

I suppose in the loosest sense this could be considered a Legend of Zelda-like. Hiro Miyamoto is a man on a mission to stop Mishima Zaibatsu and Team Ninja from using the Daikatana to conquer the world. He infiltrates Mishima's base and steals the legendary blade. Along the way, he rescues Superfly Johnson and Mikiko Ebihara. The three are then caught by Mishima and launched into a time warp. A cyberpunk game with cool swords and time travel should've been the greatest thing ever, but... well that's enough picking on the PC game. Much like the early days of Zelda, Hiro and his allies move from screen to screen, engaging enemies and puzzles along the way. The concept is sound, but mechanically there's little enjoyment to be had.

Aside from the titular weapon, Hiro can use a large variety of ranged or melee weapons. These are found throughout each level alongside limited ammo pickups, healing items, and armor. A menagerie of adversaries stalks the halls, typically in groups of two or three. The combat is... not great. Enemies that use guns try to keep their distance, but anyone with a sword will rush the protag. It's a sensible strategy for the enemy but fighting them always comes off as sloppy or mushy. There's none of the deft gameplay seen in other sword-centric overhead games. Even a little hit-stun would've gone a long way. Gunning baddies down with projectile weapons is probably the better idea, but ammo is limited. Everything that would benefit the player is in limited supply, disincentivizing combat encounters. This is drilled into the player's head once they realize that enemies respawn when changing floors. Basically, fighting isn't fun, and it wastes resources. Not a good look. 

Did I mention that there wasn't any exploration or sidequests? Yes, I did. Hunting for weapon and armor upgrades would've been a cool feature, except there's nothing of the sort here. The player receives a boost to their maximum health when a boss is defeated, but the damage scaling renders that boon awfully pointless. Over the course of a play-through, my HP went from 100 to 450. The final boss could still kill me in five hits. Sure, whatever. There are a few puzzles interspersed throughout. The most I can say about them is that they don't take up too much time.

Since I've already mentioned the final boss, I may as well talk about the final level as well. This place is awful. Hiro has to navigate a circle of rooms, turning dragon statues in multiple directions, all to open stairways to four mini-bosses. A fine concept but notice that I said stairways. Indeed, all of the enemies respawn every time Hiro returns from a mini-boss battle. The lack of resources and unfun combat make this entire level a painful slog. 

If you absolutely must play every top-down action-adventure game that stars a guy with a sword, then I can only hope that you're actually me from the future. Maybe future me will realize that he was wrong and go back in time to stop past me from having such insipid ideas.