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This stuff happens ALL of the time. Its especially bad during the Japan episode. The latest fan patch seems to significantly improve the situation. I just replayed the game and I only had to reload a game ONCE due to the AI getting stuck. Before this patch it would require dozens of reloads thanks to the stupid AI getting stuck. The AI issues in this game were soul crushingly bad and the game was built around them.
When the game first came out it was also incredibly buggy, had crashing issues and only allowed you to save using rare gems you found in the game.
Yet another issue is the game's very poor first impressions. An extremely long convoluted and boring cutscene followed by some very dull swamp missions fighting robotic mosquitos.
Now factor in that this game was hyped significantly back in the day and people expected pure gold from former rockstar id Software employee John Romero who claimed his game would make us his ♥♥♥♥♥ and you had a recipe for disaster. Daikatana can be compared to modern bombs like Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens Colonial Marines where an epic experience was hyped and expected and a mediocre game at best was delivered.
With all of that said, thanks to the wonderful 1.3 fan patch this game has gone from bad to actually... decent. If only the game had shipped in this state back in 2000 and the game might have received a positive reception.
It doesn't happen all the time. And it isn't Japan episode specific. It mostly happens due badly placed AI nodes and they're fairly easy to circumvent once you know where they are. I recently played Daikatana 1.0 through on Shogun difficulty and I only had to reload 2-3 times to get around silly AI issues. Only one of them was really frustrating and I had to use console to over come it.
By the way the thing on the video you linked didn't happen to me in 1.0. And it has not happened to me in 1.1 or 1.2. I've seen something similar but that is not a big issue in the game. Far bigger AI issue is that if you're not careful the sidekicks might run in your line of fire (especially if they run out of ammo) or get stuck in a vent or something.
True. 1.0 has bad bugs. And 1.0 crashes certain points of the game. The game crashed probably 3-5 times during my recent 1.0 playthrough. But by far the biggest problem with 1.0 is that is not very optimised. It requires quite a bit better machine than what the manual says it does.
With that said I didn't encounter nearly as much problems as I originally did when I got the game. But most of the stuff I listed in another thread still holds up. I also found that patches 1.1 and 1.2 introduce bugs that 1.0 didn't have. For example there is an extra wall in Greece episode that causes whole room to be pitch-black and you cannot see turning wheel in version 1.2. Another issue in 1.2 is that sidekicks tend to fail in ladders. That didn't occur in 1.0 as much as it does in 1.2.
The savegems are bad design. But they're not rare. You do need to search for them but usually at least one in every level is placed in such a way that you cannot miss it. And there are more of them on easier difficulty levels.
The major problem with the save gems is that you need to know where to save. And if you're playing the game first time you have no way to know that. It leads to problem where you constantly save too early and then you are in constant need of save gems.
Not to mention that you can only carry three savegems at a time. When you have three of them and you'll see fourth you'll have to make a save there. That's pretty silly. Daikatana would work better without this kind of "manual autosave". Automatic saves would also resolve the need to know where and when to save. (But they would also make the game significantly easier.)
That wasn't the primary issue. The primary issue was that Ion Storm and Eidos hyped the Daikatana as THE NEXT DOOM and THE NEXT QUAKE. And the prerendered stuff they were showing looked really good giving some merit to those claims (eventually only a fraction of them were actually featured in the game).
Not to mention that there was the "Romero is about to make you his ♥♥♥♥♥, suck it down." ad that insulted great deal of people combined with Romero's attitude at the time.
Then the game was not ready on time. At the time it took 1-2 years to make an FPS. Daikatana took nearly 4 years. And people didn't like it that Romero hired his girlfriend to playtest the game and do maps for it. And other issues.
What we eventually got was in many ways incomplete attempt at making sophisticated story driven FPS. The concept was in many ways ahead of its time while the technology powering the game was 2-4 years behind. And the execution was average at best.
But you've been able to skip the opening cutscene with pressing esc. And there's even an option in the menu that makes the game go straight into the action so it will not even load the opening introduction in between.
The frogs and skeets aren't the biggest problem in the opening levels. By far the biggest problem is that the opening levels don't explain anything about the game. You have to figure out things by yourself. Or know them from having been played other FPS games. For example Daikatana expects player to know how to bunnyhop.
Daikatana was one of the first highly public flops where AAA game goes to vaporware status only to emerge one day and becomes a commercial failure after being unable to meet enormous expectations placed on it.
Considering how public had already predetermined that Daikatana was a bad game and how the game has been designed from level design to the weapon and monster design I doubt that giving it more polish before release would have changed anything in a major way.
Daikatana is a game John Romero made for himself and it shows in many ways. While the game isn't actually "that much difficult" it can be a really frustrating if you don't know what you're doing.
There are dozens of videos of the AI crapping out, I just picked one at random. The game was almost unplayable for me in 1.2 let alone earlier versions. Ledges, vents, elevator shafts, you name it and they would get stuck in it and I'd spend literally 5+ minutes trying to unstick them multiple times in almost every level in Japan.
That doesn't change the fact that most people are going to sit through it their first time so they know whats going on and it isn't the most engaging of opennings. Each of the issues I listed can be considered minor (except the MAJOR AI issues) but they all stack together into large pile of crap.
Back when it was released I went in with an open mind. The game crushed my soul and I wasn't able to beat it. When you blaze through a level and then spend more time calling, nudging and prodding the NPCs to move toward the exit point only to have them crushed by a door or elevator and have to restart the level over again from scratch... it wears on you.
The AI issues aren't the players fault either way. The player should not have to learn that he shouldn't walk too far to the left or whatever or the AI will get stuck. Thats just bad programming in a game built around these AI companions.
If your point is that the game 'wasn't that bad' I couldn't disagree more, it was a complete mess with few redeeming qualities. With that said, the game has improved bit by bit through patches and I honestly can say that I had fun with it in the recent 1.3 patch. 15 years later and a playthrough of Daikatana was finally an enjoyable experience... lol.
Honestly there are maybe 5-8 critical spots in the whole game (any version) where the sidekicks might completely fail to function (as opposed to simple poking or order spamming to get them on move). And I think only two of them are in Japan episode. And I've played the game enough to know this. Of course there can be issues that are triggered by bad game configs or differences between computers which I am not aware of.
In 1.0 I saw two of them happen to me. And I consider myself lucky because I only had two issues where sidekick got stuck and I had to go back to push it through an obstacle.
If you're playing at the pace of the sidekicks then you don't have to backtrack. Of course it's broken or it has balance issues when you have to do that. But I've viewed it as one of the RPG elements in the game. You have to keep your sidekicks in mind and consider their advantages and disadvantages (like which weapons you give them and how you ratio ammunition).
I am just tired of seeing two particular videos out of all those dozen of videos being constantly linked here. Especially when it is not really an huge issue when you actually play the game. You can on purpose make both of them happen. That is just one of the many reasons why I consider that particular video very bad one.
Yeah, 1.2 has node issues that are not in 1.0, 1.0 has entirely other issues. But the node issues don't cause the game to be almost unplayable. You don't have to know to walk specific ways or anything like that.
There are two ledders where sidekick could get stuck. Mikiko especially because in 1.2 her nodes are misaligned in some maps. Superfly has problems navigating in vents but there aren't that many vents in the game. Spending five minutes figuring out sidekick issues is regrettable but is insignificant when you have to spend an hour figuring out something else.
And I strongly disagree that there are more than 5-10 places in Japan episode where the sidekicks get stuck. But it isn't like I don't believe you. I just haven't seen that many to fail. At once at least.
You maybe watch the opening video once and then you don't care about it. I just don't understand people who always watch it through like it's forced or something.
The AI issues aren't a major problem. They're just node issues and easy to fix most of the time.
When I got the game I played it through and beated it. My major issue with the game was the obscure level design back then. And I'd say that's the largest issue in the game to this day for anyone who is new to the Daikatana.
I know the feeling but I'm sorry. I just don't consider the sidekick problems and other NPC problems in the game major in contrast to other issues it had before 1.3 like the optimisation problems. It's still a huge issue in the game in 1.2. There are some rooms in Daikatana that cause 1,3Ghz Athlon with 512 MB, and GF6200 to crumble and crawl 15~20 FPS on screen before it pisses underneath itself and dies.
The AI node placement has nothing to do with the programming. It's a problem in the way level was developed and what the person sitting behind the level editor did.
I agree that if the game had issue where you'd need to know specific move patterns it would be bad but like I wrote the issue we are talking about isn't that. It's a very simple issue to fix if and when it happens in the game. You can just poke the sidekick and issue order. Even in the spot you showed on video.
B-But it wasn't as bad as _I remembered_ it being. I've played the game through many times over these years. I think I'm somewhere between 7 and 9 playthroughs now. And I've played the 1.0 through couple of times. With good hardware and with at least some understanding how the game works and is supposed to be played it works... barely... but it works.
When I played 1.0 recently the only completely game breaking part was e4m6a after you've completed e4m6b and come back to e4m6a. During the whole gameplay the sidekicks got stuck three times and I was able to solve those issues in less than a minute. The game crashed at least three times and then some more in those same places when I was trying to figure out how to avoid crash.
One interesting thing was that there's actually lots of more dialogue in 1.0 which you cannot hear in 1.2. That was recently fixed so now in 1.3 you should be able to hear all the dialogue between the sidekicks too.
I've sincerely enjoyed Daikatana since I got it. It wasn't always fun and there were times when it was incredibly frustrating. But coming over these and other issues has been incredibly satisfying. And I've as a result grown to be a better gamer.
But yeah, Daikatana as a game was not fundamentally broken. I've seen much worse games to appear before and afterwards release of Daikatana.
If you are too young / or just wasn't interested enough at the time to remember, then you probably have a different opinion.
anyways. had it been not with the sidekicks, it wouldn't have tried to pioneer as much as it did. it is a fact that at the time there were really no games where you had npc sidekicks that move at speed and crawl vents, jump gaps and climb ladders. the ambition was great for this game but it just should've been more polished up before releasing.