"Dayyyytonaaa!" Yes! The best racing game (before Sega Rally came out)
around is now available at home. No more lining up in arcades, just sit back on
your couch and enjoy all the thrills of roaring around in a Daytona stock car,
wiping out your opponents as you go along.
Daytona USA made ridiculous amounts of money for Sega in the arcade, totally
blowing away the competition and creating a massive surge of interest in arcades
for all sorts of people. Since Daytona, Sega has been bringing out big, crowd
drawing attractions on a regular basis, almost totally removing the seedy image
of games parlours (now they all like to be known as "family entertainment
centres").
Being such an immensely popular, and widely known and accepted game, Daytona
was the natural choice to be one of the being new to programming for the Saturn,
even AM2, the cream of the crop in 3D games, had difficulty with such an
ambitious project.
In the end, converting the Model 2 game to a Saturn game came with a couple of
sacrifices, chief of which was the lower screen resolution and a clearly visible
case of "pop-up".
In other words, you can see details further along the road drawing onto the
screen in big blocks. Having played the game, I really don't see what the fuss
is about. The pop-up isn't bothersome, you don't think about at all while
playing - you see, you'll be having way too much fun to notice.
As far as the really important things go, ie the gameplay, it is nigh-on
perfect. It feels just like the arcade, even with the joypad, and no speed has
been sacrificed at all.
Daytona rips along at a great pace, the FX are great, the music can get
irritating, and all three tracks are there, replicated in incredible detail.
It's still the most fun on four wheels, and despite the disappointment that
it's only one player, Daytona has plenty to offer. There's a brand new Saturn
mode with many different cars to choose from, you can even play as a horse! On
top of this, there's a Mirror Mode, an Endurance Mode, and a bunch of great
options to play around with.
So what if it isn't arcade perfect? This is still one of the best playing and
totally exciting racing games ever produced. Almost essential to your software
library.