Game Developers at a BAFTA event in July 2011. From left: Rod Humble, Louis Castle, David Perry (game developer), Brenda Brathwaite, John Romero, Will Wright, Tim Schafer, Chris Hecker. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Daikatana is the first-person-shooter PC game designed and developed by John Romero of Ion Storm Inc.,a Texas based computer games developer. It was launched for Windows operating system on 23rd May,2000 by Eidos Interactive. Daikatana is a Japanese word which means large sword. This game was later ported to Nintendo 64. An alternative version of the game was later developed for Game Boy Color.

Background

This game occurs in four time periods,namely Japan in the year of 2455, ancient Greece, dark ages era Norway and San Francisco in the year of 2030. in the first phase,  the world is reeling down from a major pandemic, caused by an individual known as  Kage Mishima. He rules the current world with an iron fist. It becomes known that this world is not what it is supposed to be. To get rid of this current world, an alternative time line could be created through the use of Daikatana, the magical sword. It enables the user to travel through different time periods. The protagonist becomes a martial art instructor known as Hiro Miyamoto. With the active help of partners called Mikiko Ebihara and Superfly Johnson, Hiro makes effort to retrieve Daikatana. The final goal of Hiro is to return to the earth by traveling through ancient Greece, medieval Norway, near future San Francisco and far future Japan.

Game Design

There are four levels In Daikatana which are split into four episodes. Each episode exemplifies a different place and time period which are Japan in the year of 2455, ancient Greece, dark ages era Norway and San Francisco in the year of 2030. The number of maps per level is typically 3 but varies.<

John Romero completed the initial design and development of Daikatana by March,1997. The contents of initial design were huge, involving 4 different time periods, 24 levels, 64 monsters and 25 weapons. The game was thought ot be completed in 1997.Because of these huge contents, the development process took long time and was completed on in early 2000.