Monday 26 June 2017

Arcade Review: Daytona Championship USA

A little while back, I was on holiday in the seaside town of Whitby. Prior to this, I hadn't been in the arcades there, and I changed that on this visit. It wasn't anything amazing, even with some nice classics in Funland, like Sega Rally 1 & 2, After Burner Climax, and a deluxe Time Crisis 2.
But there was one game I knew was there, by a complete stroke of luck- Daytona Championship USA!
Announced by Sega Amusements' Twitter a day before I went, I was ecstatic when first saw it. The first new Daytona in the UK and it's where I was about to go on holiday, what were the chances! Of course, I got as many plays as I could on this game, and since it's still relatively new, I've put together a review.

Daytona Championship USA (Sega, 2017) Review

🎶 Daytonaaaaa~ ðŸŽ¶

Sega's Daytona USA is one of the most prolific arcade games of all time, one that still has many fans thanks to its gameplay and graphics that have stood the test of time incredibly well. So when a new instalment was announced in late 2017, the hype was understandably very big. 

While it obviously wouldn't be up to the same standard as today's modern arcade racers like the Initial D Arcade Stage and Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune series, with their card and internet networking capabilities, it was a breath of fresh air to be getting something that wasn't just a reheated arcade adaption of something like Ford Racing or GRID here in the west.

However, once the game started appearing at arcade expos, cracks began to show. 2 of the 3 new tracks were just reskinned mirrors of the original courses, and the majority of music was from the Dreamcast port of the game- not to mention the up-down gear shifter. 

Some hardcore fans gave it scathing reviews, but there was still hope. The game wasn't yet completed, borne out in its eventual, curious renaming from 'Daytona USA 3 Championship' to simply 'Daytona USA Championship'. Maybe this didn't bode well for what it would be like, but I still held out hope.


Well, right from the off, you get the feeling of the old Daytona from the attract mode- there's a beautiful new version of Let's Go Away blaring out of the speakers, there's that classic Daytona font, and the signature Sega blue skies are there.

The graphics, though, are nothing special. On the surface, they're nice, the blue skies have never looked better and the new cars are brilliantly detailed with all the sponsorship logos. The iconic mountainside Sonic in Three-Seven Speedway has even been remade to his modern design:
The 'wow factor' the original had is of course gone, and although that's a slightly unfair assessment with console graphics having long surpassed their arcade counterparts, what's there is still nothing to write home about.

On the other hand, with 6 tracks in total, Daytona Championship offers more content than any other arcade Daytona release thus far. But this too is less impressive than it sounds, once a closer look is given.
The 3 'new' tracks featured in the game, alongside the other three classic tracks, are Daytona International Speedway, Lakeside Castle, and Metro City. I say 'new' because they really aren't! They may look nice and different on the outside, but the latter 2 are a redressed and mirrored Dinosaur Canyon and Seaside Street Galaxy, and there is very little difference between Daytona International Speedway and Three-Seven Speedway besides the setting.

And not only that, but most of the music is recycled from previous Daytona games! There is the aforementioned new version of Let's Go Away for the attract mode and Daytona International Speedway, but everything else is from the arcade original or the Dreamcast port. Wouldn't of hurt for some entirely new compositions to have been made.

One genuinely new feature is the 'Tournament' mode, where of course you go from track to track, similar to Sega Rally, and other arcade racer contemporaries. Unfortunately, you have to place first and only first to advance to the next track which I see as a transparent view as to gobble more coins up.
Apparently, actual tournaments can be made on the machine, but it isn't yet known how these work. From what I can gather, they aren't specifically arranged tournaments, but rather something where you can enter your name for track records over a set period of time, and come back on the end date to see if your attempt has been beaten. Not quite sure how this works; it's a good thing to encourage multiplayer competition, which is sorely missed from many arcades today, but I'm not certain it's been executed well here.

Another gripe I have is the fact that the default number of laps on courses are different to the original's. Sega Amusements have seemingly made many, many options concerning the game's difficulty from what this video entails, and some of the settings are questionable.


While the beginner tracks had the standard number of laps, the advanced tracks had 3 laps instead of 4, and the expert tracks had just 1! Thankfully the A.I. and time were like they should be, but I don't quite get the reasoning for the different number of laps. Perhaps to get people off the machines quicker?

The attention to detail is nice, and you do get a feel that the team working on the game had some appreciation for the original. The Virtua Fighter Jeffrey statue in Seaside Street Galaxy has now been changed to Akira- yes, the rotating easter egg is still there- and the secret music track, Pounding Pavement, can be selected from the 4th view change button. 

There are even some references to Sega's past on track sponsor boards like this 'To be this good takes AGES' slogan- the original catchphrase from the UK's much revered Mega Drive adverts. It's stuff like this that makes the whole experience just a bit nicer, as a whole.
I must mention the good design of the actual cabinet. Looking at it in pictures, I wasn't particularly keen on it, but in person it's better. I like the overall aesthetic of the cab, with vibrant colours, fictional sponsor logos, and a leather headrest at the back of the seat giving the whole thing more of a racing feel.
I wasn't a fan of the marquee screens at first, but now I think these are really quite nice! They display their own custom graphics, and respond to how the player is doing in game, as well as providing the camera feed.

However, despite some of the positive things I have mentioned about the machine design, perhaps the biggest problem with the game is the controls, partially brought on by what parts are used. The game has a overall Daytona feel, but something really isn't quite right with the steering wheel. There is an unacceptable dead zone in the wheel which takes some getting used to, and the force feedback isn't very effective at all. It's not unplayable, but a lot of the tightness and great control the original Daytona had is now gone.

And then there's the gear shifter. The standard for Daytona has always been a 4 gear 'H' shifter, but unfortunately Sega Amusements have opted for a up-down shifter like those found in OutRun 2 cabinets and others. This goes completely against how you drift in this game, unlike OR2, where most of the time you would just have to switch down a gear, then back up. Both the steering and gear shifter inaccuracies take a lot of the playability of the game away, and are very hard to adapt to. And this could've been so easy to avoid too!
So, finally, Daytona Championship USA is... fairly average. It's great to see Daytona back in arcades, but It just doesn't feel like there's enough new content here to keep me returning to it often, and the controls don't help too much either. 

We all love the original Daytona, and that won't ever change, but it's over 20 years old now- and it just doesn't compare to the newer arcade racing games out in Japan arcades at the moment. Something fresh and exciting would've been better, something like Daytona 2 was, but unfortunately this isn't.

I will say this- it isn't just another console port of a racing game by Sega Amusements like their previous racing titles were (Ford Racing, GRID, etc), and the unfortunate truth is that it does have better gameplay compared to other arcade racers in the west at the moment!

For example, Cruis'n Blast by Raw Thrills offers little variety in its gameplay, with only a gas pedal and steering wheel to use, and Storm Racer G by Wahlap Tech feels like a mobile game put in a arcade cabinet. Daytona Championship USA is miles ahead of these games, and I will give it credit for that.

But, judging the game from it's content and replay value, it's just not enough. Sega Amusements could've done so much better, but sadly this isn't the case. OutRun 3 is supposedly 'on the radar' for Sega Amusements, and I'm not sure whether to lower my expectations or hope they pull out all the stops for it. Who knows what will happen with that.

Overall, I give Daytona Championship USA a 5/10. I hope you enjoyed reading this review.
Ted

EDIT: Since writing this review, the game has been accidentally leaked by Sega themselves as a result of the update, and runs on most PC's perfectly. From what I've heard, the control issues are not present in this version- so hopefully any cabinets with the update installed play better.

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