Tempest

Do you think Forest Dome was better?

YES. I like my realistic tracks but the Forest Dome just has ALL of the personality.

Do you feel like Daytona 2 was a "reluctant sequel"?

Not really! That's something I would absolutely slap on DU3 if anything but more on that later. With 2, I get the impression they really wanted the differences between the original and the sequel to be felt, both in presentation and in gameplay.

I do know the development team changed between DU1 and DU2; Toshihiro Nagoshi and about half the original DU1 team stayed, supported by Virtua Fighter devs imported from AM2. They reportedly had little experience with racing games but were really good at models, animations, and textures. So if anything, I feel like the game's "feels new, plays different" flavor comes from there. Some inexperience and some desire to do something different, yes, but reluctance, not in my opinion.

Any thoughts on Daytona 3 et al?

So first things first, I didn't try it on a live arcade board. But I'll say this: it is just kind of lame. THAT feels like a reluctantly put-together game. Feels like everything around it is parts-bin, slap-dashed, poorly thought out.

Half the soundtrack and more than a few sound effects come from previous games. Right down to selection screen sounds, engine sounds, and so on. You thought Like a Dragon liked to recycle stuff, but this would make Nagoshi blush. Even 2 didn't do that.

There are "six tracks" but really it's a lie. What you have instead is the original 3 layouts in two versions; the "classic" versions which are remakes of the DU1 originals, and "modern" versions with the same layouts, just different scenery. I have no issues with Lakeside Castle (Dinosaur Canyon) or Metro City (Seaside Street Galaxy) on principle, but the "modern" version of 777 Speedway is... Daytona Int'l Speedway. Except not really. Because it is as short as the original, last corner requiring you to brake and all. As far as reskins go, that reeks.

Gameplay wise? Let's start with no more H-shifter on the arcade board; it's sequential, down or up, kneecapping a lot of what made MT good. So that's already not the same game anymore. People who tried it on arcade said the handling model is just awful with loads of deadzones. Can't begin to imagine what it's like on a controller.

Just about the best and funniest thing about DU3 is the part where they cocked up an arcade board update so bad they released the whole game as a free download accidentally - letting more than a few people hack a way into playing it on Windows.

Also they got rid of Jeffry on Seaside Street Galaxy. It's Akira now. Sacrilegious.

What wheel do you use while playing Daytona 2?

Originally? Top left picture. It's old, my calendar on this screenshot says March 2021. This was a Logitech G923, not pictured is the shifter attachment - which worked fine with Supermodel. I no longer use this wheel, the gas pedal broke on me and Logitech doesn't sell replacement pedal sets so I went fuck it and upgraded to my current Thrustmaster T300 RS GT. I haven't had the time to play DU2 with this but I'm sure it'll work just fine once I reconfigure it.

Have you ever looked into getting a cab or arcade PCB?

When did you first play Daytona 2?

I'm gonna merge these two together, prepare for a long answer.

Hilariously, yes I have. But it's a long story. We have to rewind to 2007-2008 or so.

This was a long time ago. I was a teenager, some 14-15 years old. I was enamored with the real-world DU2 BOTE cabinet I occasionally played with at a restaurant somewhere in Normandy, this is all I ever wanted in life as a teenager: my very own Daytona 2 at home.

Amusingly, the same restaurant many years prior had a SCUD Race board, and two other locations of the same chain had more Sega boards; one had Daytona 1 and another had Le Mans 24. I played all of these and they are also burned in my heart as some of the most fun I've ever had on an arcade cabinet. But Daytona is king and DU2 is at the very top for everything it made me feel.

The craptastic 2004 Dell machine I owned at the time was awful for any kind of gaming. But at the time... this was a past life in very different circumstances... there was a chance. The short version is I once had the home space, my family had the wealth, and I seriously considered convincing everyone that's what the house needed. We Could Have Done That™.

So I checked out an actual arcade machine distributor in my area. How much for a DU2 deluxe cabinet? 3,500 EUR for a new single Battle on the Edge cabinet. That was in 2008. The cabs were 10 years old but still obtainable-ish, just not affordable. I saw the prices, I imagined the laughter and the 'you're ridiculous' my folks would give me, so I gave up.

Was still obsessed with Daytona, though. One thing led to another and I eventually got my hands on a copy of NR2003. If I can't have DU2 the actual game I can at least throw SOMETHING together with a mod. So me and two other friends got together and we decided to do a Daytona flavored car pack, basically skins for the Denis Rioux Cup90 mod. Everything was on deviantART, I took down all of my uploads from dA after they went insane with the AI stuff, and after moving through several PCs I lost a lot of things.

Today, however, I'm happy to report that our modpack lives on in Assetto Corsa, see top-right picture. So you can at least drive with our old work on that. The uploader, KyleJCrb, was a friend in the deviantART era, and he uploaded the whole conversion with my permission, and I still thank him ever so much for doing that.

The cars are a mishmash of DU1, DU2, DU2001, DU CCE/Deluxe, and NPC cars from as many games as we could. It was meant to be a "Daytona Universe" sort of thing, a celebration/remix. All the car numbers are wrong because I wanted 40 cars on the field with different numbers and it would be a bit of a mess if half of them were #41. I also made some aaaaawful made-up driver names for a lot of these. Some are just straight up OC cars of me and my friends; mine was #73, the mod's co-authors had #19 and #51, and a few friends and dA acquaintances had a couple of other numbers.

Amateur work? Definitely. Was it made with undying love, passion, and frustration that emulators weren't there yet in 2008-2012? You fucking bet.

I'm still proud of what we've done. This was my first long-term fan project of any kind and I wouldn't trade it for anything else. My life situation has since changed dramatically, I no longer live in Normandy and I definitely don't swim in arcade cabinet money. I don't think I'd want one nowadays, I'd rather the people working on Supermodel continue what they're doing because what they're doing is everything teenager-me would have ever wanted.

Only thing I'd change today is my car number; it'd be #21 nowadays. But the reason why is my little secret.