Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition
released on Dec 25, 1996
Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition drives home the excitement of speedway racing more than ever before! Slick new full-screen graphics and two brand new extra circuits await as you select any one of eight turbo-charged cars to race in. Split-screen 2-player mode and a host of options including ghost car ensure that Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition will set the pace in the race to the finish line.
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A pretty decent port for the Saturn. It’s not perfect, the handling is a bit weird and the game itself is hard as fuck. Despite those problems this version still is a very fun experience, the new tracks and features are great and it looks way better than the original port.
It's daytona but with more stuff to do but with a different feel, for better or for worse. A few new tracks added in, a different assortment of race cars with different stats to pick from, and an entirely new soundtrack. I was gaslit by the internet into believing that the original saturn port of Daytona wasn't that good, but upon playing it back-to-back with this version they are honestly both worth giving a go.
While the original port has a much lower framerate and chunkier visuals, it was (i think) developed by AM2 in-house and is actually a totally viable way to get a daytona fix so long as you can see past the chonk. Rather than expanding upon that framework, CCE was made by AM3 and uses their Saturn Sega Rally engine. It do mean that the game has a greater draw distance, sharper visuals, and a really consistent framerate, though at the cost of gameplay authenticity. Daytona purists will not like how this game feels, but on its own it felt perfectly solid to play. Daytona games usually feel like hot ass if you use a pad instead of a wheel or play on automatic but honestly this game controls decent with both and you can even use the differently tuned cars to match your driving demands. It's all solid stuff honestly.
The soundtrack is another thing that Daytona purists will not enjoy, as our boy Takenobu Mitsuyoshi was not put in the composer's seat for this. HOWEVER, the people they DO have on board for the new tracks are no slouches. Jun Senoue, Richard Jacques, Kenichi Tokoi, and Tomonori Sawada all have extremely strong music portfolios within Sega and their contributions here are great. Yea, Daytona without the iconic vocal tracks def hits different, but I wouldn't discredit the entire new OST because of that. The Japanese version of this game includes all the original songs as well as a medley so if you REALLY need the original OST, get that version.
This game also has like a bunch of different versions, with the aforementioned JPN version also having a supposedly more stable framerate and wider draw distance from the US version? There's also the extremely expensive netlink edition that has online play available, though I wasn't able to try the online features. There are ways to get your saturn online these days and I do have the ol DreamPi still configured, but as of now I can't justify buying a netlink adapter when I have zero people to play with. Maybe some day... (ayo any netlink gamers reading this HMU!!!) There's also local multiplayer but I'm by myself so I have no idea how that looks or runs either. Still cool when the original saturn port didn't have any form of multiplayer!
It's a good racing game, just not a very faithful daytona game, and I think that's prob where all the mixed reception comes from. Def something worth trying out if you are into 32-bit racers.
While the original port has a much lower framerate and chunkier visuals, it was (i think) developed by AM2 in-house and is actually a totally viable way to get a daytona fix so long as you can see past the chonk. Rather than expanding upon that framework, CCE was made by AM3 and uses their Saturn Sega Rally engine. It do mean that the game has a greater draw distance, sharper visuals, and a really consistent framerate, though at the cost of gameplay authenticity. Daytona purists will not like how this game feels, but on its own it felt perfectly solid to play. Daytona games usually feel like hot ass if you use a pad instead of a wheel or play on automatic but honestly this game controls decent with both and you can even use the differently tuned cars to match your driving demands. It's all solid stuff honestly.
The soundtrack is another thing that Daytona purists will not enjoy, as our boy Takenobu Mitsuyoshi was not put in the composer's seat for this. HOWEVER, the people they DO have on board for the new tracks are no slouches. Jun Senoue, Richard Jacques, Kenichi Tokoi, and Tomonori Sawada all have extremely strong music portfolios within Sega and their contributions here are great. Yea, Daytona without the iconic vocal tracks def hits different, but I wouldn't discredit the entire new OST because of that. The Japanese version of this game includes all the original songs as well as a medley so if you REALLY need the original OST, get that version.
This game also has like a bunch of different versions, with the aforementioned JPN version also having a supposedly more stable framerate and wider draw distance from the US version? There's also the extremely expensive netlink edition that has online play available, though I wasn't able to try the online features. There are ways to get your saturn online these days and I do have the ol DreamPi still configured, but as of now I can't justify buying a netlink adapter when I have zero people to play with. Maybe some day... (ayo any netlink gamers reading this HMU!!!) There's also local multiplayer but I'm by myself so I have no idea how that looks or runs either. Still cool when the original saturn port didn't have any form of multiplayer!
It's a good racing game, just not a very faithful daytona game, and I think that's prob where all the mixed reception comes from. Def something worth trying out if you are into 32-bit racers.
the game performs a lot better than the original Saturn release, but it also loses some of the original arcade version's charm.
Plays way better but the music is so much worse
This is a Saturn exclusive Daytona that was made to meet demands for a better version after the poor performance issues of the original port. It runs on the same engine as Sega Rally Championship, hence the improved framerate and lack of borders. The pop-in is still here though, but not as bad.
Unfortunately while the overall performance has improved, a lot of the "feel" of Daytona USA was removed. The handling is different from the original game due to the different engine and they removed the bopping soundtrack for some downplayed instrumental techno/rock stuff that's nowhere as good.
It's a great racing game in its own right, but as a Daytona game it's not great and I'd rather stick to the original Saturn version if I was restricted to that platform.
Unfortunately while the overall performance has improved, a lot of the "feel" of Daytona USA was removed. The handling is different from the original game due to the different engine and they removed the bopping soundtrack for some downplayed instrumental techno/rock stuff that's nowhere as good.
It's a great racing game in its own right, but as a Daytona game it's not great and I'd rather stick to the original Saturn version if I was restricted to that platform.