Kabuto: This game gets a lot of flack for its many flaws but there's two things I'd like to point out that I think even in 2020 are great.
1. The soundtrack. Will Loconto's score is fantastic. Even going back as far as the early 2000's I had burned the mp3's to two cd's just to listen because it's very well done. Really regret not buying the official cd's when they were released.
2. Skyboxes. Even in 2020, I still think they are some of the best skyboxes ever put into a videogame. The fact that they were tacked onto the Quake 2 engine makes it all the more impressive.
Hey Kabuto,
I too enjoy taking in everything a game has to offer, so I always have the music on and yeah, skyboxes are important for immersion.
Regarding
Daikatana, I'd have to agree about the music in general. I remember someone saying this OST is perhaps the consistently best part of a good game with issues. It almost never dips under good and even when it does it's not bad, it's often very good and some tracks are nothing short of excellent. My favourite tracks (those I tend to go back to listen outside the game) are: Hardcore (2455 CE Japan), Medusa (1200 BCE Greece), Plague Times, Iced Passage I, and Horror Alone (560 CE Norway). I should add that I also enjoy just listening to the whole Greek OST in one go, followed by the whole Norway OST, each with their tracks played in the same order as they appear in the game, because I feel that "tells" a cool story.
As for
Daikatana's skyboxes, I think you might be exaggerating a bit, but yes, I do like them and the best examples have got to be Japan's rainy sky (with lightening), Lemnos Isle's sky, the Norway snowy mountainous horizon, the view from "The Rock" over the bay with the bridge, and I really like the skybox you get in the S.E.A.L. Training Center even though it's static (also, though you have to struggle a bit to get a decent view, I really liked the Mishima's Hideout skybox). The skyboxes in Athens and the Acropolis are good but very stylised with the main golden/bronze sky and clouds impression they convey, and they're not as intricate as the skyboxes already mentioned.
From that era, you also have the skyboxes from
Unreal Tournament which can be great. The year 2000 also saw the release of
American McGee's Alice, and that game also has some impressive skyboxes. One thing which
Daikatana does and which
Deus Ex doesn't is varying weather conditions, and proper rain and snow generators were only added to
Unreal Tournament through mods.
I think the fact that
Daikatana is so deeply steeped into the "science fantasy" genre (drawing from both science fiction and fantasy) meant those working on the game could go wild with the skyboxes :)
