One of the most beloved and recognizable arcade racing games of all time, Daytona USA, is now playable in VR through the game VRChat. Now you can feel even closer to the action than ever before in the Hornet’s virtual driver’s seat.
And who do we have to thank for this? Not Sega, of course, but the longtime internet and Newgrounds culture legend Zone-Sama. For those of you in the know (especially those acting like you don’t know), Zone-Sama has been well known since the early 2000’s as a legendary animator of the Nice Sega Flavored Water variety, most recently including a certain Egyptian Animal Crossing cat captivating the internet with her mysterious dance. (Wait… that’s not Sega flavored at all…) He’s actually a man of many talents, but I bet you didn’t know that included programming.
As for VRChat, that is a well known free game allowing you to create an avatar and hang out in a variety of virtual worlds, including many user generated worlds like this one. You can communicate with others in real time, play games with them, and generally just goof off to your heart’s content. You don’t even need a VR headset to try it, though it can make things much more immersive. It’s also available on Steam if you prefer to get it there.
If that’s got you interested, then get strapped in and go beyond the break to learn how this works exactly.
Zone-Sama’s new Daytona USA VR world first sets you into a small space with a large screen, a token dispenser, and a deluxe Daytona USA arcade cabinet. As you’d guess, you simply approach the cabinet to begin the game, but this is where things get interesting.
The arcade machine gives you the usual option of racing by yourself or with others, but it also adds in the option of teleporting yourself to the track without racing at all. If you choose that, then you can freely explore Dinosaur Canyon, the advanced race course and the only race course from the original game currently available in this VR version. There you can hang out with others as you usually do in VRChat, but you can also go over to the pit stop or the big screen TV to mess with some options, such as changing the music (which even gives you several songs from other Sega racing games), playing other videos, or checking out the new achievements available to unlock. Of course, that classic Takenobu Mitsuyoshi song “Let’s Go Away” is the first song you’ll always hear in-game.
When you race, you do so using your keyboard’s WASD keys, as well as the shift key to brake, at least when you play on PC. You also can toggle AI racers on or off or play a time trial mode. If you are playing with a VR headset on, you can look freely all around you from within the car in ways you never could before. As stated earlier, only the advanced race course is available to play or explore right now. Zone-Sama says he may add in Three-Seven Speedway and Sea-Side Street Galaxy if his Daytona VR world proves to be popular for a long time.
According to Zone-Sama, he created this Daytona USA game by carefully and painstakingly observing the behavior of the arcade game rather than working with any source code from the game, which he likely doesn’t have any way of accessing anyway. That does sound mighty impressive, and if you’re interested in hearing more about how he managed to do this, you can check out this interview that our friends at Sega Saturn Shiro had done with the man himself where he bears it all. (Not in that way. Don’t confuse him with Zone-tan.)
As for the Daytona USA VR world, you can access it in the game with this link. Otherwise, if you search within the game for “Daytona”, you’ll find it quite easily.
Have you ever been itching to experience Daytona USA in VR? If you tried it in VRChat already, would you care to tell us about it? Are you hoping Zone-Sama adds the game’s other two racetracks? Let us know in the comments below.
BTW, maybe you recognize the Let’s Go Away cover in the trailer? That was the same cover made by Kamikaze Bitch which debuted last June in the Sega 65th Anniversary fan remix album from Melodies Zone.
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