''Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition'', or ''Daytona USA: Circuit Edition'' in Japan, is a

racing In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific go ...

game by Sega, specifically designed for the Sega Saturn. Released in 1996, it is a reworked and extended version of the original ''

Daytona USA is an arcade racing video game developed by Sega AM2 in 1993 and released by Sega in 1994. Players race stock cars on one of three courses. The first game released on the Sega Model 2 three-dimensional arcade system board, a prototype debuted ...

'', and was developed by

Sega AM3 , known as from 2000 to 2004, is a defunct division of Sega, a Japanese video game company. Established by 1993, AM3 was managed by Hisao Oguchi and developed a number of arcade games for Sega. Series introduced by AM3 include ''Virtual On'', ...

, the same team that oversaw the Saturn port of ''

Sega Rally Championship ''SEGA Rally Championship'' is a 1994 racing video game developed by Sega AM3 and published by Sega. Originally released for arcades using the Sega Model 2 board, it was converted to the Sega Saturn in 1995 and Windows in 1997. The unique sellin ...

'', by using a modified version of the Sega Saturn

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...

of ''Sega Rally Championship''. This version was originally released in Europe and North America, with some modifications done in the subsequent Japanese release. Improvements over the original Sega Saturn version of Daytona USA include a drastic reduction in popup, increased

framerate Frame rate (expressed in or FPS) is the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images ( frames) are captured or displayed. The term applies equally to film and video cameras, computer graphics, and motion capture systems. Frame rate may also be ...

(now a consistent thirty frames per second), a new selection of cars, two new courses, a 2-player mode, compatibility with the Saturn's 3D analogue control pad and Arcade Racer steering wheel, and a ghost mode. The European release does not feature the "black bars" at the top and bottom of the screen that are present in the majority of

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

games of the era - the box boasts "slick new full screen graphics". It was also separately released in North America for the Saturn as a

Netlink Netlink is a socket family used for inter-process communication (IPC) between both the kernel and userspace processes, and between different userspace processes, in a way similar to the Unix domain sockets available on certain Unix-like operat ...

-compatible title, entitled ''Daytona USA: CCE Netlink Edition''.

Gameplay

This is the first version of ''Daytona USA'' to name the three tracks present in the original game, rather than using Beginner, Advanced, and Expert. The tracks are "Three Seven Speedway" (beginner track), "Dinosaur Canyon" (advanced track) and "Seaside Street Galaxy" (expert track). The game also features two brand new circuits, "National Park Speedway" and "Desert City". ''Daytona USA Deluxe'' for PC also adds a sixth course, "Silver Ocean Causeway". Team Hornet and their car do not appear in the game. Instead, there are a number of individual cars selectable, each named after their respective racing team.

Development

After finishing the Saturn version of ''Sega Rally Championship'',

were planning to do a Saturn conversion of ''

Indy 500 The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indianap ...

'', but due to fan demand they undertook ''Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition'' instead. Work on the game began in March 1996. In response to numerous fan complaints that the original ''Daytona USA'' soundtrack was inappropriate for a racing game, Sega Europe's in-house composer,

Richard Jacques Richard Adrian Jacques (; born 1973) is a British composer of film, television and video game music. Best known for his critically acclaimed orchestral scores for blockbuster franchises such as '' James Bond 007: Blood Stone'', ''Sonic R'', '' ...

, was tasked with remixing the original songs, along with musicians from both Sega Japan and Sega America. The game retained the "Dancing Jeffry" feature from the Seaside Street Galaxy from the original ''Daytona USA''.

Jeffry Jeffry is a given name. Notable people with the name include: *Jeffry D. Wert, American historian and author specializing in the American Civil War * Jeffry H. Larson, American Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy at Brigham Young University *Je ...

is one of the main characters from ''

Virtua Fighter is a series of fighting games created by Sega-AM2 and designer Yu Suzuki. The original '' Virtua Fighter'' was released in October 1993 and has received four main sequels and several spin-offs. The highly influential first ''Virtua Fighter'' ga ...

''; a statue of him was created in the course as a secondary feature.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack by

and

Jun Senoue is a Japanese composer and guitarist who works for Sega, known for his various contributions in the ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' video game series. He is also the songwriter for the band Crush 40, which has also contributed to many ''Sonic'' games. B ...

, while featuring remixes of the original tunes and several new ones, does not feature the original tunes themselves except in the Japanese version of the game.

Release

Due to heavy consumer demand for the game in Europe, ''Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition'' was released there first, with North American and Japanese versions following some months later - a reverse of the usual pattern.

Reception

Reviewing the Saturn version in ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

'', Tom Ham called ''Championship Circuit Edition'' "a very impressive sequel that greatly improves upon the original." He particularly praised the two-player mode, high frame rate, near absence of pop up, and dramatic crash sequences. Rich Leadbetter of ''

Sega Saturn Magazine ''Sega Saturn Magazine'' was a monthly UK magazine covering the Sega Saturn, a home video game console. It held the official Saturn magazine license for the UK, and some issues included a demo CD created by Sega, ''Sega Flash'', which included ...

'' was also impressed with the graphical features, but strongly objected to the fact that the cars do not handle the same as they did in the arcade and Saturn versions of ''Daytona USA''. He found the music uneven and the two-player mode plagued by clipping on the three original tracks, and concluded, "Take away the Daytona baggage and essentially you have a different racing game that is very enjoyable to play, looks absolutely fantastic, has five ace tracks, two-player capabilities and loads of lastability. ... It's just a shame that the genius gameplay that made Saturn ''Daytona USA'' so great (despite its graphical frailties) isn't here in any way, shape or form." '' GamePro''s Johnny Ballgame judged it "a solid sequel" and a strong racer in absolute terms, but concluded that Saturn owners should instead get ''

Andretti Racing ''Andretti Racing'' is a video game developed by American studios High Score Productions and Stormfront Studios and published by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn in 1996, and for Windows in 1997. The game's title refers to l ...

'', since the Saturn version was being released in stores at the same time and has a much larger number of tracks.

References

{{Daytona USA Series 1996 video games Daytona USA Racing video games Sega video games Sega-AM3 games Sega Saturn games Video game remakes Video games scored by Jun Senoue Video games scored by Richard Jacques Video games scored by Kenichi Tokoi Video games scored by Tomonori Sawada Windows games Video games developed in Japan