It’s common knowledge that there are four different releases of Daytona on the Saturn — the original 1995 port made by AM2 that released worldwide, AM3’s Championship Circuit Edition that released in the U.S. and Europe in 1996, AM3’s Circuit Edition that released in Japan in 1997, and AM3’s CCE NetLink Edition that released in the U.S. in 1998.
But what isn't common knowledge are the differences — and similarities — among these releases.
Many people grouse about AM3’s Championship Circuit Edition having different (read: worse) car handling than AM2’s Daytona port, which hews so closely to the original arcade game’s handling that they’re practically identical.
A couple months later, Circuit Edition released in Japan with supposedly better handling than the West’s Championship Circuit Edition, even if it’s still not quite perfect. But is it really different than the earlier CCE? And what about the final Daytona port, the U.S.-exclusive CCE NetLink Edition?
Some say that the NetLink Edition is based on Japan’s Circuit Edition, including its improvements to car handling, but I wondered if that was true. So I did a little experiment to test the handling.
The handling test
I started up all three of AM3’s Circuit versions and, using the default Hornet car, performed the same steps: On the iconic Three-Seven Speedway track, once it gave me control during my rolling start, I hit the gas and held left on the D-pad, careening off the track and through the grass. Just as my car was about to hit the wall, I paused and took a screenshot to see if my position was identical in all three versions.
The thinking being: If the code that governs car handling is different in each version, my turning arc should be different, as should where I hit the wall. By the same token, if the handling is similar between any two versions of the game or all three versions, I should hit the wall in the same spot.
What did I find? The U.S.-exclusive CCE NetLink Edition does indeed appear to have the same handling as the Japan-exclusive Circuit Edition, as you can see below.
Above is Japan’s Circuit Edition, as you can see from the kp/h speed, while below is the U.S.’s NetLink Edition with the mph speed. In case you’re wondering, 217 km/h converts to 134.8 mph, close enough to be a rounding error from NetLink Edition’s 136 mph.
Meanwhile, the Western Championship Circuit Edition — the earliest of these three releases — seems to take harder turns. Check out the screenshot below.
The car hits the wall more to the left, as evidenced by where the car is relative to the white line on the pit lane. It also has different signage, which is an interesting footnote. Additionally, as you can see from the timer, CCE gets to the wall slightly faster (4″47 vs. NetLink’s 4″73), perhaps owing to a faster speed (149 mph vs. NetLink’s 136 mph).
My handling test shows that Japan’s Circuit Edition does indeed differ from CCE and lends credence to the argument that NetLink Edition is based off of Circuit Edition. But that’s not the only thing we can check. There are various cheat codes that are known to work on Circuit Edition but not on the West’s Championship Circuit Edition — do they work in NetLink Edition? And what's up with the speed being different in the handling test?