Gentlemen, start your engines! One of the first games I remember that had won me over by its presentation alone [and hearing about it thanks to the local Daytona USA 2 PE cab there used to be at the mall], Daytona USA was kind of what I had based most stuff around my online identity back when I was starting to get familiar with internet, like having made my account at the Supermodel emulator forums in 2013 with the name of DaytonaFan, and then rebranding my current Youtube channel from its first name (TheRobloxianHedgehog) to the name you know today (although back then it was "TheArcadeStriker", then shortened it to ACStriker...and now its just ArcadeStriker).
My liking for the first game grew mainly because the home computer and laptop I had at the time definitely couldn't run Daytona 2 at home well, so I instead played a lot of the first game through Model 2 Emulator and the Saturn-based PC port that I found out there. I even have the Waiting for Entry music as my current phone ringtone - it is easy to recognize that it is specifically my phone ringing when I hear that blasting somewhere at home lmao
Of the first things I remember watching about this game on Youtube, lucisac's Daytona USA Online Tribute and his several online gameplay videos were some of the coolest things I could imagine. This was a game I had recently learned about and there was a way to play it online? Sign me up NOW.
That video is now 15 years old as of writing this [is from 2009], and lucisac hasn't been active on his channel for many years, but thankfully he showed up again at the arcadecontrols forums in 2021 to say Hello and express his happiness of Daytona staying cherished after that long.
But I would sometime get to set the emulator myself [it was a modified Model 2 Emulator with Kaillera hooked to it just to connect on a room and play through Hamachi] and played a few times with another Daytona USA Online oldbie, nuexzz. He has way more videos showcasing the online, but it is still cool to be able to say that I've played Daytona USA online at all, let alone with this guy who was definitely skilled with Manual Transmission...unlike me who hadn't learned how to use MT yet until two years ago which is the last time I've played with him so far.
Daytona USA Online Races with Kaillera! Ft. nuexzz
So...uhhh...yeah, if you thought the Daytona rabbit hole couldn't go older than my current channel, you'd be wrong.
My very first Youtube channel ever back in 2011, which is still out there, was home to a few Daytona-related things...of which the most notorious for some reason would be a G-Major'd version of a Daytona USA Tribute video I had watched [I think at the time there was a fad with G-Major'd videos for some reason - stupid silly stuff the same way old YTPs and stickman videos were, although the latter two I see having more sense than GMajor lol]
Model 2 Emulator Daytona USA Online Tribute in G-Major
Shoutouts to aluigi 1300, which I'm familiar with from SRB2Kart and Ring Racers, for somehow stumbling upon this stupid video of mine in 2023 by the time I knew of him because of those two games I mentioned. To read that he had watched that video years ago [and that I'd know who he was] is such an insane coincidence for me to this day.
Things that happen with Daytona USA, I guess
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