Opinions on Saturn DonPachi

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LoneSage
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Opinions on Saturn DonPachi

Post by LoneSage »

Yeah, I may have gotten it only a few hours earlier today but I’ve already beaten it. How? Unlimited credits and instant re-spawning point (incredibly odd for a shmup). There’s a bunch of slowdown throughout most of the game, but man it looks pretty. From what I hear the port itself is pretty bad, but I’ve never played the arcade original so I can’t judge it on that. There’s some American guy that talks at the beginning and end of the levels (“Whoa, multi-armored assault tank! Watch out, kid!”), and he sounds pretty annoying, but the game itself is pretty good. I’m seein a lot of influence from Raiden, so when I played this I was also reminded of Shienryu (Gekioh Shooting King). The game itself is purty; I can hold down the A fire button which turns the bullets into a vibrant laser, or I can hold the R shoulder fire button if I want bullets to come out; it’s pretty strategic, because the laser’s in a straight line but the bullets go all around, killing enemies before they can shoot (though the enemies explode with bullets when you destroy them, a la Hard mode in Ikaruga). The levels are incredibly long compared to levels in a Psikyo game; I mean, levels in this game can take minutes to beat, while stuff in all of Psikyo’s games can be way under a minute to get to the boss. DonPachi’s a good game, but I continually hear that DoDonPachi blows its predecessor out of the f’n water on the Saturn, so I’m definitely checking that out.

Here’s the stories of DP, DDP, and DOJ thanks to Randorama at the temp forum; I just thought these were interesting, is all

“In the first DP, you basically fight against your own comrades because your boss is crazy and wants to make an elite force ( called "DonPachi"). The final boss is the ultimate weapon you have to fight against in order to become an elite soldier.

In DDP (dunno if they're actually related)...well, if you don't get the loop, it's just a fight against the machines from the alien planet (duh).If you access the loop, you discover that they're your own comrades (again) and you helped the corrupt general to destroy defenses and let him invade earth. In the loop, you fight the general's army and his ultimate weapon (again). Some lame ending discourse about the war destroying a lot of earth's population and indirectly solving a lot of problems.

In DOJ, the "machines" (guided by Hibachi) decide that are tired of human beings and humans use three other machines in young girl form (Exy, Shotia, Leinyan) to wipe them out once and for all.Not 100% on this one.”
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Ronz
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Post by Ronz »

DonPachi and DoDonPachi are the only Saturn imports I have the luxury of owning at this point.

Compared to their arcade counterparts, both ports suffer in terms of slowdown and graphical quality. Not that the graphics are a huge deal, but play through the arcade version of one of the games, then try out the Saturn port immediately after and you'll see what I mean.

DonPachi has it worse than DDP does though. The audio flickers for me at some points, the Announcer who was annoying enough in the first place has his voice crack in and out on the Saturn, load times are pretty rough, etc. etc.

All that being said, both are still very playable ports in my opinion, and i'm glad I was able to pick them both up. I've heard on various boards that the PSX port of DDP is slightly better than the Saturn port, but I haven't played it myself so I can't comment on that one.
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Post by Acid King »

The Saturn Donpachi is playable but the consensus seems to be that the playstation version is much better. I was pretty disappointed with the slowdown but it's arright and personally, I like the crazy American announcer. "Keep your finger on the trigger, rookie!"
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Post by BulletMagnet »

Indeed, the Saturn DonPachi has very messed up sound and bad load times...DDP is also a cut below the arcade version, but not nearly as much so as its predecessor is. I have yet to play either one in TATE mode though, perhaps that would make them a bit more attractive...I also haven't played the PS version of either one, though most who have say both are superior to their Saturn counterparts in most areas. At least in DDP's case, however, the PS version is harder to find and about twice as expensive, from what I've seen.
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Post by TWITCHDOCTOR »

I have em. I bought them for the Saturn before I even knew that they were ports of arcade PCB's.

The PSX port of DoDonPchi does look better, but its actually a little more difficult that the Saturn port. The Saturn port is fine, it just suffers from too many pixles.

I prefer to play these with MAME on my XBOX though. They should play just like the PCB, also, I find the MAME version of DodonPachi, to be slightly easier than the PSX. (the PSX has a wait feature which is turned off by default. Even with "wait" on, its harder then the Saturn one. I've 1CC both the Saturn version as well as in MAME, but not the PSX.

The Saturn version allows 2 players to use different ships, whereas the PSX(DoDonPachi) both players will have to use player 1's ship in alternate color. No big deal, because I prefer to play shmups solo, but still...
Then there's always the original PCB's or MAME.

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Post by Neon »

Donpachi in MAME blows thanks to problems with the music emulation...sounds are fine though, better than either console.

I'm fine with the saturn port...been thinking of getting rid of it, since dodon has so much more fun of gameplay.
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Post by dave4shmups »

Don't waist your money on it. It has HORRIBLE slowdown, which really hampers the gameplay. There are FAR better Saturn Shmups out there to spend your money on.
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Post by CMoon »

And my usual post on this...

PSX is a better port of Donpachi than the Saturn version, however, the PSX version lacks a good yoko version--so unless you are planning on playing in tate, don't bother. For my purposes (as a tate player), the PSX version definitely gets a big thumbs up over the Saturn port.

Dodonpachi is more questionable though. I understand that the PSX is once again better, but now the difference is only slight--and the price difference definitely is NOT slight.

So, general consensus on both is that the PSX version is better, but the difference may only be substantial on Donpachi.
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Post by Randorama »

LoneSage wrote:Yeah, I may have gotten it only a few hours earlier today but I?ve already beaten it. How? Unlimited credits and instant re-spawning point (incredibly odd for a shmup)
The official shmup terminology (TM) says that "beating a game" means "clearing all stages with one credit and on full defaults", and so far, i only know of zlk who was able to do that :wink:

Beside that, instant respawing is the standard for all shmups, except a few old titles and other exceptions. 8)
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Post by Melf »

I got DonPachi with my modded PSOne and love it. I'd heard lots of good things about it for so long but never actually got around to getting a copy. Boy, was I wrong for waiting!

I have DoDonPachi on Saturn, as the PSX version is just too expensive. I don't really see that much of a difference between the two to justify such a high price. Is the Saturn version rarer?
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Post by BulletMagnet »

If eBay's any indication, the Saturn version is actually a good deal easier to find than the PS version, which is, I'm sure, at least a part of the reason for the price difference...
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Post by FRO »

I bought the Saturn version of DonPachi recently (thanks to Super Laydock 8) ) and have really enjoyed it. The things BulletMagnet pointed out are right on the money. The audio sounds as though it was recorded from a microphone and used in the game instead of a direct port of the audio code. It sounds "fuzzy" and distorted much of the time. Also, the load times are pretty annoying, especially (no flames please) when you decide to change crafts when continuing. I would think the Saturn could load info a heck of a lot faster than that.

Having not played the PSX port or the arcade original, but only previewed it in MAME (again, no complaints/flames) I'm satisfied with it, especially considering the great deal I got on it (again, thanks to Super Laydock!).
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Post by LoneSage »

FRO wrote:. Also, the load times are pretty annoying, especially (no flames please) when you decide to change crafts when continuing. I would think the Saturn could load info a heck of a lot faster than that.
Definitely, the load times are terrible. I mainly sticked to the same blue ship for the latter part of the game because I was tired of having to wait to get in the action.
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Post by BrianC »

Does the PSX Donpachi have flipped controls for Tate? The yoko view in Donpachi PSX is like the ones for the Namco Arrangements? Does the Saturn Dodonpachi have better yoko than the PSX one?
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Post by CMoon »

No flipped controls on the psx version, so you can't play it like Progear. Its really set up for tate or nothing.

As far as the saturn port of Donpachi...it isn't what the machine can handle. Like Gekirindan, it's simply a sloppy/crappy port on a machine that could have easily handled it.
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Post by Guardians Knight »

i've got both versions of dp and have to say that altho the psx does load quicker and the sound is slightly crisper there is little difference over the saturn version.

Here's a point tho:
How much does the sat ver. benefit from the saturn control pad?

I'd say a great deal more than having slightly better sound and loading times.
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Post by dbd »

I found it slow, but that was coming off from playing the third installment DOJ, so when I got into the pace of it (as you have to do with every game anyway) yeah I liked it loads.

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Post by CMoon »

Guardians Knight wrote:i've got both versions of dp and have to say that altho the psx does load quicker and the sound is slightly crisper there is little difference over the saturn version.
JEEZUS! One of the two of us is on crack then! I've seen both versions run side by side and the Saturn version had tons of slowdown--not just moments, more like whole levels were chugging along at half speed. llabnip at one point timed level three on both versions and found the saturn DP took another 45 seconds or so longer than the psx version.

Here we go again. I'm not saying Saturn version is unplayable--and if you aren't in a poistion to tate I actually recommend it, though I think I'd recommend Tate first. The Saturn version is definitely not a good port (the saturn should easily run this game), and when I saw this and PSX side by side, the PSX version clearly outperformed it.
Last edited by CMoon on Sat Jan 29, 2005 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by BrianC »

I'm actually pretty good at rotating the controller myself for Tate. I'm used to it from playing the Atari 2600 and other versions of Q*bert. Actually, I was playing Castle Shikigami 2 in Tate with the controller in its normal position. I do like using in game controller rotation better, but oddly enough, rotating the controls with the in game mode actually worked against me in Ikaruga. It just felt more natural without the controller rotation. It worked well for Xevious, though. So, for me, I don't need to turn the monitor over to play Tate, but I do have this odd thing about wanting to play games with a normal view, though I still love Tate modes.

The Saturn Donpachi sounds extremely disappointing. However, I decided that I might not get any home version of Donpachi. From what I played, it's a great game, but I think I like Fire Shark, Batsugun, Dodonpachi, and some other similar games a bit better. I might get Dopachi eventually, but with so many other great games out there, it's not first on my to get list.
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Post by Guardians Knight »

ok fair enough Cmoon i aint played em both in TATE, or rather i played the saturn version in TATE and not the psx version so aint really compared them, i guess i kinda liked the slowdown as it makes things easier :-)

still, i'd trade some slow down to be able to use the saturn pad, altho i've got a saturn pad rigged to me ps2 so i guess that argument for me is fecked.
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Post by CMoon »

*nods* the psx version definitely has some disadvantages...and your right, the pad is one of them. The PSX to me seems a much better port but missing a good yoko mode is a serious disadvantage.

And yeah, llabnip said kinda the same thing--he could always do better in the Saturn version because of the slowdown.
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