ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

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Icarus
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by Icarus »

Kiken wrote:
dunpeal2064 wrote:I'm curious How the saturn port of Garegga compares to the pcb
Gwyrgyn has stated that there are numerous places where the Saturn port is a bit faster than the PCB. Also the between level pause to load the next stage can be somewhat intrusive... for instance, you have to preemptively bomb right at the end of stage 2 (just before the game pauses to load stage 3) in order to destroy all of the destructible girders at the beginning of level 3 (if you wait until level 3 has loaded to bomb, you'll miss some of the medals).
I've played both extensively, and the differences between them are not nearly as jarring as they are with Dodonpachi. Having WAIT OFF as a default is interesting, but the game runs a little smoother as a result, it is easy to get used to, and not nearly as stupid an idea as it is in Ibara PS2.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by Blackbird »

Hehe, I was wondering if this thread would come up. I am sorry that we could not bring a good DoDonPachi experience for you in the states. It's too bad my new notebook was delayed so long, or I would have brought the MAME version for you.

Please don't destroy the DDP Saturn discs though =(. I can't afford to buy an original arcade board, so I must live with some inaccuracies, lol.

It seems to me that we should think of the DDP ports as different games entirely, even if they are very similar. In this case, I think the appropriate question should be:

Can DDP SAT/PSX be appreciated on it's own merits, as it's own unique game?

I think most people would answer yes to this question if they were not already extremely proficient at the arcade version, and therefore susceptible to the "similar but different" problem. Someone coming fresh to the game and trying the ports first would still have fun with it, I think.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by Aliquantic »

Blackbird wrote:Can DDP SAT/PSX be appreciated on it's own merits, as it's own unique game?

I think most people would answer yes to this question if they were not already extremely proficient at the arcade version, and therefore susceptible to the "similar but different" problem. Someone coming fresh to the game and trying the ports first would still have fun with it, I think.
There just should be a huge warning stick on the box, informing people that it's simply not comparable to the arcade version, and then it's fine :) If you advise people that it's pretty different, it ought to be fine, but I'd hate to pour hours down into the Saturn port and find out that I cannot follow replays or compare scores with people using the reference version... that's not a very fun surprise :|

It's still a fun game even if it will get no competitive attention, and if you like DDP mostly for survival it will be fine... though if you like DDP, I'd recommend looking at DOJ and DFK instead :P
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by TonK »

PROMETHEUS wrote:We met up at Kiken and Minzoku's last week-end, my first American Shmupmeet !
It was awesome to meet American players, hang out, and meet DDP on PSX and Saturn for the first time.

Today let's rant about how terrible those two ports are ! And believe me, they really suck !

So first I had a run on DDP Saturn. I sort of got the hang of playing with arcade sticks now and can perform ok with them now most of the time I think. I guess an average stick run would get me 200M points to 2-5 or something (spectated runs). This first run I got a little over 30M and ended run at the end of first loop, not getting the requirements (they are messed up in the port). Impossible to chain, dying all over the place. Then I played a good bunch of PSX runs and couldnt get over 70M or something, many times finishing just the first loop too. After I figured those ports are actually very innacurate, I just played kind of for survival being very careful not to be surprised and trapped by unexpected differences and got to 2-4 or 2-5 with under 100M scores.

These are the ports innacuracies that I detected through my bunch of runs :

Saturn DDP :
- Of course, as it was known already I believe, the speed is off. Game seems to run a little faster by default (probably 60fps which makes it overall 4% faster). Slowdown occurs more rarely as more bullets need to be on screen to trigger it, so most of the game is even faster that it should on top of those additional 4%. However when slowdown occurs on massive bullet counts, it slows down too much, in particular Hibachi is much easier than it should.
- Horizontal width of play area seems a little bit off (too small), resulting in slightly different enemy placement.
- Damage seems dealt differently by your ship and some enemies have more hit points than they should.
- Bullet cancel lasts a much shorter time than it should.
- Enemies have different aiming.
- Your chaining meter might be a little slower to deplete (not sure).

PSX DDP :
- Slowdown is off similarly to Saturn even with Wait option ON.
- Damage dealing is messed up and many popcorn enemies have too many hitpoints or survive a little longer for some reason.
- Enemies have different aiming similar to Saturn DDP.
- Loop requirements seem wrong.
- When you uncover a bee with your laser, you don't get one hit worth of chain meter gauge filled (this completely messes up chaining).

There are probably more inaccuracies.

The results of those inaccuracies are :
- You cannot use your usual chaining paths with those ports, they will not work, not only because you won't connect but because enemies won't die when they should and some will shoot at different angles making survival very compromised. You can probably chain again if you learn adapted paths for each port, however I suspect the PSX port chains would really suffer from not getting a hit from uncovering bees : some parts might become simply unchainable, or very hard to chain, or require you to use a path where you ignore collecting a bee which hurts your score by around 7M for 1 bee-chain broken.
- The difficulty of the game is very altered, some parts will, upon adaptation of your knowledge, become much easier or harder.

I regard those ports as garbage, they look like DDP but they're not really the same game. For me the point of a port is to allow a DDP player to jump in and be able to play without major changes to his game knowledge, and with a generally unaltered difficulty. That's not even close to what they managed there. Mind you, I have played on PCB and MAME numerous times and have never noticed a single difference (including in speed) between them except for the fact that the PCB has a graphics bug that MAME doesn't, that doesn't affect gameplay.

I regard scores performed on PSX or Saturn as definitely non comparable to MAME and PCB.

That was my rant, over and out !

ProM
Not that I was planning on owning either version, but good read.

Also, I got your shmups guide.

Taught me some interesting tricks on DDP.

Very interesting read.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by RNGmaster »

Wasn't the world record done on the Saturn version?
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by Aliquantic »

RNGmaster wrote:Wasn't the world record done on the Saturn version?
Unless you're aware of other records, the current one is 748,414,350 from Arcadia as type A, and Arcadia only bothers with PCBs (and they require some sort of validation as well before accepting your score, and don't take scores from abroad :P).
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by Obiwanshinobi »

Despatche wrote:They're not ports. Like with Strider, they all have almost nothing to do with their arcade counterparts.
Contra on the NES was as much of a port as you could get at the time and what I played on MAME recently had indeed rather a lot to do with my memories of the NES version.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by Despatche »

Oh, Contra, definitely. But Ninja Gaiden, Strider, and Bionic Commando are pretty much entirely different games, even if they use the same name.

On topic, I'd like to know if there are any "best scores" for both SAT and PSX DP and DDP ports.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by RNGmaster »

Aliquantic wrote:
RNGmaster wrote:Wasn't the world record done on the Saturn version?
Unless you're aware of other records, the current one is 748,414,350 from Arcadia as type A, and Arcadia only bothers with PCBs (and they require some sort of validation as well before accepting your score, and don't take scores from abroad :P).
I recall that SOF-WTN or ZBL-NAI got one of their 700m-something records on the score attack mode on Saturn where you got a number at the end of play and had to mail it to CAVE or something. Whatever, my memory might be off.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by Aliquantic »

RNGmaster wrote:I recall that SOF-WTN or ZBL-NAI got one of their 700m-something records on the score attack mode on Saturn where you got a number at the end of play and had to mail it to CAVE or something. Whatever, my memory might be off.
Allow me to refresh your memory then with this link, courtesy of Google (scroll down a bit for the actual scores that were submitted to Cave).
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by RNGmaster »

Thanks, man!
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by burgerkingdiamond »

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one. I mad a thread not too long ago asking if anyone else thought that Saturn DDP ran too fast. Admittedly I suck at DDP in MAME (can get to the 5th boss for survival, but am absolutely horrible at chaining).

I was pretty disappointed when I tried playing the saturn version and was struggling to make it to the 4th level.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by PROMETHEUS »

Aliquantic wrote:
RNGmaster wrote:I recall that SOF-WTN or ZBL-NAI got one of their 700m-something records on the score attack mode on Saturn where you got a number at the end of play and had to mail it to CAVE or something. Whatever, my memory might be off.
Allow me to refresh your memory then with this link, courtesy of Google (scroll down a bit for the actual scores that were submitted to Cave).
zlk wrote: For the contest, zbl-nai scored 506,797,380.  The 2nd-5th places scored: 196m, 163m, 128m and 114m. 
I assume zbl-nai already had his 700+M score on PCB before playing this for a month before deadline ? If so, that's definitely a low score for someone like him. If I was given a month to perform runs on MAME, I would definitely be able to pull at least a run over 400M. So NAI's 506M is an indication of how bad/inaccurate the port is (i assume he's way better than me).

But it's also amazing to see how low the 2nd to 5th places scores are. 114M for the 5th place !! 196M, was it WTN's ? I can only imagine they didn't put much effort into it because they hated the port a lot, or if they did put effort into it, then I guess the increased speed of the port seriously messes up survival everywhere. I wouldn't be surprised, after all levels are designed and tested with the slowdown effect in mind, so it makes sense that the game becomes nearly unplayable without it. Speed is such a major difficulty factor, in fact probably the most important difficulty factor, and no slowdown means probably 20% faster in parts that should be slowed down ? Since DDP has this super strict scoring system, it's possible even ZBL-NAI's 506M represents the one "lucky" run where he miraculously survived all levels, when all his other runs were nearer 200M.

From what I've seen of the PSX port, a similar competition on that version would probably yield even worse results :p
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by chempop »

So what you're saying is that I should be more proud of my 1-All on the Saturn :mrgreen:
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by Sumez »

BIL wrote:If they count, the Saturn's STV ports (Cotton 2, Cotton Boomerang, Guardian Force, Radiant Silvergun, Shienryu and Soukyugurentai) are generally regarded as perfect or damned close.
Well, "arcade port" sort of implies the game code being ported to another system. STV games is more of a copy/paste job. :P
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by captpain »

chempop wrote:So what you're saying is that I should be more proud of my 1-All on the Saturn :mrgreen:
You are truly one of an elite breed now, chempop.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by gray117 »

These are ports on quite different hardware, often with different people involved [not 100% sure in these specific cases - but I would be supruised if it was just the original team]. It's a shame they're not perfect, and arguably they were probably were polish-able. But I think it's unfair to think of them as garbage - not only in terms of achievement, but also expectations of the day.
BIL wrote:If they count, the Saturn's STV ports (Cotton 2, Cotton Boomerang, Guardian Force, Radiant Silvergun, Shienryu and Soukyugurentai) are generally regarded as perfect or damned close.
These ports were to nearly identical hardware; in many senses they're more of a 'home update' ...

This being said it's interesting to note the differences.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by Sumez »

Are there any differences other than added modes or stages for the home versions, and some loading times?

It's like saying the AES versions of Neo Geo games are arcade perfect. Well of course they are, but it's a given when it's the same damn game. :)
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by BIL »

That's why I prefaced my post with "if they count." It wasn't clear if chempop wanted to know whether you could get an arcade-perfect shooter on Saturn/PS1, period, or if he was ruling out the STV stuff.

If we're including games from hardware predating the systems themselves, I'm pretty sure the Capcom Generation (PS1) shooters are 1:1 with the arcade originals. I know for a fact Gun.Smoke on Vol.4 is arcade perfect.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by gray117 »

BIL wrote:That's why I prefaced my post with "if they count."
Yeah sorry wasn't meaning it as any kind of correction to you - really just trying to put the task of porting something else contemporary, from different hardware, in contrast to these stv games.

... I think they definitely count; by serving - in contrast - to highlight the complications involved in porting [especially if you do not have a significant performance overhead available].
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by BIL »

No worries. :smile:
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by Jeneki »

PROMETHEUS wrote:I suggest we all destroy our copies right now and go on an aggressive campaign to destroy all remaining copies in the world !
Isn't PS1 DoDonPachi available as a PSN download now? Perhaps DDP was the original target of the PSN hacks. :lol:

Who needs a physical copy when you can have the same imperfection with additional input lag?
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by zaphod »

The main issue with the DDP ports seems to be that chaining is a very important part of the game, and the chaining paths are NOT THE SAME.

That's the real beef wit the ports. It's not that they are bad games, because they are not.

But they simply do not prepare you for the PCB. if you learn chaining on the pcb, it won't translate to the ports, and vice versa.

So seems that the OP is correct here. The reason it is such an issue is because of how much chaining matters.

If chaining wasn't in the game, the minor differences wouldn't be such an issue.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by stuminator »

Maybe this explains why my scores on my Saturn DDP suck so bad.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by burgerkingdiamond »

Sumez wrote:
BIL wrote:If they count, the Saturn's STV ports (Cotton 2, Cotton Boomerang, Guardian Force, Radiant Silvergun, Shienryu and Soukyugurentai) are generally regarded as perfect or damned close.
Well, "arcade port" sort of implies the game code being ported to another system. STV games is more of a copy/paste job. :P
are you saying that the Saturn basically is the same hardware as the SEGA STV arcade hardware? I never knew that.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by Obiwanshinobi »

Saturn was such a bitch to port Sega coin-op games to that they actually made it a coin-op system so they could have had some "arcade perfect" ports on it. Even porting Galaxy Force II (1989) without halving the framerate was out of their reach.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by chempop »

chempop wrote:
So what you're saying is that I should be more proud of my 1-All on the Saturn

You are truly one of an elite breed now, chempop.
Hahaha only pussies play the easy PCB Dodonpachi, just in case there was any confusion.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by Skykid »

TransatlanticFoe wrote: I'd have thought a serious player would've relished the additional challenge, rather than complain that they have to adjust their play style. The criticism at the Saturn version is actually amusing - it's faster, smoother and tougher... what a disgrace!
Is this comment serious?

Having observed Prom reach the 2nd loop TLB in the arcade, I can completely understand why you would consider the inaccuracies to be serious flaws. It's not the same game, essentially.
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by chempop »

Well then it's settled, time to band together and start flooding Cave with tweets and FB comments demanding a patch! :twisted:
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Re: ProM's "DDP PSX and Saturn ports are garbage" rant !

Post by Sumez »

burgerkingdiamond wrote:
Sumez wrote: Well, "arcade port" sort of implies the game code being ported to another system. STV games is more of a copy/paste job. :P
are you saying that the Saturn basically is the same hardware as the SEGA STV arcade hardware? I never knew that.
Are you being sarcastic?
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