Dodonpachi Saidaioujou EXA Label

[clippa]

Saidaioujou Exalt sounds quite nice.

[DoomsDave]

I know this is super nit picky but "EXA Label" is such a terrible name.

Just out of curiosity: what would you have them name it, if you could?

I have no idea what I would have called it and I’m not saying I could do better but if they really wanted a “label” name then “White Label” would have made more sense because it’s literally describing what this release is. EXA Label sounds like a fan hack or something.


I realise that I’m being silly but I just think it’s a dumb name.

[XoPachi]

I would have just called it at "DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou EXA" and left it at that.
DoDonPachi Saidaioujou is already a fucking mouthful as it is.

[Elixir]

4) it's region-locked, so you'd have to get a Japanese 360 too

Basically, most people cannot actually play or access the game

It was region free and according to your guide this also should also apply the $25 digital version on the Japanese store, accessible to anyone if they create an account and add some credit.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=23501

This. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. SDOJ physical might be incredible overpriced but the Games on Demand version hasn't gone anywhere: https://marketplace.xbox.com/ja-jp/Prod ... 02435a07e7

Also, I'm all for game preservation but let's not kid ourselves. For every 1 person that playes a game in MAME that they own, 99 people will play it for free.

It's a last-gen digital release which requires people to dig out their 360, make a Japanese account, buy Japanese points and download a buggy port.

It's a matter of accessibility. The Exa port barely makes the game more accessible because most people just can't afford it, so that's why people are complaining about it. But I think you know that already.

[brokenhalo]

I know this is super nit picky but "EXA Label" is such a terrible name.

Just out of curiosity: what would you have them name it, if you could?

I have no idea what I would have called it and I’m not saying I could do better but if they really wanted a “label” name then “White Label” would have made more sense because it’s literally describing what this release is. EXA Label sounds like a fan hack or something.


I realise that I’m being silly but I just think it’s a dumb name.

I don't think this will be a "White label" port though. EXA requires something exclusive for their releases- I could definitely see Cave whipping up a Black label for this, as that would generate the most hype without a lot of investment. It doesn't take them much time or manpower to do a remix mode, I think I remember an interview where one of the Black labels was basically done in a day or two.

[donluca]

And that is a problem why exactly? Would you rather those 99 people not play it at all, fracturing the already minuscule shmups community even further? It is Cave's fault for failing to make these games easily accessible to a broader audience. Gabe Newell once said that "rampant piracy is just unserved customers".

Say you live in North America, only have a PC and maybe a current gen console and you're curious about shmups. You hear about Cave and their great shmups. You read their last great shmup was Saidaioujou. Ok, you want to play it legally and support Cave in their future endeavors (like putting Saidaioujou on a niche arcade platform nobody will ever actually be able to use, or selling limited edition grape juice labeled as Maria's robo-piss at a Matsuri event).

So you do some research, and find out the easiest way to play Saidaioujou legally is to buy a used Xbox 360, create a Japanese Microsoft account (which will have no other utility given the Xbox brand's failure in Japan), and use an import website to buy Japanese prepaid cards.

Alternatively you could download uBlock Origin, type "Saidaioujou" into google along with a file extension, and click on the first result.

I'm not saying that the former is an extreme effort, but it might as well be for a casual consumer with only a slight interest in shmups.

And for what? Pretty much none of cave's original staff remains, the best they can do is outsource some ports of their older games to M2. If you give them money, they will invest it in things like Saidaioujou EXA label.

^ This.

But then, I have a very strong opinion on copyrighted material which are not officially obtainable anymore and are not making the developers money.

[GaijinPunch]

If I did “cave” I think I’d want GP to order it and forward it on. But not without exchanging some tantalizing e-mails first.

I might just skip the game and go straight to the e-mails.

Either way works for me, although the first one isn't exactly smart, financially.

[cave hermit]

Well I tried using the February 6th build of xenia canary, and saidaioujou is playable, albeit with random screen flickering to black and sound lag. Not really sure what's going on there. On closer inspection, there is some black flickering in the youtube footage showing the game running as well.

So you can technically play Saidaioujou, but with the constant flickering and the sound lag it isn't exactly an optimal experience (I have a GTX 1070, so it shouldn't be a hardware issue. Well my PC is kind of borked and stutters randomly, but I don't think that's related.). Not to mention that there appears to have been a regression, as builds past February 6th 2020 revert to only being able to play the opening FMV.

Apparently Futari runs beautifully, which I've yet to verify for myself, so if that's any indicator, hopefully optimal Saidaioujou emulation will be coming sometime in the future.

Also if you actually purchased the game on disc, apparently converting it for use with Xenia is trivial and doesn't require any modding. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Anyway my point remains that the legitimate means of playing cave games are fairly inaccessible to most people, and within those means, there are very few that actually provide profit for cave. Not that it matters since Cave has demonstrated that giving them money is a poor investment.

[Chacranajxy]

Also, I'm all for game preservation but let's not kid ourselves. For every 1 person that playes a game in MAME that they own, 99 people will play it for free.

And that is a problem why exactly? Would you rather those 99 people not play it at all, fracturing the already minuscule shmups community even further? It is Cave's fault for failing to make these games easily accessible to a broader audience. Gabe Newell once said that "rampant piracy is just unserved customers".

Say you live in North America, only have a PC and maybe a current gen console and you're curious about shmups. You hear about Cave and their great shmups. You read their last great shmup was Saidaioujou. Ok, you want to play it legally and support Cave in their future endeavors (like putting Saidaioujou on a niche arcade platform nobody will ever actually be able to use, or selling limited edition grape juice labeled as Maria's robo-piss at a Matsuri event).

So you do some research, and find out the easiest way to play Saidaioujou legally is to buy a used Xbox 360, create a Japanese Microsoft account (which will have no other utility given the Xbox brand's failure in Japan), and use an import website to buy Japanese prepaid cards.

Alternatively you could download uBlock Origin, type "Saidaioujou" into google along with a file extension, and click on the first result.

I'm not saying that the former is an extreme effort, but it might as well be for a casual consumer with only a slight interest in shmups.

And for what? Pretty much none of cave's original staff remains, the best they can do is outsource some ports of their older games to M2. If you give them money, they will invest it in things like Saidaioujou EXA label.

Not that you aren't making some fair points, but this is an incredibly entitled point of view.

[clippa]

Well I tried using the February 6th build of xenia canary, and saidaioujou is playable, albeit with random screen flickering to black

I had the same problem with the flickering. Try the February 13th version, that works much better.

[cave hermit]

Indeed it did work much better, thanks for the tip! Still a little flickering, but not nearly as bad as before.

[slateman]

Not that you aren't making some fair points, but this is an incredibly entitled point of view.

This is true. But as much as we may deliberate about things, a casual gamer will say: A) Go through a lot of effort to play? B) Eff it. YAR!

People pirating Switch games is one thing.
People prating Muchi Muchi Pork is another

Even though they are actually the same exact thing. I like that Gabe Newell quote. I'd never heard that one before.

[Sumez]

So as a shmup fan, even turning on a X360 is now considered "too much work" to be able to play a game legit?

[Special World]

So as a shmup fan, even turning on a X360 is now considered "too much work" to be able to play a game legit?

The game is not installed on every 360. Not even Japanese ones!

You still have to buy it or download it. I downloaded Deathsmiles Mega Black recently, and it was a horrible experience that i couldnt have navigated without the shmups discord.

[slateman]

I missed the 360 version of MMP/PS and I've always wanted it. Physical copies are hundreds of dollars and every time I look at it on the 360 store, it tells me I'm in the wrong region and won't let me purchase it. Dunno if there's a legitimate way to even play this at a reasonable price.

Sorry to get off topic. I love DDP and SDOJ is great, even if I never play EXA. We're all used to the plight of Japan-only releases.

[Johnpv]

I missed the 360 version of MMP/PS and I've always wanted it. Physical copies are hundreds of dollars and every time I look at it on the 360 store, it tells me I'm in the wrong region and won't let me purchase it. Dunno if there's a legitimate way to even play this at a reasonable price.

Sorry to get off topic. I love DDP and SDOJ is great, even if I never play EXA. We're all used to the plight of Japan-only releases.

You need to make a Japanese Xbox Live account, and sign onto it on your 360. Also need to buy an Xbox Yen card to be able to buy them.

[cave hermit]

Alternatively, mod your 360 and find the game files online!








Oh no! It's the ghostly cave crew, dead but forever bound to protect their lost treasure!

YAAAAR, YE SHALL NEVER TAKE THE TREASURES OF SALTY DOG IKEDA AND PEGLEG YAGAWA. NOT WHILE WE CAN STILL MAKE MINUSCULE PROFIT OFF OF THE INCREASINGLY NICHE JAPANESE ARCADE INDUSTRY!

[Oniros]

Ok, that got a chuckle out of me. Considering how Microsoft has been a bastion of backwards compatibility this gen, you'd think Cave would've taken the chance to make their games available on XB1 for some extra $. They aren't foreign to the concept since Guwange ended up on XB1 BC, but who knows why they stopped. They might be banking on M2 remastering their entire catalog a la Ketsui Deathiny.

[Nate123]

Cost is my guess.

[DoomsDave]

Ok, that got a chuckle out of me. Considering how Microsoft has been a bastion of backwards compatibility this gen, you'd think Cave would've taken the chance to make their games available on XB1 for some extra $. They aren't foreign to the concept since Guwange ended up on XB1 BC, but who knows why they stopped. They might be banking on M2 remastering their entire catalog a la Ketsui Deathiny.

Backwards compatibility was handled by MS internally not by the developers of the games. They don't have a "every game magically runs" solution so each game that gets compatibility needs to be individually worked on by the BC team at MS. Publishers had to submit games they wanted BC for to MS and then MS would approve and work on it. Because this was the process, MS prioritised games that were available for digital download and playable in English, like Guwange. Cave could have wanted all of their games to be backwards compatible but unless MS approved it then there was nothing Cave can do.

[mikejmoffitt]

Every time a "simple" project comes to mind, and you wonder why a company doesn't do it, please consider the extreme volume of "hidden" costs in doing a development like that. Double it, because Japan loves middlemen for everything. Then, consider that, and how difficult it would be to elect to do a project without a very clear ROI.

Porting a game for a Steam release is not always a matter of just configuring the build for PC and letting it go. Maybe a dev build runs on PC for testing, that's fine. Have you tested it on everyone else's PC? Their video cards and drivers? Their shitty sound card that drops out randomly or is late to present a buffer? What do you do, expand the buffer for compatibility at the expense of sound delay for everyone? Or, god, make the settings section somehow even larger? What do you do about the goobers who turn off Vsync? Are you going to redesign the layout for multiple aspect ratios, or letterbox it? If the monitor refresh isn't what you expect, then you've got to decouple game speed from monitor speed (while common, it has some drawbacks for frame-driven games like STGs)

Releasing a game for PC, even if it already exists, is not necessarily a slam dunk in terms of cost vs profit.

[Despatche]

Count on a CAVE game to warrant a separate thread.

And that is a problem why exactly? Would you rather those 99 people not play it at all, fracturing the already minuscule shmups community even further? It is Cave's fault for failing to make these games easily accessible to a broader audience. Gabe Newell once said that "rampant piracy is just unserved customers".

Say you live in North America, only have a PC and maybe a current gen console and you're curious about shmups. You hear about Cave and their great shmups. You read their last great shmup was Saidaioujou. Ok, you want to play it legally and support Cave in their future endeavors (like putting Saidaioujou on a niche arcade platform nobody will ever actually be able to use, or selling limited edition grape juice labeled as Maria's robo-piss at a Matsuri event).

So you do some research, and find out the easiest way to play Saidaioujou legally is to buy a used Xbox 360, create a Japanese Microsoft account (which will have no other utility given the Xbox brand's failure in Japan), and use an import website to buy Japanese prepaid cards.

Alternatively you could download uBlock Origin, type "Saidaioujou" into google along with a file extension, and click on the first result.

I'm not saying that the former is an extreme effort, but it might as well be for a casual consumer with only a slight interest in shmups.

And for what? Pretty much none of cave's original staff remains, the best they can do is outsource some ports of their older games to M2. If you give them money, they will invest it in things like Saidaioujou EXA label.

There are so many non-starters here.

People really need to stop worrying about "accessibility". I thought these were supposed to be niche games for a niche audience that have to be in the know? Whatever happened to that?

You do know the 360 worked well in Japan as a niche option, right? The end result was somewhat similar to the Mega Drive in Japan. The reason why the Xbone bombed in Japan is the same reason why the Xbone got crushed by the PS4 everywhere else: it has little intrinsic value and people only want it for a few specific names. Even Nintendo is better about this than Microsoft!

Please don't blatantly endorse piracy like this. Gabe Newell is an abject liar, and has never really had to worry about piracy.

I'm pretty sure Ikeda could make a game entirely by himself if he wanted. He's probably solely responsible for SDOJ EXA, even. Besides, basically noone knows who even worked at CAVE besides specific names like Ikeda, Inoue, and Yagawa, so it's always a moot point.

[eebrozgi]

So based on the context what you replied in...

Discouraging piracy is a completely reasonable stance. But in the same post, you say shmups are supposed to be hard to access?

I think it's why accessibility should definitely be worried about if we want to see these games even get an acceptable minimum revenue, we can't police everyone with varying degrees of interest towards a given game.

[qmish]

everytime i click this topic to see new screenshots or videos or news, but instead crappy discussion that endlessly loops is all i see

[Zeether]

everytime i click this topic to see new screenshots or videos or news, but instead crappy discussion that endlessly loops is all i see

Considering how few videos/screenshots there are of other EXA games I'm gonna be surprised if this gets any.

[strawpoll-legend]

People really need to stop worrying about "accessibility". I thought these were supposed to be niche games for a niche audience that have to be in the know? Whatever happened to that?

Shmups should not be artificially niche because of after market price inflation. Shmups should only be niche because the genre takes time to master. Tell me, why would it be a bad thing for classic shmups to be easier to access? If they are more accessible, they might be exposed to people less willing to take time to enjoy the genre, but in that case, the new players will just drop shmups, and we'll be back at square one.

Let's be honest. If someone went into shmups with 100% legal activity in mind, they would either need an exorbitant amount of personal wealth, or they would be barred from many great titles. We shouldn't let the shmup community become something like the Broadway community or the golf community, where many members turn their nose up at the thought of poor folks infiltrating their space.

[Udderdude]

I don't think this will be a "White label" port though. EXA requires something exclusive for their releases- I could definitely see Cave whipping up a Black label for this, as that would generate the most hype without a lot of investment. It doesn't take them much time or manpower to do a remix mode, I think I remember an interview where one of the Black labels was basically done in a day or two.

This would be interesting to see.