Dodonpachi Maximum is a vertically scrolling danmaku type shmup. Initially, there is only one fighter (they refer to as a battleship) to choose from, but more play time and qualifying for certain achievements unlocks other fighters. The version I played, and I will be reviewing, will be for Windows Phone.
Control: 7/10. Good precise small/slower movements when dragging the finger on screen in small movements, but there is some minor lag when making a larger sweeping movements. Seems to be a certain point where a Laser Bomb will accidentally go off. This could potentially make a 100% destroyed/no miss/no bomb achievement extremely hard to get.
Graphics: 7/10. Lots of lines and shapes in the background, and the enemies have an intentional blocky pixellated look to them--enemies are visible but some might not be noticed until they fire bullets when more with groups of enemies. Pink round bullets, blue round bullets, blue arrow bullets, purple round buttlet, purple dome bullets, and pink arrow bullets, are very clear to see. The green circle hitbox of the player fighter is also visible.
Music: 8/10. Melodic music during the stages, darker music during the boss fights. It works, I think. Nothing dull, but nothing exceptional.
Gameplay: 8/10. This is a danmaku game for everyone, I think. From the start of the game there are multiple bullets being fired, but anyone who has played even a classic shmup can dodge those. Starting from the mid-boss attack onwards, the patterns are much more dense--and that's just playing stage 1. Patterns get faster starting at stage 2. Items from destroyed enemies are automatically drawn to the fighter. The most obvious scoring system is the combo meter--as the combo meter decreases, another enemy needs to be hit in order to keep the combo, otherwise it resets to zero. It took me an hours worth of gameplay, and using the second fighter using the laser, just to unlock stage 3-A when playing for score, rather that just shooting enemies and dodging bullets. It's also worth noting that a bullet has to direct hit the green circle in the center to lose a turn--if the side of a bullet touches the edge of the green circle this is not considered a hit. (Tip: with the dense bullet patterns, I find it's easier not to look at the enemy firing the bullets and just watch the green circle, move the fighter as bullets will hit the circle.) With 15 possible stages, I think this is a great value and worth addition to a collection of shmups on someone's mobile phone, and the achivement list is quite long even if the game is finished soon enough.
Overall (mean-averaged): (7/10 + 7/10 + 8/10 + 8/10 ) / 4 = (30/10) / 4 = (3) / 4 = 7.5, so 7.5 out of 10, I think that's a fair enough rating.