RQ: Dodonpachi DaiOuJou best ship/loops/label to survive

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JustinOrKevin
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RQ: Dodonpachi DaiOuJou best ship/loops/label to survive

Post by JustinOrKevin »

If a novice wants to win DDP DOJ (survival not score), what is the easiest combination of:
- ship
- shot type
- label (white/black)
- loops (1 loop game or 2)
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Shepardus
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Re: RQ: Dodonpachi DaiOuJou best ship/loops/label to survive

Post by Shepardus »

Black Label is easier than White. You probably want to pick 2-loop game. 1-loop game is like the first loop of the 2-loop game except you get the TLB fight at the end. In 2-loop game the game simply ends after stage 5 without the TLB if you didn't qualify for the second loop. 1-loop game is mostly useful for practicing the TLB if you don't have savestates or a console port to work with. I think ship and shot type is largely up to personal preference, though you probably want to avoid Exy as shot type since that provides very few bombs. Shotia as the shot type gives you the most bombs. I used Leinyan (and Ship A) for my own 1-ALL because I don't like Shotia's laser.
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CyberAngel
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Re: RQ: Dodonpachi DaiOuJou best ship/loops/label to survive

Post by CyberAngel »

I found Type-B/Shotia combination the most comfortable for me - wide and dense shot plus all those bombs are more useful for a plain clear than laser IMHO. Then again, I dropped the game before getting even a 1-ALL.
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Shepardus
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Re: RQ: Dodonpachi DaiOuJou best ship/loops/label to survive

Post by Shepardus »

For what it's worth, B + Shotia is the closest to the previous Dodonpachi's C-S, which is the most popular for 1-ALL clears in that game.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: RQ: Dodonpachi DaiOuJou best ship/loops/label to survive

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

A-Shot and B-Shot's laser speed feels significantly downgraded compared to what it was in Donpachi or Dodonpachi when playing A-Shot / C-Shot. They're still usable, but it's something you have to get used to, and is part of the reason A-Ex and B-Ex are super popular in DOJ despite having minimal bombs. You get a very powerful shot and laser with no movement speed issues, and plenty of bullet cancelling from the hypers you can use.

For an easier 1-ALL where you just beat the first loop, I second the recommendation of B-Shot. The wide shot is invaluable, as is being able to retain most of your spread power when you die (B-Laser badly hurts your rapid shot width if you get killed). One important thing to note is never die during a hyper if you can avoid it. You get a boost to your maximum bomb stock every time you die, so long as you die outside of a hyper. If you die during a hyper, you don't get a max bomb increase on your next life. Bombing early just after a hyper is preferable to dying during a hyper.

Shot: 3 to 6 bombs max
Laser: 2 to 4 bombs max
EX: 1 to 2 bombs max

When playing Black Label, scoreboards generally assume you are playing the 2-loop game (picking 1 loop makes the true final boss Hibachi appear immediately after the final boss).
JustinOrKevin
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Re: RQ: Dodonpachi DaiOuJou best ship/loops/label to survive

Post by JustinOrKevin »

Thanks everyone. Great info.
Also, what does the "RANK: " text on the title screen mean? How does that work.
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CyberAngel
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Re: RQ: Dodonpachi DaiOuJou best ship/loops/label to survive

Post by CyberAngel »

That's difficulty. Everyone leaves it on default (Normal).
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: RQ: Dodonpachi DaiOuJou best ship/loops/label to survive

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

A lot of arcade games allowed you to go into the options menu and set the arcade. Some allow the rank the game is set to to be hidden, apparently under the assumption arcade operators would crank up the difficulty to get more quarters out of people...

The games themselves are balanced to be sufficiently fun and challenging at the base difficulty so yeah, nobody generally adjusts the difficulty slider and scoreboards normally require you play at the defaults.

What it exactly affects depends on the game itself. Sometimes it's something subtle like more enemies appearing, or in the case of ProGear and probably most other CAVE games it speeds up bullet speeds (it ruins ProGear to play with it at max difficulty as the bullets move too fast to properly use its gem scoring system...).
JustinOrKevin
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Re: RQ: Dodonpachi DaiOuJou best ship/loops/label to survive

Post by JustinOrKevin »

Ahhh I see.

BTW some CAVE roms let me feed coins to continue after I die (e.g. Guwange, Espgaluda) and some just say GAME OVER always (e.g. Ketsui, DDP DOJ). Is there a setting to change that?

Using FB Alpha 0.2.97.44.
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EmperorIng
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Re: RQ: Dodonpachi DaiOuJou best ship/loops/label to survive

Post by EmperorIng »

Shepardus wrote:Black Label is easier than White. You probably want to pick 2-loop game. 1-loop game is like the first loop of the 2-loop game except you get the TLB fight at the end. In 2-loop game the game simply ends after stage 5 without the TLB if you didn't qualify for the second loop. 1-loop game is mostly useful for practicing the TLB if you don't have savestates or a console port to work with.
I've been toying around with just wholly practicing 1-loop, because a) my score will never be worth anything, and b) the challenge is high enough as-is especially without high-level loop requirements. Maybe I should make a scoreboard for that too, ha ha. It's not as if there are so many 2ALL DOJ players out there (less than 10 on this forum's scoreboard) that makes the mode superfluous.

Of course, if a player wants to go for that achievement I think they should, full-stop.
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CyberAngel
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Re: RQ: Dodonpachi DaiOuJou best ship/loops/label to survive

Post by CyberAngel »

I wonder if 1-loop Hibachi is easier, at least because of the dynamic rank not being as high.
JustinOrKevin wrote:BTW some CAVE roms let me feed coins to continue after I die (e.g. Guwange, Espgaluda) and some just say GAME OVER always (e.g. Ketsui, DDP DOJ). Is there a setting to change that?
Second loops in some of the CAVE games disable continuing. It's possible to toggle it for first loops and single-loop games but that should be enabled by default anyway.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: RQ: Dodonpachi DaiOuJou best ship/loops/label to survive

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

All CAVE games as far as I know offer to continue after dying in the first loop except under special cases such as dying to Ketsui's super secret true final boss or if playing the Score Attack mode on some console ports. If Final Burn Alpha has continues disabled and it goes straight to game over screen, it's not set to default for some reason. In MAME you access the options menu by holding F2 (it takes longer in some games, be patient), you'll want to check and reset to default (and make sure C button autofire option is on, nobody seriously plays the games without it as it's a nice convenience not to have to button mash).
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