Donpachi - Type A - 84,170,530
Dodonpachi - Type A - 748,414,350
Dimahoo - Miyamoto - 99,643,050 (his most recent WR)
Blazing Star - Aryustalim - 74,276,240
Raiden Fighters 2 - Judge Spear - 120,076,000
Raiden Fighters 2 - Slave - 130,781,130
Raiden Fighters 2 - Chaser 2000 - 120,804,600
Raiden Fighters 2 - Flying Ray - 116,579,930
After showing off his amazing skills I had the chance to have a small chat about Donpachi with him. Donpachi remained a mystery for years and noone was really sure how to get such huge scores. Let's see what SOF-WTN has to say about Donpachi, shall we!
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Interpretation/Translation: Adversity1
Recording: CHI
Plasmo: Well first, thanks for taking the time and doing the Donpachi interview. If I’m not mistaken, you have a very good score in Donpachi, about 80million is that right?
WTN: Yes.
Plasmo: For how long have you been playing this game and how long did it take you to get the high score?
WTN: Basically, there were two periods in which I was playing the game for score. It took me about a year and a half to hit my 71.9 million score.
Adversity1: Was that after the game came out?
WTN: No, I started playing the game in 2005, and in 2007 I hit 71.9 million and stopped playing at that point. After that, maybe 2 or 3 years ago, I started playing again at Ebisen. At that point I was able to raise my score from 71.9 to 84.17 million over a year. So overall, it’s been a period of about 9 years, the actual amount of time I’ve been playing it is 3 or 4 years.
Plasmo: Alright. So are you satisfied with your final score or do you still want to improve it? Were there any major mistakes? Are you still playing the game at all?
WTN: I’m still not satisfied with my high score. In 2-5, there’s a huge combo that gives you 10 million points. In my best run, I dropped my combo mid-way through there and lost about 5 million points. One goal I have is 90 million points, and at some point I feel like I want to take up the game again. I have the patterns themselves down, so it’s just a matter of connecting them up.
Plasmo: For all the other CAVE games, we mostly have superplay DVDs or very good replays which are close to the world record. But Donpachi’s an exception. We don’t have any good Donpachi replays, and so since we don’t have any arcades in the west, we don’t really know how to get these kind of high scores. Our scores are around 30, 40 million, so nothing close to your score. Why do you think it’s the case that Donpachi doesn’t have higher scoring replays on the internet?
WTN: Well to begin with, Donpachi was released in 1995. At the time, there was no way to upload replays to the internet. So the first thing I think is that the players at the time were not able to upload replays. Nowadays you can upload videos to Youtube, Nico Douga etc., but the players from that era no longer play the game. I think that’s the main reason that there aren’t any high-scoring replays up.
Plasmo: So the next questions are going to be a little more in-depth scoring-wise. I’m interested in what kind of scores you’re getting in the 1st loop.
WTN: My personal best is 40 million. To break that down for you, my best runs would go like this:
Code: Select all
Stage 1 1.8 mil
Stage 2 5.8 mil
Stage 3 13 mil
Stage 4 My best is 21 mil (score limit would be 23.5 mil)
Stage 5 40 mil (score limit would be 44.7 mil)WTN: The biggest is the last section of Stage 5, which you can get 290 hits on for 10.5 mil. Next is the middle section of Stage 3, where you can get 96 hits for 1.7 mil, and similarly the middle section of Stage 4, which is good for 96 or 97 hits, I forget, but it’s worth about 1.7 mil. Then there’s the last part of Stage 4, with 130 hits which is worth about 1.2 mil, and finally the start of Stage 5, with 150 hits for probably about 2 mil but I forget the exact number. Of course there are a lot of other smaller chains, but these are the major chains in the game.
Plasmo: So, about the last phase of the last boss for the 5th stage: is there some kind of safe spot or do you really have to dodge that? As we know, you can’t use a bomb for the capacity bonus, so you have to no-miss it.
WTN: For the first form, there is a safe spot. Oh there actually is another one, however it’s limited to A-type only. The first safe spot can be used by all ships. If you line up you’re the center of your ship to the left, or right (I forget which side, but probably the left) of the “P” display when you pick up a power-up item in the middle of the screen, the bullets won’t hit you.
Plasmo: For the first attack, right? Yeah I know about that one.
WTN: The next safe spot is, as I mentioned, limited to A-type. Hmm...it’s hard to explain. The safe spot is in the bottom right of the screen. There are three cannons that open up on the boss, and this safe spot is usable after you destroy those. After you damage the boss to some extent, it starts throwing a lot of bullets at you. For those bullets, A-type is able to go to the bottom right of the screen for a safe spot.
Plasmo: Why only A-type?
WTN: It’s got to be related to the position of the hit box on the A-type ship, but besides that I don’t know. The bullets will hit other ships. Also, there’s another famous safe-spot, but in the boss’ last form, B type can go to the top left of the screen for a safe spot.
Plasmo: Since I’m a C-type player myself I have to dodge...
All: (Laughs)
WTN: Yeah you have to dodge that one.
Plasmo: So let’s approach the loop. When you got your 84 million score, did you get the capacity bonus on 2-4?
WTN: Yeah.
Plasmo: On 2-5 also?
WTN: No.
Plasmo: So if you’re going for the capacity bonus on 2-2 onwards, 2-3, 2-4 etc., are you still able to pull of all the chains you’re doing in the first loop?
WTN: No I can’t. The suicide bullets of the 1st loop are really harsh. To a certain extent, you can score of course, but you have to use combo patterns with as little sweeping across the screen as possible. You have avoid running into the suicide bullets.
Plasmo: So do you think the capacity bonus for 2-5 is also possible?
WTN: Maybe possible, but point-wise, going for the capacity bonus on 2-5 will lower your score. So ultimately there’s no point to it.
Plasmo: Because you can’t pull of the bigger chains when your rank is too high?
WTN: Yeah.
Plasmo: Alright.
WTN: So you won’t be able to get the 10 mil point combo I was talking about earlier. Basically, if you go for the capacity bonus, the suicide bullets will be so overwhelming that you can’t hit the combos anymore. You wind up losing a ton of points. At the start of stage 2-5, I’ll ram my ship directly into the item carrier to drop the rank and use combos similar to the ones I use in the 1st loop to score.
Plasmo: Is there a replay of your 84 mil run? Have you recorded it?
WTN: I do have a video of it on DVD. But I’m not planning on uploading it to Youtube.
Plasmo: OK, so it’s not public.
WTN: Yes.
Plasmo: If a company would approach you to do a superplay DVD, would you do it?
WTN: Hmm…that’s hard to say. If the offer was there, I might think about it. But at the moment it’s not something I’ve really thought about.
Plasmo: Ok! So that’s probably it, thanks for your time.
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I am deeply indebted to Adversity1. Without him, this interview would not have happened at all. Thanks for being an amazing organizer and a great translator as well. Special thanks go out to CHI for being CHI.
So there we go! We finally have some more information on how to get such insane scores in Donpachi. Who will be the first western player to pull off the 10 million chain?
Meanwhile I fail at playing Donpachi, but still managed to record something. The following replay shows all the basic chains for type C during the first loop. The ending score is over 19 million points, but has a death in it which means a loss of 2mill. If you follow the captions and optimize the route here and there a bit, it gives you 25 milllion points for the first loop only. Now add SOF-WTN's 10mill chain to it and you slowly approach the elusive 40mill points. The replay is still a work in progress and very rough. Please excuse the many mistakes I made and enjoy!
LINK
Thanks to Icarus for hosting the video on his awesome youtube channel!
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