Udderdude wrote:
And what the hell is up with those goofy dancing robots that have a short range bullet attack and take a metric fuckload of damage? It is such an incomprehensibly dumb idea that I can't even wrap my head around it. I'm glad that's the first and last time I've ever encountered something like that in a shmup.
I think they're for bullet grazing mega hits. You get in close on one quadrant and allow them to spam your wings.
Udderdude wrote:
And what the hell is up with those goofy dancing robots that have a short range bullet attack and take a metric fuckload of damage? It is such an incomprehensibly dumb idea that I can't even wrap my head around it. I'm glad that's the first and last time I've ever encountered something like that in a shmup.
I think they're for bullet grazing mega hits. You get in close on one quadrant and allow them to spam your wings.
Might be wrong tho.
Does grazing actually increase your score, or only your bomb meter? If it's the latter it's probably more worth it to bomb the damn things, as they take a ton of hits and jack your hit counter up significantly for bombing them.
Yeah that's what I had figured. Still trying to consistently get to stage 4 because I'm a simpleton and stage 3 feels like a huge difficulty spike compared to stage 2.
I'm also an idiot and can't really see the difference between the three modes - the bottom one's for 'Internet Recording' of your highscore to IGS' website I presume while the one on the top spawns bees when you hit enemies more and 'Combat' is like somewhere in between. Difficulty/scoring system change?
I'm thoroughly enjoying this actually. It's quite refreshing from traditional Dodonpachi. By the way, Haze said pressing Start changes your options but button 4 does that as well.
One other thing: I noticed the score display flash red towards the end of Stage 3. Does it do that when you've hit the top of the highscore board or is it something else I'm unaware of?
BPzeBanshee wrote:I'm also an idiot and can't really see the difference between the three modes - the bottom one's for 'Internet Recording' of your highscore to IGS' website I presume while the one on the top spawns bees when you hit enemies more and 'Combat' is like somewhere in between. Difficulty/scoring system change?
The top is 'training mode', and only has the first 4 stages, and it's easier. Combat is regular, normal. IR is Internet Ranking, and is harder.
BPzeBanshee wrote:One other thing: I noticed the score display flash red towards the end of Stage 3. Does it do that when you've hit the top of the highscore board or is it something else I'm unaware of?
Yes, that means you have the new high score (I believe for the mode you're in, but it might be global high score; I can't recall)
BPzeBanshee wrote:Yeah that's what I had figured. Still trying to consistently get to stage 4 because I'm a simpleton and stage 3 feels like a huge difficulty spike compared to stage 2.
BPzeBanshee wrote:I'm also an idiot and can't really see the difference between the three modes - the bottom one's for 'Internet Recording' of your highscore to IGS' website I presume while the one on the top spawns bees when you hit enemies more and 'Combat' is like somewhere in between. Difficulty/scoring system change?
The top is 'training mode', and only has the first 4 stages, and it's easier. Combat is regular, normal. IR is Internet Ranking, and is harder.
BPzeBanshee wrote:One other thing: I noticed the score display flash red towards the end of Stage 3. Does it do that when you've hit the top of the highscore board or is it something else I'm unaware of?
Yes, that means you have the new high score (I believe for the mode you're in, but it might be global high score; I can't recall)
Ah, I see. I wasn't sure if the perceived difficulty was actual difficulty or just me. IR doesn't seem to let me actually put a score on the scoreboard for some reason though, it just does that weird-ass password thing.
Considering they call it a sequel, it's weird that it's easier and inferior to the original in every way imaginable. It has less and slower bullets, no loop, way more forgiving and worse designed scoring, lot more ways to cheese stuff, worse stage and pattern design and it's uglier.
It's not an outright bad game but since it's called DDP2, comparisons to the first game are inevitable. I think it's rather mediocre but I still had fun playing it for a while.
I know a lot of people don't like the game mechanics, but I think a lot of that comes about because the actual Cave games are more finely tuned and balanced, whereas DDP2 comes across as more about having fun than caring *too* much about the exact scoring mechanics and overall design.
It's a shame the graphics are mostly recycled because IGS had better artists around that time, and the PGM hardware was capable of better, but it doesn't detract too much from the game.
I've said in the article it seems to have been designed with accessibility in mind, being localized for a whole bunch of reasons, letting the player beat a large boss from the very first moment they start playing, no score reset, internet rankings, encouraging bombing etc. the target audience seems to be less 'hardcore shmup fans' and more 'casual arcade goer' and I don't think it does too badly if you consider that to be the criteria.
The only thing I really don't like is the lack of boss energy bars.
Erppo wrote:
I don't know what you are commenting but the game has plenty of stuff that could be considered flaws besides the difficulty.
I don't think that the difficulty has anything to do with a game's quality whether it's a shmup, platformer, adventure game, platformer, etc. Some of the best video games of all time are pretty easy.
Like IseeThings, the only thing that I really don't like is the bosses not having health bars. Many people are going to bash the game because it's not like the other games in the series, but it's not supposed to be. The same can be said for Demon Front and Metal Slug.
The biggest problem here is just the name. Since it's named like a sequel, it's going to be treated as a sequel and the game is quite underwhelming when compared to DDP. Same thing with the difficulty, having a sequel that's considerably easier than the first game just feels odd.
And to not give people the wrong idea: I still don't have anything against the game. It might be worse than DDP but most games are.
Erppo wrote:The biggest problem here is just the name. Since it's named like a sequel, it's going to be treated as a sequel and the game is quite underwhelming when compared to DDP. Same thing with the difficulty, having a sequel that's considerably easier than the first game just feels odd.
And to not give people the wrong idea: I still don't have anything against the game. It might be worse than DDP but most games are.
Futari Black Label is noticeably easier than both Futari and Mushihime-sama, Daiffukatsu is easier than Dai Ou Jou, and Espgaluda is easier than Esp Ra. De. Even looking at other genres, Super Mario Bros 3 is easier than both the American and Japanese versions of SMB2, and Super Mario World is far easier still than SMB3.
Nasirosuchus wrote:Futari Black Label is noticeably easier than both Futari and Mushihime-sama, Daiffukatsu is easier than Dai Ou Jou, and Espgaluda is easier than Esp Ra. De.
Futari BL is more of a remix than a sequel, DFK is around the same level of difficulty as DOJ, and Espgaluda is not really a sequel at all. Even if you would count those two, the jump in difficulty is nowhere near as drastic. Galuda and Futari BL are both really hard to do well in while while DDP2 turns the chain on autopilot and focuses on the easier milking instead.
There might be something I'm not getting though since I don't really know where half of the WR level scores come from. I'm suspecting it's about some extended boss milking trick but maybe there is more to the game.
Nasirosuchus wrote:Futari Black Label is noticeably easier than both Futari and Mushihime-sama, Daiffukatsu is easier than Dai Ou Jou, and Espgaluda is easier than Esp Ra. De.
Futari BL is more of a remix than a sequel, DFK is around the same level of difficulty as DOJ, and Espgaluda is not really a sequel at all. Even if you would count those two, the jump in difficulty is nowhere near as drastic. Galuda and Futari BL are both really hard to do well in while while DDP2 turns the chain on autopilot and focuses on the easier milking instead.
There might be something I'm not getting though since I don't really know where half of the WR level scores come from. I'm suspecting it's about some extended boss milking trick but maybe there is more to the game.
They're all games in the same series. You can even make the argument that DDP2 is more of a spinoff than a sequel
Futari BL is the easiest Cave 1CC other than Death Smiles, and it's even easier than Futari when playing for score once you memorize the stage layout. Same goes for Galuda. The huge advantage given by the hypers in DFK alone make it easier than DOJ.
The stage 4 and 5 bosses can be milked for a lot of points.
I think you managed to miss the fact that I was talking about the overall difficulty instead of the difficulty of the cheapest possible clear. Unless I'm missing something big, doing well in DDP2 just means extensive milking of the later bosses and this is not that hard.
Nasirosuchus wrote:Futari BL is the easiest Cave 1CC other than Death Smiles, and it's even easier than Futari when playing for score once you memorize the stage layout. Same goes for Galuda. The huge advantage given by the hypers in DFK alone make it easier than DOJ.
"Easiest" doesn't give the full picture even about pure survival since God is at least above average in that department. Also are you really talking about scoring in BL Original? Decent scoring in that is more demanding than in 1.5 and definitely not easy. Galuda is again way more complex and involved than DDP2. DFK hypers are mostly to be avoided if you want decent scores and proper chains are overall around the same level of difficulty as DOJ.
Nasirosuchus wrote:The stage 4 and 5 bosses can be milked for a lot of points.
How much is a lot? I've of course seen the nico replays of around 3 billion and already replicated most of those. The WR thread claims the record is over 7 billion though so there should be more tricks somewhere.
Matsunaga wrote:If only I could find the rom, feeling left out..
The usual ROM sources for MAME are perfectly suitable (in other words, if you can't find DDP2 you can't find any other MAME game).
The three sets (parent ddp2 and clones ddp2100 and ddp2101) are quite old, but don't forget the added ROMs in set ddp2 since 0.145u5.
Having played it now, I gotta say I was quite pleasantly surprised. It certainly doesn't deserve the hate that it often gets.
It still has that 'DoDonPachi feel'... it's just.. well, different. If I was expecting DoDonPachi mkII, as in a similar kind of layout and feel to the original, I'd be disappointed. But as a standalone shmup its still pretty good in its own right. It just has its own style thats all.
For example.. how many shmups can you think of where the first level has you fighting a boss IMMEDIATELY, and then when you destroy it it says 'KO' and 'Perfect' as though you were playing some fighting game or something? Probably none, I would imagine. So its certainly unique.
Not the masterpiece that is DOJ of course, but still a pretty good shooter IMO. Although as far as I can tell, only the 'IR' (whatever that means) mode seems to be worth bothering with, as everything else is too easy.
Hey,
Can anyone tell the difference between the 4 difficulties in this game? I've played on normal and just switched it to hardest and I can't tell any difference what so ever. (to get into difficulty press f2 on mame when starting up)
Can anyone tell what the difficulty differences are found in the setup menu? I changed it from normal to hardest and can't tell any difference what so ever.
