Skykid wrote:It's the game itself that puts you off DFK, something that's been rattled around this forum since the DFK meh thread - but if you sit back and watch rather than play, it's one of the most visually intoxicating shmups ever created: incendiary from start to finish and a ripping gala of OTT bluster that positively boils over when Ura bosses warp through the screen fabric.
The elemental dolls suck and are a design error, and there are still improvements that could have been made - but as a spectacle it's right up there.
We can agree to disagree, but I assure you I don't like the game's graphic design. The graphic design is very vanilla me-too space shooter, I hate the green hyper lasers, hypering ruins the spectacle of the bullet patterns, I don't dig red bullets for some reason, I hate the transforming bosses, and I don't find the scoring items nearly as enticing as those in Futari Black or the original Mushi. The terribland soundtrack, awful scoring system, and forced autobomb certainly don't do it any favors, but those really aren't biasing me to a large extent. I don't like the way the game looks, and that is that.
But you're right of course — I don't like its style. This somehow became all about its visual design, when I was mostly talking about the entire package. Trap15 asked me what "soul" even means, and I guess I'd respond that it's the difference between a book that's written well and a book that's
actually masterful. DFK may (or may not) look the part, it might have special warping effects and lots of bullets and crazy amounts of scoring items, but there is no meaningful gestalt. DOJ has a feeling of oppressive dilapidation, Ketsui has a totalitarian white-washed sterility, Mushihimesama has verdant beauty, and Muchi Muchi Pork has cartoon craziness. DFK has nothing.
DFK does not inspire in me any sort of deeper feeling. There is no emotional resonance for me, there is no artistry, there are only the graphics and the gameplay. This is a particular sticking point in scrolling shooters, because so much of the conversation around these games is the gameplay, the gameplay, the gameplay. But there's a great deal more to the genre than that, and in my opinion (and perhaps only my opinion, as far as the posters in this topic are concerned) DFK completely lacks that something extra. And it lacks it in just about every aspect I can name: the visual design, the music, the scoring, and the complexity of the gameplay in relation to what it actually does with it.
I get this something extra from every other Cave game. But DFK leaves me totally cold. You can disagree if you want, but I definitely do not like the graphics (or the gameplay, or the music). I do really love some of the boss patterns, though!
