Dodonpachi Series Article on HardcoreGaming101.net

[Masamune_Shadow]

Hey guys,
As mentioned in my Ibara / Pink Sweets post, I am letting you guys know that I wrote a Dodonpachi Series article for Hardcoregaming101.net. It's been up there for a year but I never informed you guys, so here it is.
Check it out here:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/dodonp ... npachi.htm

I'll be back in a couple weeks with a post about the final article I wrote for them about Akai Katana, so in the mean time please enjoy the DoDonPachi Article(s).

[Erppo]

The DOJ page is filled with blatantly false information.

"Every enemy in Dai-Ou-Jou has a base point value attached to it, and destroying that enemy in a chain will add their point value multiplied by the number of hits in the chain to the total score."

"Finally, while not that important in the first loop, having a maximum bonus in the second loop can provide an incredible amount of points." (True about BL but this is in the WL part)

"Hyper Gauge now fills faster than before, and this is true only because it wasn't working properly in the original version."

"In Black Label, that extra 29% is now properly carried over into the next Hyper bar."

"the second loop's difficulty has been increased in Black Label."

How did you even come up with these?

[KAI]

"Hyper Gauge now fills faster than before, and this is true only because it wasn't working properly in the original version."

This one is true tho...

[Squire Grooktook]

How did you even come up with these?

This is why it's hard to write about games like these. There's so much complicated, in depth stuff that makes the game work the way it does, if you haven't experienced it yourself with high level play than it becomes really hard to get everything straight and make any kind of analysis or statement about.

[Erppo]

The worst thing is how these kind of claims start to become accepted as the truth since someone first makes them up and them people start repeating them and quoting each other as the source. Like the "fact" that WL hyper generation is wrong, because some unreliable source somewhere said that and this other guy some time ago said that too. Never once have I seen anyone provide a credible source for that claim.

I guess this article mosly just copied the false information abundant in places like this forum so it can't really be blamed.

[royalfan84]

I actually read the 101 articles the other day as I just purchased SDOJ and was interested in how it plays and where it fits in with the series. I enjoyed it. I'm no expert, maybe it's not all correct. But it gave me a lot of information and got me further interested in the series. Nit-picking by Erppo aside; I thought the article pretty well done and VERY helpful and informative.

[Xyga]

This is why it's hard to write about games like these. There's so much complicated, in depth stuff that makes the game work the way it does, if you haven't experienced it yourself with high level play than it becomes really hard to get everything straight and make any kind of analysis or statement about.

^ this. They shouldn't try to tell too much about the scoring mechanics, personally I think writing about the game's background, technique and ports/versions is enough and plenty interesting already.

Whatever the subject, if the author ventures and writes about parts and aspects he doesn't know perfectly, he'll attract criticism from the specialized crowd and kind of ruin what could have been an already pretty good article by itself without those wrong parts.

Most readers skip the complicated gameplay and scoring parts anyway, they're more interested in learning about where the game's placing in its own genre, its quality and that of the ports if any.

They want to know its value as a game - and by extension (sadly) - as merchandise too.

[trap15]

Don't act like you know things you don't, please. People look up to HG101 (incorrectly) as being a trustworthy source, and when you post blatantly incorrect information like this, it hurts public perception and understanding. If you don't know or haven't verified it, don't say it.

[Skykid]

Don't act like you know things you don't, please. People look up to HG101 (incorrectly) as being a trustworthy source, and when you post blatantly incorrect information like this, it hurts public perception and understanding. If you don't know or haven't verified it, don't say it.

But this is par for the course for HG101: if it was a completely accurate article it would be breaking a long term trend of ill-education and misinformation.

[Iron Peach]

Hopefully a courteous email will allow the author to amend their mistake with honor.

[Special World]

That's an assload of information, and if those are the only things the author got wrong then I consider the post a rousing success

[Obscura]

"Hyper Gauge now fills faster than before, and this is true only because it wasn't working properly in the original version."

This one is true tho...

As is the bit about hyper-meter carry over.

[Strikers1945guy]

For all the work he put in a few errors is probabky par for the course? especially considering most here aren't taking on hibachi some of the stuff is hard to really have truly played through on a super hardcore 2CC level.

Loved your ibara /pink sweets article OP good stuff.

[Battlesmurf]

I think the more constructive thing to do here wouldn't be to fry the op/poster, but rather to help point out the errors and correct them. This is a small community and you know his intentions were good.

[Jaimers]

"Hyper Gauge now fills faster than before, and this is true only because it wasn't working properly in the original version."

This one is true tho...

Everything in WL works properly and the only reason you get less charge in that is because you get less charge in that. Where did this rumor even come from, is there some interview that I missed?

As is the bit about hyper-meter carry over.

No absolutely not, this is blatantly false and can be checked and verified very easily.

Besides all the false information the article also goes very in-depth about really trivial and pointless things which seems very silly to me. Like it goes in-depth about the star items of all things which is completely irrelevant since they are worth absolutely nothing.

[CStarFlare]

Is gamengai's DOJ BL interview translation still up anywhere? I thought there was an interview where IDK talks about why he wanted to work on DOJ after its release, and I can't think of any other interviews I've read - but gamengai's appears to be down.

[Obscura]

No absolutely not, this is blatantly false and can be checked and verified very easily.

Uh, what? It's been a long time since I played DOJBL, but I'm pretty sure you can see the carry-over really easily on one of the stage 1 bees.

[Jaimers]

Uh, what? It's been a long time since I played DOJBL, but I'm pretty sure you can see the carry-over really easily on one of the stage 1 bees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfRjG0lK6U8

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I think the more constructive thing to do here wouldn't be to fry the op/poster, but rather to help point out the errors and correct them. This is a small community and you know his intentions were good.

Yeah. And the genre is small enough that a lot of this knowledge does remain pretty esoteric. There's errors in the article, yes, but they're quite addressable.

The Type-B ship is unique in that moving left or right cause that side's option to slowly alter its angle of attack the longer that direction is held, up to a maximum angle of 90°. However, its rotation is so slow, that the ship will be at the edge of the screen by the time it reaches the full 90°.

You don't want your shots being fired at such a steep angle generally because there are no enemies there. Donpachi and DDP both allow you to hold Down when moving left or right, which vastly speeds up the turning speed of Type-B's side pods, and allows you to sit at the bottom of the screen and easily sweep the field if you want popcorn killing power. The Type-B's biggest benefit is that it's a strong forward shot like Type-A with a much wider stream.

If the player cancels a certain number of bullets during a Hyper, a yellow "DANGER" hexagon will spawn and fire a laser at the player until Hyper Counter is over.

Huh? This doesn't sound right - those DANGER warnings appear even out of hyper before certain enemies with lasers fire, I'm not aware of it being tied to cancelling bullets while hypering.

[Softdrink 117]

So going back and looking at what sources I can for the "broken hyper meter in WL" issue, the most notable place I've found it outside of this forum is from The Cave of Shooting's article about DOJ. The Gamengai interview -- in which I thought IKD directly said that WL hypers were bugged -- actually only says very generally that BL was supposed to be a "fixed" version of WL, which could refer to other bugs or even be a general translation oversight.

There are other small subtle changes as well. The common perception is that the Hyper Meter fills faster in Black Label, but actually there are small nuances in the original that result in the Hyper Meter not always filling as it should, which have been addressed in Black Label.

Originally, our concept was to find out what an "ideal, fixed version of Dodonpachi Daioujou (hereafter, Daioujou) would look like." There were some issues with the game that started to bother me after we put it out. We had also gotten complaints and requests from users and operators at the time which included some balance adjustment and improvements that I hadn’t thought of, so I started working on it half on my own with the idea of an "ideal version" of "Dodonpachi Daioujou" which would take those issues into account as well as the changes I was aiming for.

Bear in mind that I am a relative newcomer to the genre, so there are quite probably older sources that I won't even know to reference. But a quick search through what I'm familiar with pointed this out as a possible source for this "rumor".

Sources:
Cave of Shooting DOJBL Page
Wayback Archive of the Gamengai Translation

[Erppo]

Cave of Shooting DOJBL Page

This clearly isn't a very reliable source. The first thing you notice is that the details about continuing are wrong. It doesn't even tell what sources it uses.

Also lol at "So many of the changes may not be of much significance to western players, ie players who cannot clear the first loop, or no-miss no-bomb many levels."

The interview on the other hand is probably reliable, but it doesn't say anything implying the issue. The quoted part is clearly just talking about balancing the game again.

[Obscura]

Huh? This doesn't sound right - those DANGER warnings appear even out of hyper before certain enemies with lasers fire, I'm not aware of it being tied to cancelling bullets while hypering.

There's the danger warnings on the "regular" lasers, but if you cancel enough bullets (and I think the number you need to cancel is lower with each hyper rank increase?), one of them will turn into a laser that spins around and is just a general nuisance until you either "kill" it by shooting the source or leave hyper.

[Softdrink 117]

This clearly isn't a very reliable source. The first thing you notice is that the details about continuing are wrong. It doesn't even tell what sources it uses.

Yeah, I noticed that when I reread it for this. It's a well respected resource to be sure, but its accuracy seems to leave something to be desired. It's been years since I actually went and read the articles though; mostly I just use Cave of Shooting as a convenient source for artwork nowadays.

[Erppo]

Quick rank comparison of maximum rank (NMNB up to the stage) 2-5 in both games: http://imgur.com/a/Ypu4z The rank out of hyper in pic 2 seems pretty much identical in both versions. The first picture has 5x hyper in BL while WL is only at 3x. Both hyper pictures might have slightly faster bullets in BL but the difference is not significant at all.

Furthermore, not pictured, but the rank you start 2-1 with in BL after a perfect first loop seems pretty similar to the rank you have to do it in WL regardless of what happened before it. Add this to the live system and the significantly harder boss patterns of 2-1 and 2-2 in WL and I can't see how anyone could call the BL loop harder. (I feel that people who repeat that mantra tend to be people who never played either of the second loops.)

[slateman]

I've written a few FAQs and run a site on the DDP games.

For the layman, i.e. everyone outside of this forum and perhaps Japan, let's at least give credit in that the HC101 article has more about DDP (in English) in one centralized area than almost anywhere else online.

As for blatantly false information, there are chances that errors were simply made. "Blatantly false" sounds so malicious.

I liked the article and have been a member of these forums for ages...but goddamn the elitist stuff you have to deal with sometimes is atrocious.

In any event, maybe I'm off. Maybe the author BS'ed his way through it all, making shit up. All I know is that for US, we don't need that article. And for THEM (whoever reads that rather than paging through hundreds of threads on this forum)...maybe they learn something and want to read more.

*shrug*

[mirkvid]

Dang Slateman, been reading your sites off an on for years. Great place for art and sprites.

[CStarFlare]

I haven't read through the whole thing yet, but my initial impression is the same as Jaimers': the article suffers a little bit from excessive detail and wordiness. I threw the Daifukkatsu page into a word processor - fifteen thousand words. Holy shit. It could also have used a proofreader or two, as there's typos scattered throughout.

It's nice to have an article. It shows a lot of passion for the series and gives a sense of what Dodonpachi is all about. But it would benefit from revisions, and it's not "atrociously elitist" to say so.

[Squire Grooktook]

It's nice to have an article. It shows a lot of passion for the series and gives a sense of what Dodonpachi is all about. But it would benefit from revisions, and it's not "atrociously elitist" to say so.

I think what's "atrociously elitist" is saying that the article is completely shit and full of almost intentional misinformation because it got a very few fine number related technicalities off.''

That being said, I agree. I don't really think you need to go into that much detail for an article like this.

[Skykid]

I threw the Daifukkatsu page into a word processor - fifteen thousand words. Holy shit.

This chap also had a decent stab at the Futari series, plenty of hard work. But apart from HG101 being a resource for fallacy (I'm not pointing fingers at this article in particular, I haven't bothered to read it) I'd say its larger problem is the general format being so bloated it becomes work rather than pleasure.

This is a concurrent theme with nearly all amateur online games journalism: just way, way, way too long to be effective as entertaining reading material. Whenever something breaks 2000 words the chances of losing your reader increases dramatically unless you have a special format (a bit like when Polygon had that SFII interview gala).

[Squire Grooktook]

I threw the Daifukkatsu page into a word processor - fifteen thousand words. Holy shit.

This chap also had a decent stab at the Futari series, plenty of hard work. But apart from HG101 being a resource for fallacy (I'm not pointing fingers at this article in particular, I haven't bothered to read it) I'd say its larger problem is the general format being so bloated it becomes work rather than pleasure.

This is a concurrent theme with nearly all amateur online games journalism: just way, way, way too long to be effective as entertaining reading material. Whenever something breaks 2000 words the chances of losing your reader increases dramatically unless you have a special format (a bit like when Polygon had that SFII interview gala).

As a gamer, I agree but still want as much information as possible. 2000 words is definitely too much (my college essays are usually assigned 850 and generally end up roughly 1500), but at the same time I want to get how the game plays and why it plays that way. In this case at least, I think the general playstyle could easily be accurately described and explained without going into quite so much highly technical information.