Densha de Go! (series)

[Immryr]

KAI: great, that's really helpful.

damn, £100 before shipping is definitely a bit more than i was expecting. maybe i'll go back to looking for the saturn version or something.

[BrianC]

I was surprised to see that there are even LCD games of Densha de Go!

[Shelcoof]

I was surprised to see that there are even LCD games of Densha de Go!

I wouldn't mind getting one of these lol

Brings back memories of when we use to play those Tiger Zone hand held as a kid at school

[Ghegs]

Play-Asia has pre-orders up: http://www.play-asia.com/densha-de-go-p ... /13/70bbdh

Tad expensive, yeah. At least the shipping seemed reasonable. But I didn't pull the trigger yet, I've never played any of the games so I don't know just how much I'd actually like it.

[Shelcoof]

Ouch that is pretty expensive

Shame though I've always wanted to try DDG out ever since playing Tokyo Bus Guide on the Dreamcast

[KAI]

There's a new Game Center CX episode about DDG. This time Arino and co. played Densha de Go! 64 (the N64 port of DDG2 3000 Bandai). Hilarious and instructive as the previous ep.

[Ghegs]

I went and re-watched their previous DDG episode (which is 94).

It really made me itch to try it out myself. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and pre-order it...

[KAI]

The problem with the plug and play control is that only has DDG! Final on it, which is a cool game but it's not as good as the arcade entries (playing for score in DDG 1~3 is better than farming points to unlock stuff in Final imo).

[Ghegs]

You can still play Final for score, I hope?

I like the idea that it's a self-contained plug 'n play system, so I'd rather get that instead of one of the PS1/2 games with the corresponding controller.

[KAI]

Nope, it doesn't have a proper scoring system, no score boards, and there's no way to check any of your records.

Here's the basic system of the game quoted from the guide on gamefaqs:

Densha de GO! Final presents four routes: Yamanote Line, Chuo Line, Osaka Loop Line and Tokaido Line.
Each line has several "diagrams", or sections of line to complete with a specific train and at a specific time of day.
Many are locked and need to be unlocked or bought with credits obtained from completing diagrams.
One of the biggest new features of Final is the "Chain" system. By passing checkpoints, completing certain actions and stopping correctly
without committing errors, your chain grows ever longer. The longer the chain, the more points are multiplied by.

And that's it, the game lost most of it's essence (and difficulty) when Taito stopped producing them with an arcade philosophy in mind.

Gathering more Credit Points by doing perfect runs without dropping your chains can be fun tho, but the game gets boring as soon as you unlock all of it's contents.

[KAI]

Some DDG news
DDG Plug & Play Promotion Video basically showing how it works.
I don't know what they to this game, but the textures looks like crap and framerate is awful compared to the ps2 and pc versions.

and the new DDG arcade now has a waifu...


not even as good as tetsu-chan <3

[BrianC]

I think she looks better than Tatsu, myself. Oh wait, you said Tetsu, not Tatsu. Nevermind.

[Ji-L87]

DDG Plug & Play Promotion Video basically showing how it works. I don't know what they to this game, but the textures looks like crap and framerate is awful compared to the ps2 and pc versions

You weren't kidding...jeez. What's up with that frame pacing? It stutters constantly And really, what is the point of HD when there is no detail left in any of the textures.

I was kind of looking forward to this, even though I was never going to pony up the cash for it but now it looks like a real cheap rip off.

The new CG train waifu would look perfect behind a counter in an JRPG, but kinda out of place here. Missed opportunity to bring best train grill Tetsu-chan into the realm of 3D

[BrianC]

PnP games are frustrating. What's the point in doing a stand alone game if you can't even get the hardware for it right?

[Goompaolo9500]

holyshit Taito is releasing a plug and play DDG controller with a wide version of DDG Final on it!!

Densha de ＧＯ! ＰＬＵＧ ＆ ＰＬＡＹ





I'm getting one of these for sure!

I saw a promotional video about it, turns out she mentioned PS2.
This is the new generation of plug and play consoles. HDMI cables instead of AV cables.

[Goompaolo9500]

Posting this pic full of native res screenshots to celebrate (?) the 20th anniversary of the franchise.

Spoiler

Did you say 20th anniversary?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zkWxTgkDZ ... LUt5_76vMB

[xxx1993]

Which of the games feature Tetsu-chan? I got interested in the series after seeing her in Arkanoid vs. Space Invaders.

[KAI]

I love that compilation movie. Too bad they missed all the mobile games, some of them were made by G-Rev. Guess they are lost forever ;(



A youtube user has been uploading videos of DDG!! captured direcly from the arcade. The amount of details in that game is impressive, now I get why they only did a short section of the Yamanote line, doing a full-length game with that quality would be expensive as hell.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... YfF48e0F8e

Which of the games feature Tetsu-chan? I got interested in the series after seeing her in Arkanoid vs. Space Invaders.

She is in almost all of them. DDG 1, 2, 3, Nagoya Tetsudou Hen, professional 1, 2 and Gambare Untenshi (this one is arcade exclusive, the "port" has a different set of waifus). Final and the Shinkansen game features her only on the beginner mode.



btw, DDG64 was translated last year, I've been trying to run the patched rom on different emulators with no luck, seems it only works using everdrive or some shit like that.
https://www.romhacking.net/translations/2947/

[xxx1993]

I see. Again, I was considering getting into the series after seeing Tetsu-chan as a playable character in Arkanoid vs. Space Invaders.

[Ji-L87]

Geez, this is hard Only got a bronze star on the first line in DG2, and that's with a continue halfway through.
Trying to reach the end of the first Komachi-line (second level) but I always run out of time in the same spot (one of the pass by stations near the end) but with enough speed to see the station when the game stops. I was running pretty well during one run, no major minus points (although no well-timed station flybys either) until the game decided to suddenly throw a 70km/h speed limit on me while I was above 100 and ended up with the ATS system going off and no way I could reach the station from a stand-still.

I'm going to have to put in some time and effort to improve, and it looks so easy when other do it

[KAI]

I know the feeling, the Komachi route has the hardest flow to learn in the series. Took me an entire week to learn the entire Akitashinkansen line (1st and 2nd Komachi sections together) which requires driving almost 30 mins without making major mistakes, but doing the shinkansen coupling bonus at the end of it worth all the suffering.

When playing Express lines, reaching 2 or 3 consecutive stations/checkpoints 3 secs earlier will get you a yellow light. If you pass them even earlier (5secs~), you get even tougher penalties (double yellow or red light).
Best thing to do is trying to follow the speedflow of each section, and calculate the remaining meters left and the speed required to reach the stations in time (i.e. you can travel 1000mts in 1 min if you drive at 60kmph, or 1000mts in 30 at 120kmph).

Here's one of my favorite Komachi superplays, hope to score like this guy someday.

[Ji-L87]

That run is interesting to watch. Took me half of it to understand that the speedometer is on the actual cabinet, as I couldn't see it in the HUD

I notice he's braking quite hard, but he's accelerating to offset this? Judging how hard I can brake is also one of the tricky things I think.

[KAI]

You mean accelerating and braking at the same time? you can't, the train just simply brakes (and a message will appear at the bottom of the screen saying you're doing something wrong).

What this guy do is controlling the speed when arriving a station using only the brake lever. You can see he brakes till reaching a minimum speed and releases the brake, then starts tapping it to stop slowly. Even if the train goes at 5kmph, it will keep moving until losing all the residual speed.

You can use the brake at full force (8) if you go at 40kmph or higher, and brake from 1 to 7 if you go below that speed (you will recieve a penalty if do it harder than that).

[KAI]

New DDG!! PV

The Chuo Sobu Line was added on the last update of the game, and they just announced the Osaka Loop Line and a new waifu


they are putting so much love on this game

[Ghegs]

Not a Densha de Go game but still a Japanese train simulator, Japanese Rail Sim: Journey to Kyoto was released on Switch JPN eShop a little while ago (a port of a 3DS game, maybe?) and it also has a physical copy available on Play-Asia. It can be played in English, some gameplay footage here. But it's a full-price release and it's basically a FMV game, the game shows real-life footage as you go down the line, so at low speeds it gets choppy.

KAI, or other train-players, thoughts?

[FinalBaton]

one of my buddies is a big train geek (in addition to a plane geek, car geek and just all sorts of vehicles and war geek on top of that) and I'd like to show him a Densha de Go! game.

What's available on console that's a good port, easy to understand/navigate and preferably has a custom controller?

I have a multisync monitor so wheter it's 240p or 480p, I can display it in beautiful progressive scan.

I'd prefer console (since he's a pc guy and my goal is to showcase consoles to him. but I guess I could output a pc game to my multisync monitor

[KAI]

KAI, or other train-players, thoughts?

I tried to get into Japanese Rail Sim (and Railfan), but that kind of games using real video captures can be really off-putting (that moment when the video starts to slow down for example feels super weird.). They are fun tho, the mechanics are similar to the ddg series but less punishing. That switch version looks like a compilation off all the games released on 3DS a few years ago.

What's available on console that's a good port, easy to understand/navigate and preferably has a custom controller?

All of them have custom controllers, but i would recommend Densha de go! Professional on PSX over any other entry. The game is basically DDG1 + DDG2 + new content and reworked UI to make things easier.


Afaik, you can play DDG1, 2, Pro, Kisha de Go and DDG Nagoya on PSX, and DDG3 on PS2 with this type controller. There's also a One Handle type controller, but this one looks cooler and it's more similar to the original arcade setup.

Now the biggest problem, all games on the DDG series are 100% in japanese (with the exception of DDG64 on the N64 which was fan translated 2 years ago). Most of the ports have quick tutorials when you select the low difficulty routes, but they still are hard to navigate if you don't have at least basic jp knowledge.
If your friend has access to a N64 with everdrive, that game is the best pick to get into this train thingy. Or in case he's a patient guy, just make him read that pdf I posted before.

Here's a subbed video detailing the main mechanics of DDG. You can play any arcade entry by just knowing all this basic stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3kEiEyGaVM

and in case you want to go full train, here's a high difficulty runs tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKJjZ91KI5Y


never go full train



BTW, old news but the latest DDG!! update (Ver.5.0) allows you to play the old DDG1 and 2 arcade games.

Also DDG Kids is a thing...

[FinalBaton]

Awesome! thanks a ton KAI, this is super helpful. I've bookmarked that shit

[Ghegs]

KAI, or other train-players, thoughts?

I tried to get into Japanese Rail Sim (and Railfan), but that kind of games using real video captures can be really off-putting (that moment when the video starts to slow down for example feels super weird.). They are fun tho, the mechanics are similar to the ddg series but less punishing. That switch version looks like a compilation off all the games released on 3DS a few years ago.

So might be a good starting point then, especially with the English support. Dang, if it was only a little cheaper...

[Ghegs]

Japanese Rail Sim is even getting a physical NA release now. No word on the price, but if it's ~$30 I'll be sure to pick it up.