The greatness of DDP

raiden · Post by **raiden** » Wed May 24, 2006 4:45 am

Yeah, that's one of my few complaints about the game...they seem to have spent a lot of time tweaking everything else, why'd they cheap out on the amount of music tracks they put in?

probably technical reasons. The music uses lots of samples taking up quite a bit of valuable memory space, at least valuable back when the game was produced.

elvis · Post by **elvis** » Wed May 24, 2006 6:44 am

Neon wrote:Bullet's influence is spreading.

Fuckin' mindless Cave fanboys...

I wear my badge with honour!

raiden wrote:
Yeah, that's one of my few complaints about the game...they seem to have spent a lot of time tweaking everything else, why'd they cheap out on the amount of music tracks they put in?
probably technical reasons. The music uses lots of samples taking up quite a bit of valuable memory space, at least valuable back when the game was produced.

Bingo. ROM storage is expensive. I think people forget just how exponentially storage has geown in the last 10 years. Games used to be measured in single-digit "megaBITS" on silicon ROM. Today we talk in gigaBYTES on optical discs.

Valgar · Post by **Valgar** » Wed May 24, 2006 9:40 pm

I think DOJ is better. It has freaking HYPERS.

Plasmo · Post by **Plasmo** » Wed May 24, 2006 9:45 pm

creamy hypers in your FACE

Post by **nZero** » Wed May 24, 2006 11:54 pm

raiden wrote:
Yeah, that's one of my few complaints about the game...they seem to have spent a lot of time tweaking everything else, why'd they cheap out on the amount of music tracks they put in?
probably technical reasons. The music uses lots of samples taking up quite a bit of valuable memory space, at least valuable back when the game was produced.

That's bizarre, though. The music is stored as long ADPCM streams. This surely takes more ROM space than the necessary samples and program data for realtime synthesized music. However, on the Cave games of that era there exists a perfectly capable synthesizer chip, that's being underutilized as a stream player.

Basically they ended up spending the most money to get the fewest tracks. Hopefully the quality of the pre-produced music loops was worth it.

Valgar · Post by **Valgar** » Thu May 25, 2006 12:38 am

Plasmo wrote:creamy hypers in your FACE

That's what Hibachi said.

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Thu May 25, 2006 6:33 pm

Besides all the other things that make `Pachi great, I love the sounds in it. Enemies explode with a crunchy smacky sound, like watermelons dropped from a skyscraper. Some of the huger explosions have an immense delay, so it adds up to a "splash splash kawoooooooooooooon splash splash drrdrrdrrdrrdrr" cacaphony. Like that one guy in the review said, "its almost like there`s a small war inside your computer".

And furthermore, everything feels very tight. Even those little gimmicks, like the dragons head emerging inbetween the first 1/100th of a second when you fire your laser, are very loveable.

Someone said the chaining would be too anal, but on the other hand, it is a logical way of scoring - kill everything quickly and you score is gonna get higher. The contrary would be something like Shikigami - I like that game, but getting close to bullets is simply not a natural behaviour when you`re trying to survive. Unless, of course, you are a perfectionist, but I rather let the chaining grow on me while trying to survive.

And I have the impression that the sprites in DDP are bigger than in later cave games - in ESP.Ra.De for instance, or Progear. DDP is easier on the eyes, and playing later cave titles after DDP feels weird somehow.

Post by **Ghegs** » Thu May 25, 2006 7:06 pm

FrederikJurk wrote: Someone said the chaining would be too anal, but on the other hand, it is a logical way of scoring - kill everything quickly and you score is gonna get higher.

Well, that's actually Raiden III's scoring system you just described there.

It might be more prevalent in DOJ, but you often have to keep few enemies alive on screen to carry your chain instead of destroying them the second they come in. Not to mention that some enemies give more points when destroyed later, like the star-carriers in Stage 1.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Fri May 26, 2006 7:04 am

Anyone know what ever happened to SOF-WTN? Did he challange any other Cave records?

roker · Post by **roker** » Fri May 26, 2006 7:35 am

Twiddle wrote:is it bad for me to think that battle garegga is a better game*

* - not a troll

I was going to say the same

but didn't want to be fingered as a troll

they're both the best from their respective developer in popular opinion

oxtsu · Post by **oxtsu** » Fri May 26, 2006 1:03 pm

Dave_K. wrote:Anyone know what ever happened to SOF-WTN? Did he challange any other Cave records?

He hasn't played, at least competitively, in quite some time. The other records he set that I know of are for Blazing Star and Raiden Fighters 2 (and DDP Campaign, quite naturally). There was a top 100 (or 50?) DOJ scores list in Arcadia around it's time of release, which I expected to see something from him, but missing.

oxtsu · Post by **oxtsu** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 12:00 am

SOF-WTN has made a new world record in Raiden Fighters 2 with a score of 116,579,930 @Daytona III (Saitama).

ghibli99 · Post by **ghibli99** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 12:45 am

The first time I heard the bombastic doomsday notes that play when a boss appears in DDP absolutely floored me. I was scared and laughing all at the same time.

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:47 am

In response to the original question:
This is the first Cave game to hold my interest for more than a week at a time. I've been playing it for maybe two weeks now and I really can't find anything to complain about. It's incredibly polished and never boring. Trying to chain is the perfect balance of frustrating/fun. It's accessible and rewards patience. It even has some awe-inspiring moments here and there. Not my favorite shmup, not even in my top 10 at this point, but I like it better than Radiant Silvergun, a lot better than Ikaruga.

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 6:25 am

Screw this thread, lemmie play some Treasure Shmups. Silvergun, Gradius V, and Ikaruga thanks.

zlk · Post by **zlk** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 6:35 am

oxtsu wrote:
Dave_K. wrote:Anyone know what ever happened to SOF-WTN? Did he challange any other Cave records?
He hasn't played, at least competitively, in quite some time. The other records he set that I know of are for Blazing Star and Raiden Fighters 2 (and DDP Campaign, quite naturally). There was a top 100 (or 50?) DOJ scores list in Arcadia around it's time of release, which I expected to see something from him, but missing.

I wonder why WTN never released a video of his 748m run. The SOF people release videos from time to time, perhaps he wasn't recording at the time of the run.

The player who scored 722m (C-S) on ddp actually did record his run. He showed his dvd replay at an arcade once, but for some reason decided against selling the dvd. He had a webpage discussing this, but quickly took it down. I believe this is the player's webpage:

http://homepage2.nifty.com/hokekyo/index.html

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 12:03 am

Middlemoor · Post by **Middlemoor** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 5:26 am

DDP, great game, not my #1 though.

zlk · Post by **zlk** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 7:48 am

jpj wrote:WTN video for dodonpachi has long since been unavailable.

here you can find soldier of fortune videos that you can still purchase:

http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... en%26lr%3D

Are you sure his 748m run was ever for sale?

llabnip · Post by **llabnip** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 6:23 pm

elvis wrote:Games used to be measured in single-digit "megaBITS" on silicon ROM.

They used to be measured in Kilobits. The original Atari games were all 2K (2048 bytes = 2K Bytes = 16 Kbits burned onto a 2716 equivilant PROM chip). Now most of those 2K games weren't very good... but some of the 4K games were astounding and some are much better than most of what gets produced today given 250000 times the storage.

Or, as our little green friend would say, size matters not.

Daigohji · Post by **Daigohji** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 6:26 pm

How accurate is the PS1 port of DDP? With the number of consoles I have at the moment, buying a Saturn is out of the question, so the PS1 version is my only legal option (I've been playing it a lot on MAME and started feeling guilty). I just want to check it doesn't have a poor framerate or anything.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:22 pm

The PS1 version looks and sounds near-perfect to the arcade version, and plays well too, but there are a few annoyances...for one thing, you have to select your ship in the options menu (and when playing 2-player both sides have to use the same ship). Also, on defaults the game runs a bit too fast: if you pause the game and turn the "wait" option to "on" it puts it back to normal speed (or pretty close), but this doesn't save, so you have to do it at the beginning of the game every time you play. Also, unlike the Saturn version, it's pretty much a bare-bones port, with no extra modes or anything like that...it's also more expensive and harder to find compared to the Saturn port.

That's about all I can think to say about it...

Daigohji · Post by **Daigohji** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 9:01 pm

Thanks for the info.

BeauZilla 002 · Post by **BeauZilla 002** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 9:21 pm

I love DDP for PS!!!I've never played the other versions,so this is all I know.Highly recommended for Saturn-less and PCB -less players.

Can't believe how nice and vibrant the graphics are for PS....and man,I'm addicted to this right now.

Savory · Post by **Savory** » Sun Jul 16, 2006 5:29 am

So how does the Saturn version hold up? I think I read that the explosions are pixelated or something? I'm in the same boat, I've fallen in love with it on MAME but feeling like I should be legitimate about it...

chtimi-CLA · Post by **chtimi-CLA** » Sun Jul 16, 2006 9:15 am

savory, that question has been answered in detail 1000 times before here, do a search .
you're forgiven because of you avatar choice though.

Savory · Post by **Savory** » Sun Jul 16, 2006 3:00 pm

Thanks, probably should've thought of that. I don't think so well in the middle of the night after a few drinks. heh.

Not to get off topic, but I love Ninja Baseball Bat Man. Fell in love with that one via MAME as well. I ended up buying the PCB of it and now I just need to find a cab...

Back on topic, DDP is awesome. Since I'm new to the bullet hell kind of shmups I find it far easier to get into than some of the newer games.

R_Typist · Post by **R_Typist** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 4:41 am

I'm considering this game to by my true introduction to the "bullet hell" genre.

It's like the 4rth of July on Steroids... a thing of beauty.

elvis · Post by **elvis** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 5:04 am

Savory wrote: I've fallen in love with it on MAME but feeling like I should be legitimate about it...

Legitimate? Legitimate means paying Cave for the game. Not some cockroach on ebay looking to profit of a third-hand copy of the game.

Insert "download, pay and play is the way of the future" rant here.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 9:29 pm

Dave_K. wrote:
J-Manic wrote:
Yeah....what he said. DDP is my favorite manic shmup at the moment.

What's this about a "true final boss ending"? I've beating the game many times....and you're telling me that there are two different endings? Isn't that devil-looking head, after the Queen Bee, supposed to be the final boss of DDP? It seemed like it. It took me nearly 5 minutes to beat that bastard!
Um, I'm talking about the real arcade version, not the lesser Saturn or PSX port. Hibatchi (the final boss after the queen bee) is only accessible in the 2nd loop. Credit feeding won't get you to the second loop (and is usually not an indiciation of actually "finishing" the game).

So you can't get the true boss/ending if you own the home port? I still have yet to properly clear (major understatement) my Saturn DDP and DOJ.

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The greatness of DDP

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