Dodonpachi Campaign Ver. [rom hack]

[eksratu]

Very few people actually seem to use the Exa cabinets or even the far more plentiful NESiCA cabinets. Doesn't matter if it's at Taito Hey or Mikado; people are more interested in whatever the newest Tekken is, various 90s fighting games, and Memodama, which is a really cool game despite its sadistic difficulty. The NESiCA and Exa cabinets are usually empty.

Senjin Aleste is a cool game, but I have never seen anyone other than me actually play it. I have seen like one or two people play Exa Saidaioujou, but that's all. I'm not in the arcades very often anymore, especially after literally half of my company got the coronavirus simultaneously last summer, but this is what I have witnessed.

I was just at HEY a few weeks ago while visiting Tokyo! And I was indeed the lone shmupper playing SenJin Aleste on one of the exa cabinets (got my 1cc of regular mode). I figured it was just a slow day.

I'll be back in the near future--on the off chance you see some guy with no left hand using his stump arm to operate the joystick, say hi!

You should have told me because I would have been there! Senjin Aleste is on the NESiCA, though. I think they might only have a single Exa, which is the one right next to Night Striker, the NAOMI running Crazy Taxi, and the other NAOMI running Triggerheart Exelica, which is relatively new.

Let me guess how it was when you were there, with one of the two following scenarios being the most likely.

1. Entire place was mostly empty
2. Lots of people playing Tekken on 3F. Some amount of people playing shooters on 2F, but less people in total on 2F than on 3F

Those are the ones that are the most common.

I'm actually going to Japan later this year, hoping to get some serious arcade time in!

If you are going to be in Tokyo, let me know because I'll be here and I'm always looking for an excuse to go to game centers.

Was the exa cabinet the one with SaiDaiOuJou on it? SenJin was on the top floor iirc, away from the other shooters. I thought it was an exa cab--it had a bunch of games on it.

And yeah you're right on the money with scenario 2.

[Steven]

Was the exa cabinet the one with SaiDaiOuJou on it? SenJin was on the top floor iirc, away from the other shooters. I thought it was an exa cab--it had a bunch of games on it.

And yeah you're right on the money with scenario 2.

Exa is the one with Saidaioujou. I checked again and Senjin Aleste is actually on Sega ALL.Net, not NESiCA.

[MJR]

The arcades/family entertainment centers in the USA are quite different nowadays compared to how it was back in the 1980s and into the 1990s. Sure, you've got Round 1 USA, Boomer's, Putt Putt Golf's Gameworks, Dave and Busters, John's Incredible Pizza, Chuck E. Cheese Pizza, Sega Gameworks, Ten Pin Alley, etc. all still in the arcade game scene but stocked with the usual prize ticket redemption games dispensing e-tickets saved to your gamer debit card for posterity, the occasional lone pinball game or a few strewn around to sate the "old-school" pinball purists, arcade racing titles and not much else. Reload your gamer debit card with your hard-earned money and watch it drain in no time flat (especially if said arcade game takes multiple credits just for a single game to start).

It used to be the "gold standard" of crediting up an arcade cab with real quarters or tokens but have given way to using the high-tech gaming debit card interfaces (as it's a lot less general upkeep and maintenance compared to the old-school way of relying on electro-mechanical/digital coin counters & physically counting quarters/tokens by hand, emptying the coin boxes by hand, refilling the money changer with quarters/tokens would take it's toll on the lowly minimum-wage paid arcade game attendant/employee -- do this enough times and it's the same ol' shit day in and day out type of work environment/situation). Same situation applies with the indie arcade operators/owners out on the "street locations" with arcade games and pinball games at the local pizza parlors, etc.

Of course, it's going to be a "slim-to-none" chance that such arcade establishments are going have a lone arcade shmup title out on the "arcade floor" for the general public to play. Sad but true -- it is what it is nowadays. Yes, there are barcades and the occasional indie arcade to patronize but they're scattered out there "far 'n' wide" in the wilds of America -- you'd have go out of your way to "pay a visit/check 'em out".

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

I actually worked on one of those modern arcade machines few years back, that use the gamer credit card. At least I can boast that hey "I worked on arcade game".. although it's not the same thing really as coin-op.

Anyway, now that I got some income on my way this spring, I started to look again for DDP a jamma PCB board. No such luck. It's a complete no-show everywhere. For some reason, Ebay is full of DaiOuJou boards, but I don't care about those.

For MJR,

You can place a "Want to buy" a DDP jamma pcb in the Wanted section of the Trading Station. You never know if an offer will appear in your PM inbox. Back in 2002-2003, the going rate for a barebones DDP pcb was in the ballpark of $220.00-$280.00 usd range on eBay which was the norm -- of course, those days of snagging one at those cheap-ass prices are long gone.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Oops, missed this previously - yes, thanks for the advice, I’ll probably consider that. Though, probably due to the high cost of the board, it will have to be seller who is already well known here, or a reputable website

[gray117]

Sad to see lovely effort squashed... Hoping for a positive announcement sometime somewhere (please be m2).

Meanwhile many congratulations to ekorz in a fun project!

[brokenhalo]

Looks like the actual campaign version has been dumped and Jaimers has a playthrough up already. What a time to be alive!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipo7T-SXJz8

[wiNteR]

I watched an old video of this game after a long time (after about 15 years):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCkvoht ... B2ZXJzaW9u

Quick impressions:
1-- First loop is substantially harder than the original game. The 1-4 boss looks harder than 2-4 boss (without exploit) in the original. The 1-5 popcorn section looks harder than 2-5 popcorn section (middle part of the stage) in the original.

In general, after about stage-4 in first loop, the rest of the game looks close to difficulty of second loop in the original.

2-- The flip side of the last sentence is that the later half of the second loop (in general) doesn't look as much of a jump as in the original. However, the 2-5 popcorn section and 2-6 boss didn't disappoint.

3-- Lot of things here and there that are harder than the original (in addition to already mentioned points, another example would be 2-3 boss).

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Overall the game looks substantially harder than the original. Though one would assume (reasonably) that the hypers would help to off-set the difficulty a little bit at least.