LiveWire ports SaiDaiOuJou to the Switch (all regions)

[MJR]

I'm playing novice as well. For some reason, I've never been able to read this game visually. Everything in the background kinda blends together and novice seems to help with that. Had the same issue with the 360 version.

Same here, thats why I never bothered to play arcade mode seriously for score. For me, SDOJ is just annoying mess with too many ”wtf just hit me”-moments. Which is kinda disappointing, as theres lot to like.
Novice on the other hand just felt too easy. I can see they did try to put game modes for every taste and I appreciate it.
But original DDP is still my go-to shooter. And its still not available for PC/PS4/PS5/Switch, which is a travesty.

[Starfighter]

Admittedly I've only played the game for 1-2 hours (I've never played this one before or anything), but I feel like Novice is almost as hard as many other shmups on Normal? Perhaps it's an illusion that becomes dismantled the more I play, but at this early point in time it really feels that way. I can't even reach the Stage 5 boss with consistency, which is rather uncommon when playing on Novice I'd say!

[mycophobia]

SDOJ Novice is indeed a pretty substantial challenge compared to any other Cave port novice mode, probably on par with a DP/DDP 1-ALL iirc.

[Steven]

It's harder than like 2/3 of the Japanese arcade versions of Toaplan's STGs on their normal settings.

[DenimDemon]

It's harder than like 2/3 of the Japanese arcade versions of Toaplan's STGs on their normal settings.

Personally I wouldn't go that far..very different kind of hard to me....maybe as hard as Death Smiles with Rosa?
You guys making me feel better about clearing Novice and feeling like a champ. Hardest part is the last stage. It's quit long,with some practice...keeping your stock 1up till the last boss (stage 4 mid boss extra 1up is a must).

[Marc]

How the heck do i find this, or it's predecessor, on the JPN Eshop?

[Steven]

It's harder than like 2/3 of the Japanese arcade versions of Toaplan's STGs on their normal settings.

Personally I wouldn't go that far..very different kind of hard to me....maybe as hard as Death Smiles with Rosa?
You guys making me feel better about clearing Novice and feeling like a champ. Hardest part is the last stage. It's quit long,with some practice...keeping your stock 1up till the last boss (stage 4 mid boss extra 1up is a must).

I definitely would go that far. Most of Toaplan's games aren't too bad aside from the two insane ones and maybe Dogyuun!!. Those, along with Kyuukyoku Tiger, V-V, Grind Stormer, and possibly Hellfire 1P/2P are the only ones that are definitely harder than Saidaioujou novice. The only ones I'm not certain about are Twin Hawk, which I've never played, and FixEight, which I know almost nothing about. Zero Wing 1P is also unexpectedly hard, but only if you die because recovery in Zero Wing 1P is... not exactly up to Toaplan's standards. Performan is notoriously pretty hard, too, but I haven't played it enough to learn how to play it properly.

You could even include some of the non-shooting games, in which case Saidaioujou novice ALL is way harder than Wardner (which is probably the easiest Toaplan game) and the America start version of Horror Story. It's probably about the same as Dash Yarou's difficulty. Dash Yarou's a really cool game and not so difficult at first, but the final few stages are kind of cheap.

This is of course all assuming that you don't use A-S with autobomb disabled and bomb the crap out of the game with the like 30 bombs or whatever that it gives you, which probably makes it way easier than everything that isn't Slap Fight and Wardner.

It's also assuming that you aren't playing for score, just survival, so if you play for score Saidaioujou novice is probably harder than all but the two insane games.

How the heck do i find this, or it's predecessor, on the JPN Eshop?

Search for 怒首領蜂

You won't find this game's predecessor, though; it's gone. Gotta play on PC or get a physical version if you want it.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

How the heck do i find this, or it's predecessor, on the JPN Eshop?

The Steam port of DoDonpachi Dai-Fukkatsu 1.5 and it's Black Label counterpart play just fine on a Steam Deck setup with tate option included (considering that they're based on the Xbox 360 releases of the previous DDP-DFK 1.5 & DDP-DFK BL stgs to begin with).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Jucksalbe]

If you don't want to use kanji (or kana) when searching from the console, you can also just search for "Live Wire".

[matrigs]

It's finally up on nintendo.de and the webshop so i guess it's availlable in all Europe now.

[Starfighter]

Wait, so not only did europeans have to wait a few months longer than the rest of the world - some europeans had to wait even longer? I'm so very impressed with how the market works.

[Emerl]

FYI, like the Xbox 360 version, all of the assets are designed for 720p. If the console is set to 1080p, the game does a blurry and uneven scale to get the assets from 720p to 1080p. If you're on anything other than a 1080p screen, and especially if you're using an external scaler like a RT4k or Morph 4k, it looks MUCH better if you set the console to 720p.

[Hero of Legend]

FYI, like the Xbox 360 version, all of the assets are designed for 720p. If the console is set to 1080p, the game does a blurry and uneven scale to get the assets from 720p to 1080p. If you're on anything other than a 1080p screen, and especially if you're using an external scaler like a RT4k or Morph 4k, it looks MUCH better if you set the console to 720p.

Curious, is it the same for the other games like Mushihimesama as well?

[Emerl]

FYI, like the Xbox 360 version, all of the assets are designed for 720p. If the console is set to 1080p, the game does a blurry and uneven scale to get the assets from 720p to 1080p. If you're on anything other than a 1080p screen, and especially if you're using an external scaler like a RT4k or Morph 4k, it looks MUCH better if you set the console to 720p.

Curious, is it the same for the other games like Mushihimesama as well?

Just tested the other 4 LiveWire Switch titles (Mushi, DFK, Espgaluda II, and RSG), and they all use blurry scaling outside of 720p, in a manner very similar (probably identical) to SDOJ.

EDIT: Corrected some false information I posted

As far as the M2 Switch ports, as far as I can tell, while docked they only display in 1080p. If you set your Switch to output 720p over HDMI, the game will still render 1080p, but will downscale to 720p. Thus you won't have an integer scale unless your dock is outputting 1080p. This is weird because in handheld mode, you get a perfect integer scale at 720p on the Switch.

The PS4 M2 ports, as far as I can tell, render the image in 4k no matter what you do. Setting my PS5 to output a lower resolution, the PS5 was rendering in 4k and then downscaling at the output (as indicated by the fact that all screenshots taken by the Share button were still 4k, even when the PS5 was outputting 720p or 1080p).

[Bassa-Bassa]

Assets themselves were 480x640 for the high resolution games.

https://www.famitsu.com/images/000/023/ ... af3b4e.jpg

Were pretty neat on rotated VGA monitors, though most of them only had the sprites at this resolution, sadly.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Assets themselves were 480x640 for the high resolution games.

https://www.famitsu.com/images/000/023/ ... af3b4e.jpg

Were pretty neat on rotated VGA monitors, though most of them only had the sprites at this resolution, sadly.

Both 360 ports of DDP-DFK 1.5 + BL & DDP-SDOJ look awesome on a low-res 15.7kHz arcade monitor but they're running in 640 x 480 interlaced mode at best if using an Xbox 360 with a Scart RGB cable hooked up to Arithrimus' Console to Jamma pcb that's being piped into a candy cab setup.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[PC Engine Fan X!]

On a whim, I decided to see if there was an firmware update for the Switch port of DDP-SDOJ.

There's one as of today, 3-06-2025, which updates from fw version 1.0.1 to fw version 1.0.2 -- what changes have been made with this latest fw revision might I ask?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Emerl]

On a whim, I decided to see if there was an firmware update for the Switch port of DDP-SDOJ.

There's one as of today, 3-06-2025, which updates from fw version 1.0.1 to fw version 1.0.2 -- what changes have been made with this latest fw revision might I ask?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Changed the ratings in some regions. No gameplay changes.
https://live-wire-cstg.blogspot.com/202 ... r-102.html

[DrTrouserPlank]

So is this seriously not going to get a physical release even in Japan? I can't find any indications of pre-orders and even limited run doesn't seem to be showing any signs of doing one.

I wonder if it being "exclusive" to the switch is stopping it from going physical. Thinking about it, most/all other games that tended to get physical releases were on multiple consoles when they were released physically, and then there's the odd case of why Ketsui never got a physical release on switch, but I digress.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

So is this seriously not going to get a physical release even in Japan? I can't find any indications of pre-orders and even limited run doesn't seem to be showing any signs of doing one.

I wonder if it being "exclusive" to the switch is stopping it from going physical. Thinking about it, most/all other games that tended to get physical releases were on multiple consoles when they were released physically, and then there's the odd case of why Ketsui never got a physical release on switch, but I digress.

Mate, not to be a dick here, but uh are you sure this is the right game for you?

[DrTrouserPlank]

So is this seriously not going to get a physical release even in Japan? I can't find any indications of pre-orders and even limited run doesn't seem to be showing any signs of doing one.

I wonder if it being "exclusive" to the switch is stopping it from going physical. Thinking about it, most/all other games that tended to get physical releases were on multiple consoles when they were released physically, and then there's the odd case of why Ketsui never got a physical release on switch, but I digress.

Mate, not to be a dick here, but uh are you sure this is the right game for you?

I've owned it since it was released on 360 ....

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

So is this seriously not going to get a physical release even in Japan? I can't find any indications of pre-orders and even limited run doesn't seem to be showing any signs of doing one.

I wonder if it being "exclusive" to the switch is stopping it from going physical. Thinking about it, most/all other games that tended to get physical releases were on multiple consoles when they were released physically, and then there's the odd case of why Ketsui never got a physical release on switch, but I digress.

Mate, not to be a dick here, but uh are you sure this is the right game for you?

I've owned it since it was released on 360 ....

and how are things going for you?

[Jonpachi]

M2's Ketsui is not on the Switch, period. PS4 exclusive just like Dangun.

I think there's a very good chance we'll see a SDOJ physical though. We've gotten all of the other LiveWire ports as physical releases. Seems it's likely just stuck in a LimitedRun planning meeting.

[Ms. Tea]

So is this seriously not going to get a physical release even in Japan? I can't find any indications of pre-orders and even limited run doesn't seem to be showing any signs of doing one.

Japanese retail releases tend to come from developers who have some kind of publishing relationship, or a history of self-publishing, and that's not true for Live-Wire. Superdeluxe doesn't release anything that LRG hadn't previously done in English, and IMO this is unlikely to come from any of the limprint western publishers. I don't think I've ever seen them bring over a 100% untranslated game like this - just doesn't feel like a good fit for any of them.

I wonder if it being "exclusive" to the switch is stopping it from going physical. Thinking about it, most/all other games that tended to get physical releases were on multiple consoles when they were released physically, and then there's the odd case of why Ketsui never got a physical release on switch, but I digress.

I doubt it. Things like Cosmo Machia's ports have no problem getting retail releases in Japan. It really feels more like it comes down to this coming from a publisher that doesn't do retail.

If I didn't already have other ways to play this game I'd have bought it digitally. I don't think it's worth waiting on a physical Switch release, if anyone's doing that - you might be waiting a long time. And you'll be missing a fun game!

[DrTrouserPlank]

Mate, not to be a dick here, but uh are you sure this is the right game for you?

I've owned it since it was released on 360 ....

and how are things going for you?

Like most things Cave, it's like dipping your balls into the Piranha tank one more time to see if you get a different result despite all previous evidence to the contrary.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

I've owned it since it was released on 360 ....

and how are things going for you?

Like most things Cave, it's like dipping your balls into the Piranha tank one more time to see if you get a different result despite all previous evidence to the contrary.

Yeah. Despite its brutal difficulty, I've always enjoyed Daioujou, and it's one of my favourite games although I still suck at it (made it two thirds through stage 5 one time though, so I'm not totally clueless), but no matter how often i try, I just can't get into Saidaioujou. Doesn't help that all the stages look samey and the ost lacks any kind of flair or good melodies

[Hyperspace]

I think Mark was mostly annoyed that this wasn't an M2 Shottriggers treatment with a new arrange/rebalancing of what he sees as a flawed game with much potential.

Maybe that will happen one day from M2, former Cave staff, or someone... but it's sort of silly to expect that Live Wire was ever going to be a company that was trying to release an improved and revised SDOJ. And even if they wanted to, they are unproven at best when it comes to original STG design (closest thing would be their PC roguelite twin stick shooter, 9th Sentinel Sisters), so very questionable whether they would be able to pull off an M2-quality arrange/rebalancing.

But I'm very happy with Live Wire doing excellent ports, and the 1ms additional lag on Switch from the source material seems to be a very consistent hardware factor (not a matter of poorly done ports), so I don't find complaints about that extra 1ms to be very fair to Live Wire. They've done nothing but a good job of providing us the 360 versions of four Cave games (and Radiant Silvergun) with great results, and that has value. Maybe there's an argument that a good quality port existing on modern platforms makes it less likely that the M2s of the world will bother trying to do an improved version, but I'm on the side of release the game (and we still see multiple ports - something like Ketsui wasn't exactly unavailable in a quality port, but M2 still did a ShotTriggers release for that one).

Kinda hate how half of the discussion of any new STG now is about input lag, often by people who can't even tell for themselves whether it's good or bad until they read test reports from someone on the internet. It's one thing to make it a big point when it's a serious issue for a specific release that would reasonably be noticeable to a large portion of the audience (e.g., City Connection's Guardian Force/Cotton release), but for most of these games it's a very rare person who can even discern the difference between 5ms and 6ms. Maybe if you're a world record quality player, but for the vast majority of people, I just don't see it as very productive discussion. Tends to detract from actually talking about the game, in favor of nitpicking technical points that most of the players of the game won't appreciate.

Mark has misquoted the input lag count on the M2 dodonpachi reincarnation (doj) as first stating it was only 3 frames of input lag to now being 4 frames of input lag. He tried telling people in the comments that the switch version of under defeat was running at 1 frame of input lag. Which doesn’t make sense coming from a console. It was later determined that the PC version was 1 frame of input lag, and the switch was 3 frames of input lag. Now when it comes to Batsugun he says that it’s 5-6 frames of input lag on all platforms. I don’t see how a modern pc could run this game at a bad frame rate. I would imagine a pc could improve on the input lag even if the game was poorly optimized. I wish I could ask him personally why the PC version of this game has such a bad frame rate for being the platform of choice other than the actual arcade board. I have played the rom version of dodonpachi saidaiojou on an older version of retro arch. And yes it’s probably 1-2 fames of input lag from a PC. But there’s no proper slow downs in the game. I have the Nintendo switch version and I know he said it was also 5-6 frames…no five and a half I believe. But then he mentions his switch lite is miraculously getting one frame less. Which is total BS. I’d say this game is getting about 4 frames. The same as the Xbox 360. And it runs just fine. I’ve never heard him say or recommend anyone buying these games for their consoles that don’t know anything about emulators and trying to hunt down the games for them. I try to tell people to just buy the game if you’re interested in it. One or two frames will not ruin the experience for you.

[hamfighterx]

But then he mentions his switch lite is miraculously getting one frame less. Which is total BS.

I agree with the overall sentiment of your post. But specific to this point, I would be not be shocked to see Switch Lite getting slightly lower delay due to having built in controls instead of using bluetooth or USB connection that supposedly seems to add a frame to most Switch games.

Great example is that I played Persona 4 Golden on Switch. There's a short bug catching mini-game where you have to quickly hit a button when a bug appears, and I have noticeably better performance playing on a Switch Lite than with any other setup. Switch OLED with joycons, I fail a lot. On TV with a pro controller, I fail a lot. Switch Lite, I'm extremely reliable.

[Jonpachi]

But then he mentions his switch lite is miraculously getting one frame less. Which is total BS.

I agree with the overall sentiment of your post. But specific to this point, I would be not be shocked to see Switch Lite getting slightly lower delay due to having built in controls instead of using bluetooth or USB connection that supposedly seems to add a frame to most Switch games.

Great example is that I played Persona 4 Golden on Switch. There's a short bug catching mini-game where you have to quickly hit a button when a bug appears, and I have noticeably better performance playing on a Switch Lite than with any other setup. Switch OLED with joycons, I fail a lot. On TV with a pro controller, I fail a lot. Switch Lite, I'm extremely reliable.

The internals of the Switch Lite are just the guts of two joycons wired in. It’s no different from playing a regular Switch in handheld mode with stock joycons attached.

[hamfighterx]

Standard Switch uses bluetooth to connect to the joycons, even when they are physically attached to the system. Switch lite does not use bluetooth to send a signal to those hardwired controllers. So there IS a difference, and I assume that difference is probably what leads to the slightly different lag that I've perceived (purely eyeballing it, but that Persona 4 example and my consistently different performance depending on system was a glaring one for me personally, and easy for me to tell).

And for a docked Switch, the dock itself adds lag - another factor that isn't in play with the Switch Lite.

Now, Switch Lite also has a fairly small screen for playing shooters, so that's a real issue for something like SDOJ. I don't really like playing a busy vertical scroller like SDOJ on the Lite, would rather deal with the possible extra frame and play it on TV or on a full-sized Switch (even in horizontal mode, but easy to TATE too).