Xbox 360: Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu 1.5 (November 2010)

[Phellan Wolf]

When you turn smoothing off in the options, are those the arcade graphics? They don't look like the normal graphics with smoothing turned off, they look like a lower resolution with much less detail.

Would love to have a screen capture with the smoothing on and off to compare the differences.

Yes this will be interesting no see. If graphics are indeed the same as the arcade when you turn smooth off, then I see why Cave has ditched the arcade mode.

[Trevor spencer]

Yeah looking forward to some screen shots of filters and ratios

[Evrain]

This may sound lame, but could someone explain to me the story or reason why you go to a 2nd loop? Its just nice to have have a reason when playing a shooter to me.

Also the story is basically Hibachi unlocked the elemental girls who were locked on the moon after saving the earth in the previous installment? Then he reprogrammed them with some virus and sent them into the past to change the future?

I've added the story to Wikipedia, and no, Hibachi is just a man-made doomsday weapon
I have one parked in my garage right now

[fagin]

Just had a quick play and set-up on my vert cab. No filter options as such that I could see, but they don't interest me using a CRT. Smoothing off using the CRT, looks better.... it is slightly more retro but you of course have slight jaggies. Obviously not as sharp 240p mode from a PCB... but the 360 graphics enhancements look awesome imo.

All I will say after a quick blast is that this game looks truly outstanding on a vert cab. Makes DDP DOJ on the 360, look like the utter cluster (presentation wise) **** we hate!

[Dave_K.]

When you turn smoothing off in the options, are those the arcade graphics? They don't look like the normal graphics with smoothing turned off, they look like a lower resolution with much less detail.

Smoothing is for > 480p displays zooming the picture without it looking too jaggy. At 640x480 full screen tate, I see no difference with smoothing on or off. Original arcade is half this resolution.

[bcass]

I'm playing on an SDTV via RGB scart. Smoothing off looks low res to me. The difference is huge.

[fagin]

I'm playing on an SDTV via RGB scart. Smoothing off looks low res to me. The difference is huge.

As said by Dave_k above.... smoothing off is no where near low res, it will still be 480 (minimum - vga -as opposed to 240 which is low res). The difference certainly is not huge for me (between smoothing on and off).... but I am using a vert CRT in a cab. However, there is certainly a difference (but quite subtle).

[bcass]

It might be because I've also stretched the screen slightly using the in-game zoom option. Eitherway, it looks like a good approximation of low-res although I prefer the hi-res graphics modes on these ports anyway.

[Special World]

Anybody have a youtube video for Arrange B? I'm curious to see what it looks like but all I can find is a link to a Japanese site that I don't know how to navigate and probably need an account for.

That is partially my fault I suppose, but a youtube link would be appreciated if anybody can find/create one.

[Cuilan]

Wow, hang on a sec...

So you don't need 1.5 in order to play the BL retail release? And BL retail release is cheaper than 1.5?

If that's the case, then I'll just skip 1.5 and get BL retail only.

BL retail's cover art is way better than 1.5 SE's cover anyway. It's still ugly when compared to 1.5 LE's cover, but ugly in a "so cheesy it's awesome" sort of way.

[Strider77]

I prefer the hi-res graphics modes on these ports anyway.

as you should...

[bcass]

When I say I prefer them, I mean that I prefer them to the original low res arcade graphics, regardless if those low res graphics are being displayed via an original PCB on an arcade monitor, or on an Xbox 360 on a CRT.

[Dylan1CC]

Waaaaay late to the party on this. My 360 completely red ringed on me back in June coupled with this not being region free (Cave can be a strange company sometimes) means I won't be playing this for awhile. Still gonna buy the LE now though. I'm used to buying a few import games while the chance is still ripe before I get the actual system which is exactly what I did many years ago when I first bought Radiant Silvergun months before I got my modded Saturn.

[-Bridget-]

Anybody have a youtube video for Arrange B? I'm curious to see what it looks like but all I can find is a link to a Japanese site that I don't know how to navigate and probably need an account for.

That is partially my fault I suppose, but a youtube link would be appreciated if anybody can find/create one.

I have one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgsUpW5umGg


This is an early video though, mind you. I still dont understand the rules with this mode; it'd be great if someone would write up an explanation of how it works.

And after watching a replay I grabbed offa the leaderboards, this mode seems alot like Galuda 2's bizarre arrange mode in many ways. It seems that the more you play it, the crazier it gets, and the more bullets there are. It also seemed that the enemies become harder to kill; the replay I watched, the player had a very hard time actually killing any of them, and kept bombing alot. And the bullets..... there were so many of them. A bazillion very tiny bullets in horrible patterns.

A very strange mode overall. I'll probably put up another video a bit later on when the mode is running at a crazier level.

[Special World]

Thanks for the upload, Bridget!

That description is rather disheartening, though. I had imagined it as a game mode which simply randomized the enemies you'd encounter, and therefore offer a different experience every time. The ranking system doesn't thrill me either, I'd rather have an ingame rank system like Futari BL Original. I also don't like this whole "certain color bullet cancelling" business, I prefer to have certain enemies cancel all bullets and leave it at that :\

Ah well, people seem to be raving about it so I'll give it a shot once my copy arrives and hope to be pleasantly surprised.

[-Bridget-]

Thanks for the upload, Bridget!

That description is rather disheartening, though. I had imagined it as a game mode which simply randomized the enemies you'd encounter, and therefore offer a different experience every time. The ranking system doesn't thrill me either, I'd rather have an ingame rank system like Futari BL Original. I also don't like this whole "certain color bullet cancelling" business, I prefer to have certain enemies cancel all bullets and leave it at that :\

Ah well, people seem to be raving about it so I'll give it a shot once my copy arrives and hope to be pleasantly surprised.

I for one AM finding it to be a different experience each time, heh.

Each time I play this parts of it get loonier, or just stranger. i'm not even gonna try to describe what the third stage midboss just did.

The one problem: It appears to have stopped asking me if I wanna save replays. Why? I..... dont..... know. That last one woulda been perfect, but it didnt give me the option to do it..... I only died like, once, too.

I'm still not really sure what's going on, but it keeps getting harder, and harder.... more and more bullets.... the whole pink/blue thing is interesting though. I dont think this mode would be as good, honestly, if you could cancel ALL of the bullets. It's hard to explain, but I'm gonna see if I cant record some of this here and just show it....

EDIT: I've got a proper recording. Uploading it onto Youtube now, should be up soon.

All I have to say is: Holy freaking crap. I think the game got pissed at me. Yet, I think I actually survived that nightmare without dying.... I'm glad I recorded that.

[emphatic]

Thanks a lot for the uploads. What buttons are used for this mode?

Edit: Just watched your second clip. Holy shit that's some nice dodging! I really look forward to playing this as I receive my copy next week.

[Sapz]

Agreed, very impressive dodging on the second clip, especially at the boss! Also very interesting to see how it changed from the first one. Is there any way to lower the difficulty back, out of random interest?

Hopefully it gets harder still. Pretty excited for this mode.

[-Bridget-]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xWDNp6gPAw

There, the clip, for anyone that wants to have a look.

Thanks a lot for the uploads. What buttons are used for this mode?

Edit: Just watched your second clip. Holy shit that's some nice dodging! I really look forward to playing this as I receive my copy next week.

yes, that was some nice dodging, if I do say so myself

I seem to be able to do that only when I'm not obsessing about score. If I'm trying to score well, I'll do something stupid like crash into the only bullet on the screen, or something dumb like that. Lol.

As for the buttons, there's only two: "shot", and "bomb/hyper". Your ship is always in auto-fire mode.... you cant NOT shoot stuff.... so what shot does is just fires your laser. The way the bomb/hyper thing works is with those 2 meters in the upper left corner. As long as one of them is filled and flashing, you can use either a bomb OR a hyper. You tap the button to use a bomb, and hold it for a moment to use a hyper. The interesting part here is knowing which to use at which section. Sometimes hyper is best.... sometimes a bomb is best. Using either of them depletes one of the meters. The bombs dont seem to be as powerful as in the main game (notice the shorter animation), same with the hypers, which seem to not last very long.

What I really wanna know is just what exactly the different screen colors mean, as well as what those little numbers mean. The main idea seems to be simple though; do anything you can to not die, and cancel as many pink bullets as you can, and of course kill stuff.

[Antipika]

Thanks a lot for the uploads. What buttons are used for this mode?

Only two, since it auto-fire. One for focus shot, second button is either hyper (if you press long) / bomb (short press).

The one problem: It appears to have stopped asking me if I wanna save replays. Why? I..... dont..... know. That last one woulda been perfect, but it didnt give me the option to do it..... I only died like, once, too.

Go the option => storage => Replay Data Saving : ON

Regarding Arrange B, from what I have experienced, it does get harder and harder.

You have two counters on the right of your screen, one blue, one red. If you take a "red" bee, the background turns red, red counter starts to increase over time. If you take a "blue" bee, background becomes kind of blue, blue counter starts to increase. If you take a green one, background is kinda matrix like, and both counter increase.

The higher these counters are the higher the difficulty (but more bullets means higher score as well). Everytime you die, one of the counter decrease.

I'm not really good and highest I managed to get is ~425 (red) / ~200 (blue) (I focused on raising the red counter). Did Stage 1 and a lot of stage 2 runs, highest score was 2.5M.

[8 1/2]

Is there any mention in the game of the episode number? Technically, this is Episode 5 in the Donpachi saga. Just curious if there's a reference to it like in Dai Ou Jou. It's always seemed so strange to me that Cave considers Bee Storm canon.

[brentsg]

The Bridget video makes it look like they are using transparency effects on the enemy lasers.

[alastair jack]

Does this game have auto-bombing?

[evil_ash_xero]

So Bridget, how are you liking the game so far?

I'd like anyone's opinion actually, since I won't get my hands on this for a couple of more days.

[brentsg]

Does this game have auto-bombing?

Only if you get hit.

[evil_ash_xero]

Does this game have auto-bombing?

Only if you get hit.

Yeah it does, but the Black Label version has an option to turn it off.

[Special World]

Bridget, I would like to tell you that some of those dodges in the second video were insane.

I am slightly re-hyped for Arrange B.

[charlie chong]

I love the pink n blue bullets of arrange b.for some reason i find it easy on the eyes and quite nice to pick a path through.
use this colour scheme again plz cavez!

[charlie chong]

Is there any mention in the game of the episode number? Technically, this is Episode 5 in the Donpachi saga. Just curious if there's a reference to it like in Dai Ou Jou. It's always seemed so strange to me that Cave considers Bee Storm canon.

it says dodonpachi 4 in the game

[Thjodbjorn]

I love this game. I like the daioujou cut screens in arrange a. I thought that was cute. I like the amount of tate wallpapers. Everything I've seen so far is classy.

I managed to get my first loop, playing novice mode.