Xbox 360: Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu 1.5 (November 2010)

[nZero]

EDIT: On further analysis, it's not a new arrange at all; it's just the Black Label soundtrack (my bad for not recognizing it!). The CD that comes with the LE is yet another arrangement, which is NOT in the game's data.

Oh good, then the Black Label DLC might be a less horrendously large download if all of the audio is already on the disc.

[njiska]

I don't mind the Music, even though it's not the best, I think Longhena Cantata is quite excellent.
Crap, gotta get to work, thank god I have tonight off

Longena Cantata is quite nice and so is Hibachi (fuck if i'm going to leet that), but the rest are hit or miss. I don't think the sound track is bad and I certainly like it a lot more than DOJs, but it's still not an immediate stand out like DFK BL or Futari.

[Skykid]

When I said "easier loop" I meant Tsuujou (?), not the first

Ah right, so you weren't meaning the regular 1.5 vanilla mode? (I'm not too au fait with the other modes... I haven't received the port yet.)
Apologies, I got confused cus I thought someone said they were struggling with vanilla, and figured your responses were based around that.

He's still talking about ver1.5. Tsuujou is the name of the standard (no TLB) 2nd loop.

Ah is that what it is? Thanks for clearing that up for me dude.

So the regular 2nd loop is on Futari Maniac levels... hmm, that sounds like fun.

[Special World]

Initial thoughts:

- Hypering makes the game a lot less exciting than it could be. Sitting there and just C shotting every second isn't as exciting as dodging. Maybe this'll change somehow once I understand how scoring works, but it's sort of anemic and undermines stage design.
- The music is indeed really boring. I barely even notice it's there.
- Game isn't as easy as people are saying, but I've been using power mode, so...

Still a very good game (not sure that Cave makes anything but), but doesn't seem to be living up to my mental hype of DFK as some kind of mythic Futari killer. I think Ketsuipachi will be the best of all modes though, so I remain excited for that.

Maybe it'll grow on me, but with the hypering and music it doesn't really get my blood flowing, which is part of the reason I like Futari and Ketsui the most. They're just so damned intense.

[apatia77]

I've been playing it for about 8 hours now and the game is a lot of fun. Definitely much easier than the previous dodonpachi games but not as easy as some of you make it. Getting 1-ALL is still going to be a challenge for a lot of people, stage 5 is just a killer.

I am not sure about the hypers as well, it just doesn't feel right for a dodonpachi game.

[-Bridget-]

Initial thoughts:

- Hypering makes the game a lot less exciting than it could be. Sitting there and just C shotting every second isn't as exciting as dodging. Maybe this'll change somehow once I understand how scoring works, but it's sort of anemic and undermines stage design.
- The music is indeed really boring. I barely even notice it's there.
- Game isn't as easy as people are saying, but I've been using power mode, so...

Still a very good game (not sure that Cave makes anything but), but doesn't seem to be living up to my mental hype of DFK as some kind of mythic Futari killer. I think Ketsuipachi will be the best of all modes though, so I remain excited for that.

Maybe it'll grow on me, but with the hypering and music it doesn't really get my blood flowing, which is part of the reason I like Futari and Ketsui the most. They're just so damned intense.

I can agree with some of this. Mostly the hyper thing.

In 1.5, the hypering makes the game too easy. It's just too simple to sit there and plow through complicated patterns by simply going nuts with the hyper spread shot. And the bosses.... ugh. The less said about the bosses the better. In the original superplay I saw of the game, I barely even got to see what patterns they fired, due to the combination of hypering + bomb attacks.

I'm used to epic boss fights, in games like Futari or Ketsui.... these bosses that have like, hardly any health and melt down because you look at them funny were a disappointment.

Thus why 1.5 seems to me to be alot more about scoring than survival.

Which is fine, since Arrange B is there, which puts the "epic" back into the boss fights, provided you arent doing the cheap bomb trick that the super-high-score replays use. *I* dont do it, anyway, and the bosses in that mode end up being some of the most insane fights I've yet seen in a Cave game outside of Futari Ultra.

[njiska]

Which is fine, since Arrange B is there, which puts the "epic" back into the boss fights, provided you arent doing the cheap bomb trick that the super-high-score replays use. *I* dont do it, anyway, and the bosses in that mode end up being some of the most insane fights I've yet seen in a Cave game outside of Futari Ultra.

Boss fights? Rank high enough and it puts the epic in pop-corn enemies.

[-Bridget-]

Which is fine, since Arrange B is there, which puts the "epic" back into the boss fights, provided you arent doing the cheap bomb trick that the super-high-score replays use. *I* dont do it, anyway, and the bosses in that mode end up being some of the most insane fights I've yet seen in a Cave game outside of Futari Ultra.

Boss fights? Rank high enough and it puts the epic in pop-corn enemies.

From playing it myself though, I get the impression that it sorta isnt designed to do that. If you're playing through it the non-cheating way, AKA, not using the bomb trick over and over and over and over, the game becomes nigh-impossible as it is *way* before the enemies start to have silly amounts of health. At the level I'm at, where the replay saving stops working due to an overload of crazy, certain enemies have slightly more health, and.... that's it. It's barely noticable.

Wheras the BOSSES have a ton of health right from the start.

[Paradigm]

If you're playing through it the non-cheating way, AKA, not using the bomb trick over and over and over and over,

The "cheating" way? Give it a rest. You've made your point perfectly clear - you don't like the high-scoring method for this mode - there's no need to keep repeating yourself.

Personally I enjoyed watching the replays on Nico Video. Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather watch a player who's clearly in control and knows his way around the game than somebody blindly trying to fumble their way through by any means neccessary. Just the fact that there are people seemingly dominating this mode so soon after the game's release is impressive to me.

And if it really is as easy as you seem to believe it is, why not sacrifice a few hours of your time and put up a great score on the leaderboard? The rank on your game must be high enough by now.

[Taylor]

In 1.5, the hypering makes the game too easy. It's just too simple to sit there and plow through complicated patterns by simply going nuts with the hyper spread shot. And the bosses.... ugh. The less said about the bosses the better. In the original superplay I saw of the game, I barely even got to see what patterns they fired, due to the combination of hypering + bomb attacks.

I'm used to epic boss fights, in games like Futari or Ketsui.... these bosses that have like, hardly any health and melt down because you look at them funny were a disappointment.

Thus why 1.5 seems to me to be alot more about scoring than survival.

Well, kind of, hyper spamming through the stage is just DFK's equivalent of picking level 1 ranks in Deathsmiles. If your hyper is active or not full you do not get the huge score multiplier from your hit-count. So, by all means Hyper at the start of the stage to get your multiplier up, but you won't get far score-wise. However, the Hyper Rank that determines how hard bullets are to cancel doesn't reset at the end of a stage in the 2nd loop so survival-wise it's not really a sound tactic either. Like going to the Canyon, or something, Deathsmiles comparison doesn't really carry.

The first "super-play" of the game was someone in 1.0 bomb spamming everything because, instead of auto-bomb, you got all your bombs back when you collected a pick-up. These days you're more likely to see someone go through all the patterns five plus times milking the bosses and only hypering through patterns where the boss isn't injured. Which is probably even more tedious because it doesn't even seem to boost the score much.

I'm really looking forward to 1.51. But, and I hate to bring it up in this thread, upwards of 1cm of snow has caused absolute chaos here and I probably won't see it for a few weeks.

[Nick420]

I'm really looking forward to 1.51. But, and I hate to bring it up in this thread, upwards of 1cm of snow has caused absolute chaos here and I probably won't see it for a few weeks.

LOL! 1cm. You should see where i am over 1 foot!.....Im in Ireland Luckily my 1.5 arrived on monday

[Zerst]

Well, kind of, hyper spamming through the stage is just DFK's equivalent of picking level 1 ranks in Deathsmiles. If your hyper is active or not full you do not get the huge score multiplier from your hit-count. So, by all means Hyper at the start of the stage to get your multiplier up, but you won't get far score-wise.

From what I've seen in videos, bombspamming gives you more points from the resulting item fountain than if you were to play the stage straight up. Bombing also seems to give you another bomb AND a hyper if you wait long enough for the screen to fill with bullets. So basically you never have to dodge anything in this mode if you know how to time your bombs/hypers.

[Taylor]

We're talking about 1.5 :P Bomb there and you lose everything!

It's a shame that arrange mode is bomb spam though, I much prefer Bridget's videos to the nicovideo ones.

[Special World]

I hope I'm wrong about this game and something clicks, because as of now I'd consider this the only shmup I've played which is made significantly worse because of its scoring system. The hypers devolve it into me doing nothing half the time, just sitting there and taking potshots to cancel bullets. From what I can tell it encourages doing as little as possible.

Arrange B is an awesome mode which goes to waste because of the eventual "ridiculous health" enemies and bombspam. I'll be up front: I haven't actually played it enough to reach the point where that becomes necessary. But I can already tell it completely erodes all fun just by watching videos.

The music does nothing for me, and I disagree with the sentiment that this game is Cave's easiest 1CC. You can say "well strong lets you 1CC it pretty easily" but I consider that a copout. It almost feels like playing DOJ set to 12 stock, only half the time I'm not doing anything but loafing around and scoring.

If I'm just missing something crucial here, please let me know. But I consider this the most boring scoring system I've ever seen. Where's the thrill in it? It makes the game totally anemic for me.

And yeah this is like, totally my opinion, man.

But I can't wait for February to come around. I hope Ketsuipachi doesn't suffer from any of these faults, as Ketsui is one of the most adrenaline-driven shooters I've ever played, and those 10 chips look glorious. Muchi Muchi Pork looks like a hell of a good time as well, and I'll get at least a little bit of fun from Pink Sweets, though I dislike Ibara.

So those are my thoughts. I really hope they change, because this is one of the most (if not the most) disappointing Cave games I've played.

[moozooh]

Scoring in 1.5 revolves around using hypers in the beginning of a stage (consequently driving rank up) to get to a 10k+ chain, then chaining everything normally without ever touching a hyper up until the boss. On hyper rank 4 and 5 bullets don't cancel as easily (if at all), so it becomes a lot more challenging than you suggest.

[Special World]

Scoring in 1.5 revolves around using hypers in the beginning of a stage (consequently driving rank up) to get to a 10k+ chain, then chaining everything normally without ever touching a hyper up until the boss. On hyper rank 4 and 5 bullets don't cancel as easily (if at all), so it becomes a lot more challenging than you suggest.

I see. Why does one want to stop hypering after then, exactly?

Is the point of getting 10K only to drive rank up? I was under the impression that most of the points came from bullet canceling to drive your combo ever higher. If somebody messes up their chain, is it better to restart it or to just go the rest of the level without hypering?

[moozooh]

The chain multiplier (you might want to check the ST here or at Cave-STG for specifics, I don't remember them off-hand) isn't applied during a hyper, but only during normal chaining with hyper fully charged. The multiplier reaches its maximum value at 10K hits. Moreover, your chain breaks if you have a hyper fully charged and make some mistake, so it basically becomes the same as DDP, except with more leniency in timing.

[NTSC-J]

If you're playing through it the non-cheating way, AKA, not using the bomb trick over and over and over and over,

The "cheating" way? Give it a rest. You've made your point perfectly clear - you don't like the high-scoring method for this mode - there's no need to keep repeating yourself.

Personally I enjoyed watching the replays on Nico Video. Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather watch a player who's clearly in control and knows his way around the game than somebody blindly trying to fumble their way through by any means neccessary. Just the fact that there are people seemingly dominating this mode so soon after the game's release is impressive to me.

And if it really is as easy as you seem to believe it is, why not sacrifice a few hours of your time and put up a great score on the leaderboard? The rank on your game must be high enough by now.

I agree. If bomb spamming in Arrange B is cheating, then someone who dies a lot in Battle Garegga is a weak player. Its just how the mode works and its still hard. Getting higher scores no matter what method you choose will get very hard as you progress and no-missing levels is quite the task past the first stage.

I think Arrange B is a fun distraction and while it isnt as `impressive` to score in as in other modes, its a lot more fun to play than it is to watch.

[Shalashaska]

Scoring in 1.5 revolves around using hypers in the beginning of a stage (consequently driving rank up) to get to a 10k+ chain, then chaining everything normally without ever touching a hyper up until the boss. On hyper rank 4 and 5 bullets don't cancel as easily (if at all), so it becomes a lot more challenging than you suggest.

I see. Why does one want to stop hypering after then, exactly?

Is the point of getting 10K only to drive rank up? I was under the impression that most of the points came from bullet canceling to drive your combo ever higher. If somebody messes up their chain, is it better to restart it or to just go the rest of the level without hypering?

You definitely don't understand the scoring yet. Read up then give it another go. I was the same way and found the game mighty boring (I hate bullet canceling shmups in general) until I read how to score properly.

[njiska]

Anyone else having trouble keeping an eye on Lasers in Arrange B? they see so muted that I can barely see them against the background and beneath the sea of bullets.

[Special World]

The chain multiplier (you might want to check the ST here or at Cave-STG for specifics, I don't remember them off-hand) isn't applied during a hyper, but only during normal chaining with hyper fully charged. The multiplier reaches its maximum value at 10K hits. Moreover, your chain breaks if you have a hyper fully charged and make some mistake, so it basically becomes the same as DDP, except with more leniency in timing.

I see. That sounds a lot more like what I expect out of Cave. Still sucks that half the level has to go to Hypering, but I'll read up on strat and see how it goes.

[Aliquantic]

I see. That sounds a lot more like what I expect out of Cave. Still sucks that half the level has to go to Hypering, but I'll read up on strat and see how it goes.

In 1.5, you still want to hyper as efficiently as possible, though, so you will be doing fairly little of it from stage 3 onwards (though it's sometimes a good idea to hyper through midbosses and similarly low-scoring section from what I've seen) and it will happen in comparatively easier sections anyway. I was similarly worried about hypers in that game, but it seems playing for score is all you need if you want a "no hypers" challenge Pure survival runs seem to be two or three orders of magnitude lower than superplays for score, and of course most of your score is going to come from those long, hard stages...

Speaking of hypers, the rank increase from using them (especially in the second loop) applies even if you aren't using a hyper, right?

[-Bridget-]

If you're playing through it the non-cheating way, AKA, not using the bomb trick over and over and over and over,

The "cheating" way? Give it a rest. You've made your point perfectly clear - you don't like the high-scoring method for this mode - there's no need to keep repeating yourself.

Personally I enjoyed watching the replays on Nico Video. Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather watch a player who's clearly in control and knows his way around the game than somebody blindly trying to fumble their way through by any means neccessary. Just the fact that there are people seemingly dominating this mode so soon after the game's release is impressive to me.

And if it really is as easy as you seem to believe it is, why not sacrifice a few hours of your time and put up a great score on the leaderboard? The rank on your game must be high enough by now.

*sigh* Please dont tell me to "give it a rest". If you want me to repeat myself MORE, doing that is the most superb way of getting me to do it. I have a really short fuse. And the reason I repeat myself is because I have a really terrible memory and often cannot remember if I've already said something, that's all.

And no, I'm not going to bother going through the game that way. Why? Because it's BORING. B-O-R-I-N-G. The player is only "in control" because the game literally has no chance to attack him. What's the point of a danmaku shmup when it's not firing at you? This is why I'm not playing this mode for score at all (and never will). Just for survival challenge.

I mean, if someone else likes it, hey, whatever. I really dont care. There's plenty of shmups and things that I dont like, but others do (like Garegga and similar games). But I'm still gonna call it whatever I want. Is "cheating" the right word? Maybe not. Maybe "bloody stupid" is. Regardless, it's my opinion on the matter. You dont have to like it.

I need a challenge in these games to hold my attention, and repeated bombing + nearly-unending invincibility is not challenge to me.

Arrange B is an awesome mode which goes to waste because of the eventual "ridiculous health" enemies and bombspam. I'll be up front: I haven't actually played it enough to reach the point where that becomes necessary. But I can already tell it completely erodes all fun just by watching videos.

My point exactly.

Oh well. As much as I like Cave, a few of their games have scoring systems that I've always thought to be absolutely terrible (DOJ, the original Mushi, Deathsmiles). If I want to play for score, that's what 1.5 and Arrange A are for. Doesnt dilute my interest in the game as a whole.

[originalz]

Eh, I almost want to say that those who complain about the hypering spam in 1.5 only do so because they only watch videos and don't fully understand how it works. It's the kind of game that can look really easy in superplays, but it's much harder to do in practice. Try to hyper through the game and see how well it works for you, there's a lot more to it.

Heh, am I the only person that really likes the soundtrack? I fell in love with it from the first time I played it in the arcades. I really like the stage 5 and non-true last boss theme, and the other songs are very consistient and seem to suit the game well. I also like how it changes to a different version when you go through the alternate route in a stage. The only song that I dislike is the one for TLB.

[Taylor]

I hope I'm wrong about this game and something clicks, because as of now I'd consider this the only shmup I've played which is made significantly worse because of its scoring system. The hypers devolve it into me doing nothing half the time, just sitting there and taking potshots to cancel bullets. From what I can tell it encourages doing as little as possible.

Is this thing on?

Speaking of hypers, the rank increase from using them (especially in the second loop) applies even if you aren't using a hyper, right?

There's a rank spike while they are active, I've got a feeling it works like DOJ where some of that rank stays but I can't prove that.

[-Bridget-]

Eh, I almost want to say that those who complain about the hypering spam in 1.5 only do so because they only watch videos and don't fully understand how it works. It's the kind of game that can look really easy in superplays, but it's much harder to do in practice. Try to hyper through the game and see how well it works for you, there's a lot more to it.

Heh, am I the only person that really likes the soundtrack? I fell in love with it from the first time I played it in the arcades. I really like the stage 5 and non-true last boss theme, and the other songs are very consistient and seem to suit the game well. I also like how it changes to a different version when you go through the alternate route in a stage. The only song that I dislike is the one for TLB.

Nah, you arent the only person that really likes the soundtrack. I think it's great as well. Dunno what is with all the hate towards it, but.... oh well. Different tastes and whatnot.

I agree, too, Hibachi's final theme, in his little bee form, isnt very good. It sounds like a somewhat cruddy version of his theme from the previous game. But the theme right BEFORE that is brilliant. The overall soundtrack reminds me alot of Ketsui and DOJ.


Anyway, as for your first statement, I agree with that as well. The videos for the game do make it look like there's WAY too much hypering.... and in some aspects this is true. Boss fights, for example, are too easy. All of them.

Though, the game IS still pretty easy in terms of sheer survival.... I dont think the videos lied about that aspect. The challenge is all in the scoring, at least for 1.5 mode (and somewhat the same for Arrange A). Keeping a good, long chain going is alot harder than it looks, but it's also alot of fun.

I usually prefer alot more survival-challenge in a shmup, but I think this one still is great due to the challenge and fun of the scoring system. Whenever I feel like playing something more difficult, I can go play Futari or Ketsui or one of those.

[emphatic]

I don't know if people realize that the soundtrack is a mashup of different DDP OSTs? The "hate" I think is rather the longing for the BETTER soundtrack for the Black Label. I sure hope we get treated with at least a mashup but in Ketsui style for the "Ketsuipachi" arrange mode. Even better would be an arrange Ketsui sountrack as (IMHO) the one that 5pb got was rather weak compared to the original.

Tried a credit on 1.51 today and it was pure enjoyment right away for me. But those sweeping lasers can go to hell.

[originalz]

I thought that DFK did a good job of referencing the old songs while still making them unique.

The trailer for BL has a new arrange of Ketsui stage 1 that sounds pretty damn good, so there's probably a good chance that there'll be a new arrange for the mode.

[Special World]

I don't know if people realize that the soundtrack is a mashup of different DDP OSTs? The "hate" I think is rather the longing for the BETTER soundtrack for the Black Label. I sure hope we get treated with at least a mashup but in Ketsui style for the "Ketsuipachi" arrange mode. Even better would be an arrange Ketsui sountrack as (IMHO) the one that 5pb got was rather weak compared to the original.

Tried a credit on 1.51 today and it was pure enjoyment right away for me. But those sweeping lasers can go to hell.

That track in the Ketsuipachi PV is absolutely awesome. I hope there's more of that quality.

Scoring's going a lot better now that I'm not a big old dummy. Thanks for setting me straight, guys. I still don't think I like it as much as Futari or Ketsui, but it's not bad

[Skykid]

I'm really looking forward to 1.51. But, and I hate to bring it up in this thread, upwards of 1cm of snow has caused absolute chaos here and I probably won't see it for a few weeks.

Oh crap, I didn't think of that. Snowed like hell last night...
Parcelforce had better come through for me damnit.