http://www.cave-stg.com wrote:According to this latest report by Famitsu, Dodonpachi will unlock once you clear Instant Brain. It too will have Kinect support. Whether or not the Campaign Version of DDP is also included is unclear at this point.
This is almost as bewildering as the prospect of using Kinect in a visual novel. I'm guessing you'll wave your left hand in the air to move and tap invisible buttons with your right? It's nice that they're giving shmup fans an incentive to buy a visual novel (on top of the Espgaluda cameos in Instant Brain), but why on Earth didn't they just make this an XBLA release? You know, all that money from the international market? There clearly isn't a problem with Atlus anymore. Or does Cave perceive their old guard gaijin fans as nothing more than stingy, MAME-twiddling fiends?
Disregarding any of that, why isn't it unlocked from the start? It would render the game accessible to importers who aren't willing to sit through 20+ hours of text boxes they can't read, and they could stick "INCLUDES DODONPACHI!" in a corner on the front of the box!
On the good side: if they're releasing the game again at this point in time, Campaign Edition will likely be included!
It's interesting to consider that almost no one in Japan has enough floor space for the Kinect to function correctly, and I don't think the Nyko Zoom accessory is being released there.
Can we expect all future shmup ports to have tacked-on Kinect support? There's talk that MS might require all 360 games to feature it to some degree--I mean, goddamn Mass Effect 3 will use it.
What an incomprehensible decision, from a marketing standpoint. Include a twitch shooting game with a visual novel, of all things? Sure, some fans of visual novels might also like shmups, but I doubt there is much overlap between the fanbases. Furthermore, tacking on motion controls to a game that wasn't designed for them and demands precise control inputs? It's baffling.
Are they -trying- to make the game as inaccessible as possible?
This is kind of irritating, because if they release a terrible port here, the odds of getting a good port somewhere else are almost nil.
Cave has truly lost their way. First the iPhone stuff and social games, now this. I know they'd already made cell phone content for years, but until recently it was just a side business. I'm almost hoping that Ikeda, Inoue and everyone else left from the Toaplan days will split off to form a new studio. Maybe roping in Yagawa as well.
Last edited by Estebang on Tue Oct 18, 2011 3:34 am, edited 2 times in total.
My guess would be that this is some kind of a way from CAVE to show that they are still caring for their shooting fanbase. Something like: "Hey, we are still making shooters for something other than your mobile phone".
Or maybe they try to gather the VN players to the STG genre and wider the fanbase. Dunno, it is weird.
GaijinPunch wrote:I don't have 40 minutes to do anything other than fist myself these days.
The anime is based on a VN. Ef ~tale of memories~ too (I think) and it had some Touhou references as well (I think).
It's kind of sad Touhou gets more attention than their commercial games. Or ironic.
What's this VN about anyway? It kind of looks like Persona mixed with Chaos;Head or something, it really looks like something that should've been an overpriced PC boxed release with special disks and special that and bonus this, bonus that.
NOW REACHES THE FATAL ATTRACTION BE DESCRIBED AS "HELLSINKER". DECIDE DESTINATION.
Man, it's totally understandable why Cave would make a visual novel, because they have very low production costs (often, there isn't any actual programming involved) and a large established playerbase in Japan that will buy every otaku-oriented VN that comes out. Instant Brain also has some probably not coincidental similarities to Steins;Gate, which started on the 360 and was a massive success. So Cave is in a position to make a good profit. What isn't rational is why they would stick a DDP port off in a corner of the game instead of putting it on XBLA.
And yes, the fetishistic obsession with Touhou, an unusually high-quality but nonetheless amateurish doujin game, is disheartening. Touhou gets referenced on Fox News, while merely knowing about Eschatos makes me feels like I'm part of some sort of secret club.
Last edited by Estebang on Mon Oct 17, 2011 1:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
I think you guys are over-reacting just a bit. It seems like they're trying to reach out to the otaku audience with a VN filled with moe, panty shots, and all that awesome stuff and they're doing it through a game that served as a gateway for many people, myself included, into the world of shmups. What the hell is so wrong with that?
Anyway I'm really happy to see DDP finally getting a port that's faithful to the PCB as my MAME set-up is shit and completely unsuited for anything but casual 1cc play. Hopefully they'll do a XBLA release for us with US 360s.
Because it's locked up within the game, as opposed to being accessible without going through an entire visual novel, and there's the mitigating Kinect bullshit. Why not give it second billing to the main game and stick it right on the main menu from the beginning, like the Wonderswan ports in Eschatos?
What I would do is release DDP as an XBLA game, and include a download code with first print copies of Instant Brain as a bonus.
Think about from the perspective from the target audience. If it was just available from the start then they'd probably just credit feed through it once and forgot about it assuming they don't ignore it completely. If they had to earn they'd be more likely to give it a serious look and try out other Cave shooters. If this is just it for the port and it doesn't get a US XBLA release then yeah, I'd be pissed but for now I say just wait and see. I'm sure they made it region-locked for a reason.
XBLA and retail games are classified and approved differently. You can't take a portion of a retail release and sell it on XBLA without retooling and marketing it to be a completely separate product. The leaderboards wouldn't be compatible with each other, etc.
So it's a very safe bet that this port will not see the light of day outside of the region-locked, completion-locked dungeons of Instant Brain.
Also consider all the people who, for whatever reason, never play the game all the way to the end, and thus never encounter Dodonpachi at all.
Gus, do you really think they'd get away with releasing TWO ports of DDP on the same system? They'd have to market this one as a "preview version."
I do wonder how the guys at Toaplan would react in 1991 if someone proposed the idea of a sci-fi/detective-themed visual novel set in Akiba containing a shmup controlled by waving your arms in the air.
Most likely, the person in question would be fired on the spot. Things have sure changed!
Estebang wrote:Gus, do you really think they'd get away with releasing TWO ports of DDP on the same system? They'd have to market this one as a "preview version."
I do wonder how the guys at Toaplan would react in 1991 if someone proposed the idea of a sci-fi/detective-themed visual novel set in Akiba containing a shmup controlled by waving your arms in the air.
Most likely, the person in question would be fired on the spot. Things have sure changed!
Gus wrote:I think you guys are over-reacting just a bit.
Gotta say I agree. This is just a goofy bonus for Cave fans, why is this such a tragedy? Have you been unable to find a way to play DDP up to now? Do you feel like hundreds of hours of programming time were wasted on this?
They probably decided to put it in here as a freebie partly because they knew an XBLA version wouldnt make any money anyways and that fans would think its funny that you can use kinect with it. If they knew that this is such an afront to all things shooting game they very easily could just remove it.
Estebang wrote:Disregarding any of that, why isn't it unlocked from the start? It would render the game accessible to importers who aren't willing to sit through 20+ hours of text boxes they can't read, and they could stick "INCLUDES DODONPACHI!" in a corner on the front of the box!
I think anyone willing to import a game for Kinect Dodonpachi actually would enjoy having to sit through 20 hours of text they can't read.
Because y'know they obviously enjoy suffering.
No, having a playable version of DDP is not the point. I don't think this is such a travesty in itself, it's just representative of how far Cave has fallen and how grim the future of non-smartphone shmup development looks. A bad omen, if you will.
Estebang wrote:XBLA and retail games are classified and approved differently. You can't take a portion of a retail release and sell it on XBLA without retooling and marketing it to be a completely separate product. The leaderboards wouldn't be compatible with each other, etc.
So it's a very safe bet that this port will not see the light of day outside of the region-locked, completion-locked dungeons of Instant Brain.
Also consider all the people who, for whatever reason, never play the game all the way to the end, and thus never encounter Dodonpachi at all.
