DoDonPachi Saidaioujou coming to Xbox 360 (REGION-FREE!)

[O. Van Bruce]

doesn't feel novice?

It's Expert Novice... literally. Not so novice but not hardcore enough... sufficient to have some bragging rights if you aren't a dedicated player.

Compared to Futari's Novice joke, DFK's meh and AK meh too, this is the best novice ever made by Cave, and it's truly good.

[Special World]

Well, all I mean is that it doesn't feel noticeably easier to me than v1.5. Then again I can only get to stage 3 boss on either mode, so.

[CloudyMusic]

Whats actually the best for scoring though?

A-Type. With spread shots it's harder/impossible to keep popcorn alive when you need to bridge chains.

Is there a list somewhere of the WR's for each ship type? I'm curious about the relative scoring potential.

[O. Van Bruce]

Well, all I mean is that it doesn't feel noticeably easier to me than v1.5. Then again I can only get to stage 3 boss on either mode, so.

Novice expert has slower bullets than arcade/1.5 expert as well as less bullets in some parts of the stages + less agressive bosses as someone mentioned here.

And, I suppose, and easier Yo-Bachi (someone said here that there is no In-Bachi on Novice, right?)

But yeah, depending on your skills, Novice Expert can be harder than Arcade/1.5 and it's definetily harder than 360's shot and laser modes (dunno about 360's expert).

[Zengeku3]

Haha, don't know what I'm doing wrong in that Xbox 360 mode then lol. I still haven't made it to Stage 5 in that but I 1cc'd Expert Novice in 1 blind credit (well, i had a little bit of practice in the non-expert vanilla game but never touched Expert)

Overall, it's a pretty easy clear I would say but definitely a step up from what Novice modes are usually like. You can actually fail this one

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

blackoak interview translation beg bump has been initiated

[mimiroru]

But yeah, depending on your skills, Novice Expert can be harder than Arcade/1.5 and it's definetily harder than 360's shot and laser modes (dunno about 360's expert).

personally, i find it a lot easier than arcade/1.5 and 360 laser. i barely scraped stage 4 in arcade and 360 laser. with a few slipups i could get to the s4 boss in novice expart.

[denpanosekai]

Even though I turned "upload replay" OFF in all modes, I still get asked everytime if I want to save replay or not. Is this a bug? I'm pretty sure in previous Cave games it disabled all Replay questions altogether.

[BulletMagnet]

I think the option you need to turn off is "Replay Save", not "Replay Upload" - it's in there someplace, though I forget exactly where.

[stryc9]

So do you always fight the TLB on 360 Mode, or am I triggering it every time by accident?

Last night I crushed the stage 5 boss thinking I've got the 1CC only to be confronted by Hibachi. She killed me real bad.

[CptRansom]

You always fight Kouryu, then Hibachi (with seriously toned-down patterns even on Laser (Normal) and Expert difficulties), then Inbachi (with VERY seriously toned-down patterns) even if you continue. No special requirements at all!

[stryc9]

You always fight Kouryu, then Hibachi (with seriously toned-down patterns even on Laser (Normal) and Expert difficulties), then Inbachi (with VERY seriously toned-down patterns) even if you continue. No special requirements at all!

Thanks man. Well that will make the 1CC a little more difficult than I first thought.

PS sorry for yelling at you when I first joined these forums. You may not recall, but I wasn't very familiar with internet forums a few years ago and I overreacted to something you said. I believe it was in a 'why no shooters for PS3 thread' which by that stage you guys must have been pretty sick of

[Tyjet]

Not sure if mentioned, but it looks like challenge mode is a bit buggy. I watched this video from niconico here and it seems like you can complete mission 50 by quickly switching back to the challange menu just before another mission is shown as "complete."

I tried this and it works, except I chose mission 48 instead of 21. Mission 50 will be marked as complete and it will give you 200 coins if done right: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G2yNgTPh7M

Guess people can farm coins this way??

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

If a bug exists in a video game the Japanese will find a way to exploit it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

You always fight Kouryu, then Hibachi (with seriously toned-down patterns even on Laser (Normal) and Expert difficulties), then Inbachi (with VERY seriously toned-down patterns) even if you continue. No special requirements at all!

Thanks man. Well that will make the 1CC a little more difficult than I first thought.

360 Mode isn't really one to play just for the 1CC. It's extremely easy actually, especially in Shot if you're purely focused on a 1CC as all you need to worry about is keeping your meter near 10000 (just use low level hypers to recharge if you ever get hit and autobomb), which is surprisingly easy to do when it's your only worry. Having what amounts to a giant lifebar makes it pretty easy. It's far more satisfying to play for score, which involves dropping the meter dangerously low via use of the super laser to quickly regain hypers and spam them throughout the levels, which also bumps up the rank a good deal. Ignoring Saya's safety and putting yourself one hit away from a gameover for the sake of score is very satisfying when you clear the game that way.

Because Hibachi and Inbachi's patterns aren't affect by rank (apparently), they're also both pretty easy to memorize. Inbachi is actually the easier of the two in shot mode I find, oddly enough.

How many people got to Hibachi for their first time and got hit because they were lasering in front of her and didn't realize a wall of bullets would zoom out at you? I sometimes forget to get the hell outta the way in a run because I'm so used to starting off a boss fight dead center...

[CptRansom]

PS sorry for yelling at you when I first joined these forums. You may not recall, but I wasn't very familiar with internet forums a few years ago and I overreacted to something you said. I believe it was in a 'why no shooters for PS3 thread' which by that stage you guys must have been pretty sick of

I don't recall, but I'm totally going to look it up now. (EDIT: Yep, I'm a dick. Please see the SDOJ HS thread for further evidence or talk to me on IRC.)

Because Hibachi and Inbachi's patterns aren't affect by rank (apparently), they're also both pretty easy to memorize. Inbachi is actually the easier of the two in shot mode I find, oddly enough.

Inbachi's patterns on 360 Shot are seriously like a stage 2 Touhou boss... on Easy. Hibachi has two patterns that usually fuck me: the one with the fast pink bullets (not the opener) where it looks like there are gaps in the middle, but sometimes a wall comes down the middle that will bend you over if you're not fast enough (so it's better to stay to one side), and that GODDAMNED PINK AND BLUE WASHING MACHINE PATTERN THAT EVEN ON NOVICE ALWAYS HITS ME AT LEAST ONCE OH GOD THE RAGE

[Cuilan]

My copy arrived today and I played each mode a few times.

Gameplay-wise, my opinion remains the same: due to the larger hit-box, the bullets should be slower to help it feel balanced. Right now I feel like I'm playing Raiden Fighters Jet at max rank with quadruple the number of bullets+enemies.

I wish I could see a Black Label where: the hit-box is made smaller/and or the enemy bullets are slowed down, the auto-bomb is removed, and the hypers adjusted so that they recharge slower.

Aside from that and the known bugs, the port seems good. I do not like the new music one bit compared to the original tracks, at least from what I've heard so far. I don't like the intro song either. The music also seems too quiet, even when volume is set to 100.

Seeing the 360 mode's HUD in person, it's actually not so bad. Doesn't bother me at all, and neither does the talking. What does bother me is the lip syncing, or the lack of it rather. Cave should have put some effort into that. Would have been a lot nicer if the portraits were fully animated 3D models, like in Idolmaster.

[ACSeraph]

Speaking of the autobomb, I don't use it because I feel like it is a crutch that is teaching me bad habits, but is there any reason you really shouldn't pick it. Does it have any effect on score or the amount of resources you pick up? I realize that it uses all your stock when it activates, but that's still better than losing all your stock AND getting killed when you have it turned off and you fail to manually bomb.

[Cagar]

Speaking of the autobomb, I don't use it because I feel like it is a crutch that is teaching me bad habits, but is there any reason you really shouldn't pick it. Does it have any effect on score or the amount of resources you pick up? I realize that it uses all your stock when it activates, but that's still better than losing all your stock AND getting killed when you have it turned off and you fail to manually bomb.

Autobomb = You lose whole chain
Death without autobomb = You lose only portion of your chain (like 20% or 30% ?)

[Cuilan]

Another thing I noticed is that SDOJ's install size is quite large. At 3.1gb I think it might be the largest Cave shooter on 360.

[chempop]

With Auto-bomb turned ON you do not get an extra bomb after each death, like you do when it is turned OFF.

[Aquas]

I could swear I had slight input lag on my arcade stick but I have to check again.

Just me or is there some slightly input lag in this game? it kinda bugs me...

I'm playing with a worn out stick on a TV (vs usually PCBs on my cab) so I can't really tell. Buttons feel slightly laggy but I haven't tested it much, like when survival bombing I don't know if I'm just being slow (probably) or if there's some lag there.

Yeah I feel like it's slightly laggy compared to some of the other 360 Cave ports. Even on a CRT (it's acceptable), but it's sadly quite difficult to play on laggier HDTVs imho. It's a bit disappointing to me.

[stryc9]

Those of you experiencing lag: did you have the same issue with Akai Katana? Cos as far as I recall, that was the only CAVE game I could really feel it in to any great extent. I can't feel any with SDOJ yet AK was like wading through glue coming from a CRT to the 50' Plasma

[blackoak]

blackoak interview translation beg bump has been initiated

Haha, sorry about that. I had some things to get done before beginning this. I'm actually at a pub working on it now. I wonder if its possible to slur a translation, hehe...

In other news, I'm still waiting on my SDOJ and Shooting Love discs from play-asia. Maybe the patch will be ready by the time it gets here.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I'm secretly in love with you in a heterosexual way.

[Special World]

wow, how is this game so hard

I assumed Cave was just bringing the hurt for the first few levels before evening things out

but I played training mode tonight... jeez

with Ketsui, a lot of the challenge was just wrapping my mind around those crazy patterns, but in this one it seems like what you see is what you get and what you get is absolutely insane

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

July 2013 onward to be named Post-Aplankalyptic Era by shooting game history books

[Special World]

despite all that, it really isn't in me to say that any Cave games are unfair. They just are what they are. It feels like there's always a way out, even if I'll never find it in time.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

Pink Sweets... I'm becoming consumed about what I read about the XX version resetting the rank to 0 on each death. What is the deal this game, I think it's cursed.

[trap15]

The XX versions are hacks.