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

[AntiFritz]

The XX versions are hacks.

Was that confirmed? I know they always sounded really dodgy though. Like in a half finished broken way.

[DrTrouserPlank]

This shitting game might arrive in the next day or so. It's going to be doubly frustrating/difficult because I am going to be playing it with a stick; something which I never do.

I am anticipating a full-scale meltdown after having tried the stick tonight for the first time on Futari and THE. Much more difficult than play with the d-pad.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I'm the exact opposite, hate shmups with a d-pad and honestly don't see how it is even humanly possible to move back and forth as quickly and accurately with your thumb as it is to jerk a Seimitsu back and forth. D-pads are also sometimes awkward on diagonals. I can see how a keyboard could open up some tricks for people if you are able to master it in the right ways but I can't.

[KAI]

IMO you can do faster movements with a D-Pad than with a stick.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I can wiggle my left thumb left and right and shake the controller back and forth and say with 100% confidence that that is not true in my case, though other people might have better/more talented thumbs than me. I'm not equal on all fingers either, like my pinky used for buttons feels awkward compared to the others so I don't use it. I don't use it much when typing either for the same reason. My thumb does not feel as perfectly controlled as gripping a (short throw) joystick.

[Drachenherz]

This shitting game might arrive in the next day or so. It's going to be doubly frustrating/difficult because I am going to be playing it with a stick; something which I never do.

I am anticipating a full-scale meltdown after having tried the stick tonight for the first time on Futari and THE. Much more difficult than play with the d-pad.

Stick with it. You *might* be surprised. Seriously, take your time to get used to the stick, let's say 12 hrs playtime or so, and see how it suits you.

[emphatic]

I can wiggle my left thumb left and right and shake the controller back and forth and say with 100% confidence that that is not true in my case, though other people might have better/more talented thumbs than me. I'm not equal on all fingers either, like my pinky used for buttons feels awkward compared to the others so I don't use it. I don't use it much when typing either for the same reason. My thumb does not feel as perfectly controlled as gripping a (short throw) joystick.

I've never been good with pads either, but ever since the accident that took the top off my left thumb, it's now quite impossible to learn how to play a pad.

[trap15]

Stick with it. You *might* be surprised. Seriously, take your time to get used to the stick, let's say 12 hrs playtime or so, and see how it suits you.

This. When I first got my stick, I was primarily a keyboard player. Took me about a month of off-and-on play to finally get used to it, and another month to surpass my skills on keyboard. Now I wouldn't dream of using anything else

[chempop]

After a solid few days with the game I have some thoughts I might as well share. This isn't about the port's quality, more about the game in general, I play ArcadeHD mainly.

+ Great overall presentation. SDOJ looks crazy. I particularly like the colorful bosses.
+ Music is fitting and far better than my initial opinion led me to believe.
+ The mechanics are simple and addictive, nothing like activating a lvl10 hyper and crushing the stage3 midboss.
+ Difficulty is daunting, in a good way. I'm not used to having challenging patterns on a stage2 boss.

- Some questionable designs: backgrounds and effects tend to make things difficult to see what is going on.
- The hyper icon under the ship is too big and distracting, it makes identifying hitbox location VERY troublesome.
- The stages all look the same and lack a certain uniqueness seen in DOJ.
- Difficulty is going to turn away less experienced fans.

Do you guys agree, disagree, have any other thoughts? I see plenty of positive comments about the game, but people I've been chatting with are getting very aggravated with the game.

[brentsg]

This shitting game might arrive in the next day or so. It's going to be doubly frustrating/difficult because I am going to be playing it with a stick; something which I never do.

I am anticipating a full-scale meltdown after having tried the stick tonight for the first time on Futari and THE. Much more difficult than play with the d-pad.

Stick with it. You *might* be surprised. Seriously, take your time to get used to the stick, let's say 12 hrs playtime or so, and see how it suits you.

Agreed, think of swapping to the stick as raising your ceiling. You might not reach it right away but it should improve your potential.

[Special World]

Chempop: I love the game, and I'm not particularly skilled. I think after a while it'll be a downer that I'll probably never beat the 4th stage, but for now I'm in love with the mechanics. It really is too hard, but there are modes that aren't too difficult. I think v1.5 is the best though, so I wish shot type was easy mode or something. Novice mode doesn't quite have the range I'd like either.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

After a solid few days with the game I have some thoughts I might as well share. This isn't about the port's quality, more about the game in general, I play ArcadeHD mainly.

+ Great overall presentation. SDOJ looks crazy. I particularly like the colorful bosses.
+ Music is fitting and far better than my initial opinion led me to believe.
+ The mechanics are simple and addictive, nothing like activating a lvl10 hyper and crushing the stage3 midboss.
+ Difficulty is daunting, in a good way. I'm not used to having challenging patterns on a stage2 boss.

- Some questionable designs: backgrounds and effects tend to make things difficult to see what is going on.
- The hyper icon under the ship is too big and distracting, it makes identifying hitbox location VERY troublesome.
- The stages all look the same and lack a certain uniqueness seen in DOJ.
- Difficulty is going to turn away less experienced fans.

Do you guys agree, disagree, have any other thoughts? I see plenty of positive comments about the game, but people I've been chatting with are getting very aggravated with the game.

Just speaking about arcade mode only, I never had any beef with the graphics or music and quickly got used to the backgrounds and effects. I don't like the bigger hitbox. The game is already clearly harder than the average Cave game so why make it worse. I didn't have a big issue with the hyper icon under the ship, I had a bigger issue with all the stuff at the top of the screen blocking too much of the view but I mostly got used to it. I wouldn't call it a big complaint. I wish the hitbox was smaller, some of the bullets were slower and I wish there was more slowdown when the screen is filled with crap. I think it's too much for a base first loop, maybe the hardest one Cave has ever done aside from Pink Sweets. If I was going to set a difficulty level however I chose I'd make it really hard to clear but still leave some room to go back and start scoring more and more (someone at my level), which is how many Cave games are. After I cleared SDOJ people were like "keep going, fight Hibachi etc.". But it doesn't feel like I can keep going. I probably could if I wanted to dedicate my existence to it but that ain't happening.

Maybe they should have made 3 modes on the board and what is the normal mode should have been the middle/maniac, but even if so I'd still prefer the changes I mentioned with hitbox etc.

[chempop]

Agreed on the hitbox. Damn these bullets are a lot faster than typical DDP aren't they? I am happy that it's a single loop game. I know the hardcore DDP players might not be satisfied, that I can understand. Personally, I'd much rather a single difficult loop that I eventually clear, than a first loop that doesn't take much effort and a near impossible second loop.

[Special World]

tbh even clearing this game is like some kind of lifetime achievement

you get my lifetime achievement, muchi, for whatever it's worth

[Erppo]

The bigger hitbox is great. All it really does is make silly luckflailing way less likely to succeed than in other Caves so you actually have to know what you're doing.

Considering loops separately is pretty artificial anyway and in the current state the game with S/L is a lot easier than DOJ. (And that is even before you take into account the fact that the chains are mostly extremely easy.)

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

The bullets are crazy. I've never been fond of second loops, I would always prefer it to be in another mode so you can jump right to it, like they did with Expert here. That is one thing they definitely got right, although I question the sense in making half the game be accessible to only .001% of players. Expert mode is completely insane.

The bigger hitbox is great. All it really does is make silly luckflailing way less likely to succeed than in other Caves so you actually have to know what you're doing.

Considering loops separately is pretty artificial anyway and in the current state the game with S/L is a lot easier than DOJ. (And that is even before you take into account the fact that the chains are mostly extremely easy.)

I guess you are comparing original SDOJ mode to 2-alling DOJ. If you find the first loop of DOJ to be as difficult to clear as SDOJ, you have got to be the only person on the planet who feels that way?

Difficult chaining (like DOJ) is no fun imo. Even when it's easy I'd rather have a different scoring system but it's better than nothing.

[chempop]

Is SDOJ easier than the first loop of DOJ? It's hard for me to approximate because I played DOJ-BL for years when I kinda sucked at cave games before clearing the first loop.

[Special World]

Is SDOJ easier than the first loop of DOJ? It's hard for me to approximate because I played DOJ-BL for years when I kinda sucked at cave games before clearing the first loop.

I'm unqualified to say this, but at a glance I'd say "absolutely not."

[CptRansom]

I think the only people saying SDOJ on S/L is easy are the people who already have 1+ 2-ALL under their belts, so of COURSE the first loop mode of a new game is going to be significantly easier than what they're used to. It is for them that Expert exists.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

Imo SDOJ is harder to clear than the first loop of DOJ in any of its forms (white/black/Tamashii/shot/expert/whatever). Things get mucky when you talk about your first clear vs. your 100th but not that mucky, to me. Especially considering I had way more under my belt by the time I got to SDOJ vs. my first DOJ clear. With Erppo, does he have a problem clearing anything?

[Erppo]

I think SDOJ S/L is somewhat harder than the first loop in DOJ. I thought I made myself clear enough but I was indeed referring to the whole game in DOJ. You're not going to get the game to label your score as an ALL before you actually beat it all.

What little I've tried of EX though feels pretty tough. I haven't played it enough to really make any kind of good estimations.

[chempop]

Haha, okay just checking. At my best I see 2-3 a few times before calling it quits in pachi games.
Right now I'm lucky to see stage 4 boss in SDOJ.

Also, what is up with the safespot on the last pattern of SDOJ stage 3 boss?! I can't get inside that pattern without the boss himself ramming me.

[MSZ]

After 3 days, I'm still stuck in stage 3. The bigger hitbox is really giving me problems.

[deexor]

Also, what is up with the safespot on the last pattern of SDOJ stage 3 boss?! I can't get inside that pattern without the boss himself ramming me.

The safespot isn't static. There's a narrow space between the boss hitbox and the part where the bullets start coming from. The boss moves, you have to move with it, or you'll get shot/rammed. At the top, the glowing part is safe, the dark parts will kill you.

[Cuilan]

I'm surprised by how great Novice Expert is.

It's almost the Black Label I wanted. Though I still think it could be better with some of the tweaks I suggested: bullets slowed down (just a tad), hyper acquisition rate lowered, auto-bomb removed, no extra bombs on death, maybe Shot and Laser also removed leaving only Expert.

Even though I'm a fan of giving the player lots of options, I think I'd ultimately prefer a more focused/limited experience that is well-balanced/well-designed.

[japtor]

I got viletim's SCART JAMMA adapter yesterday and got my 360 hooked up to my cab finally. No more lag (or laggy feel)! No clue if it had to do with my TV, stick, or maybe resolution, but whatever the case it's fine now.

On the controls side topic, I'm best with sticks now but got really good with a keyboard when playing MAME way back. I can change directions faster than on a dpad and hit the buttons faster, like a small tightly arranged arcade layout rather than using my thumbs.

- The hyper icon under the ship is too big and distracting, it makes identifying hitbox location VERY troublesome.
- The stages all look the same and lack a certain uniqueness seen in DOJ.
- Difficulty is going to turn away less experienced fans.

Do you guys agree, disagree, have any other thoughts? I see plenty of positive comments about the game, but people I've been chatting with are getting very aggravated with the game.

The laser turret on top is the one that's been throwing me off. Actually it was the hit box marker too ironically, I think cause the ones I've played heavily before (Ketsui most recently) didn't have it...turning it off actually helped me. I turned it on more recently to get used to defaults and have slowly gotten better with it.

I like the stages...but I don't really like DOJ to begin with.

Difficulty wise yeah it's brutal, but the novice mode is good.

[jepjepjep]

I think having a good setup goes a long way, but there's definitely some lag in the game. I noticed when I play DeltaZeal back to back, SDOJ is slower to respond to inputs.

I find the game to be much harder than DOJ, the first loop anyway. It's still a lot of fun though.

[Udderdude]

Praying that the patch fixes some of the lag ..

Unless that lag is also on the PCB, in which case, fuck.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I haven't ever felt noticeable lag on any Cave board I don't think. None come to mind.

[chempop]

Managed to no death the first 3 stages, but I didn't get the stage4 midboss extend and was also just shy of the second extend. Only on one run I managed some insane stage 3 chain which boosted my score enough to get BOTH extends on the midboss, wish I could repeat that again.

[edit] Okay, got both extends in stage3 again, AND stage4 midboss 1UP
made it to the first midboss in stage 5 This game is too good.