DoDonPachi Resurrection - Steam Edition

[davyK]

The vertical configuration doesn't help modern shmups either. Power up DDP:Res or Futari on a 360 with default settings and the game resides within a tiny window. Some might bother with zoom settings to help things along, but TATE-ing just isn't going to happen with Joe Player.

A hori-shmup with AAA sights and sounds and a save point mechanic would attract the mainstream. They could then be reeled into "proper" shmupping via supporting score attack and survival modes.

[emphatic]

Hey, great to see you again.

+1.

Cool.

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah there's not much reason to be vert when you're not developing for the arcade IMO.

[Xyga]

So basically, we need 16-bit shmups with modern gameplay depht. :p :p :p

[Squire Grooktook]

Honestly.

I think that's correct.

I like danmaku, even though I'm a bit burnt out on it. But the fast dodging, cover-shooting, and characterful play mechanics of old shooters have always been first in my heart.

[Shepardus]

tbh we just need a new Parodius

Doesn't even need to be updated to have "modern gameplay depth"

I still dont understand why they didnt have an option to turn autobomb off in 1.5...

Because whether you die or autobomb, you still break your chain and lose your Get Point bonus. Turning it off would have no further impact on scoring (except for cutting your survival time down) but leaving it in makes it friendly for beginners and gives you a longer credit for your money.

The fact that you cannot understand that neatly encapsulates the problem on this forum.

Friendly to beginners maybe, but it does so by removing the feedback from players' actions/mistakes. It doesn't make the systems any friendlier (as you said yourself, it has no impact on scoring and using an autobomb has similar scoring penalty to dying), it just gives players less reason to care about them and get invested in them. I elaborated more in my previous post, in case you missed that.

[soprano1]

tbh we just need a new Parodius

Doesn't even need to be updated to have "modern gameplay depth"

That's an impossibility, Konami nowadays cares only for Metal Gear and PES, and they even manage to fuck those up.

[clippa]

I'm also not convinced that shooters , being the exacting type of game they are, are best served by something like a PC that is far too variable re available resources (CPU, RAM etc)

Games journalism, there.

[Cagar]

-

[Squire Grooktook]

Yes.

This is our messiah.

We must only await and pray for its completion.

[Shepardus]

how is this any more complicated than all those league of legends/dota build guides that are 20 pages long and 13 year olds can follow them?

This is actually an interesting point of discussion and one that's important enough for its own thread. Contrary to what people often say while bemoaning the plight of modern gaming, today's most popular games are more complex than they've ever been, and they're also more popular than they've ever been. In a nutshell, where I think these games succeed while shmups like DFK struggle is in the "new player experience" - not just how much there is to learn, but how one goes about doing so and the ways they're lead to learn. Games like Dota and League compartmentalize their learning curve - after a basic tutorial teaching the "must know" controls and mechanics, they package up their learning into different heroes/champions, giving you little manageable sets of information to learn. In League, in fact, you're kind of forced to start small and learn a piece at a time thanks to its unlock system. Both Dota and League suggest a (relatively) small set of beginner-friendly heroes (League with its free champion rotation, Dota with its limited heroes mode), giving newcomers a clear place to start. In addition, they do a better job of communicating to players when they're doing something wrong and what they need to improve on. Honestly they've still got a long way to go on this, but stuff like the post-death stats screen showing what damage you took show that they at least put thought into this. Meanwhile in DFK, a beginner can easily get up to stage 5 without realizing they're doing anything wrong, because hey, they got all the way to the last level in the game so in a way they aren't doing anything wrong. Games like Dota and League show that punishing the player for screwing up doesn't stop games from becoming popular, in fact it's vital to keep players coming back and trying to achieve more.

Anyway there's a lot more to say about this topic but I'd rather it be in a separate thread because it's not just related to DFK but shmups and games in general.

[Squire Grooktook]

Most of the friends I know who play Dota/League don't or barely have an interest in the deeper elements of the games, and instead just do whatever and then blame the rest of the team when they lose.

Basically a social/party game for them. Which is where the real draw lies IMO. Played casually, the games lend themselves well to goofing off with friends for 30 minutes. You can type and spew memes at them at your leisure since the game is so slow paced at that level.

I'd be willing to bet that that's how the vast majority of "normal" players treat it.

[davyK]

I'm also not convinced that shooters , being the exacting type of game they are, are best served by something like a PC that is far too variable re available resources (CPU, RAM etc)

Games journalism, there.

Believe me, I'm no journalist - at best I am an enthusiastic amateur who posts reviews to forums.

I only say that about PCs because it isn't a closed system like a PCB board or a console - and that means it's going to be difficult to recreate the same experience across a wide range of PCs with differing specs. For those types of game where the experts can feel the difference it matters. I'd argue the same for versus fighters and upper-end Tetris players.

It could in theory be recreated uniformly with emulation - but only if the platform being emulated is well within the capabilities of the host machine - and even then it can feel different as some games may used undocumented hardware tricks and features.

[OmegaFlareX]

Yeah there's not much reason to be vert when you're not developing for the arcade IMO.

No, vertizontals are a thing and should absolutely be explored now that there are enough pixels on screens to put 2½ vert gamefields side-by-side. I want to see what devs can come up with when not limited by old-hat dimensions. Jamestown and Strania were pretty good but I can't think of any others.

tbh we just need a new Parodius

They tried that and failed miserably (Otomedius), they're probably not going to do it again.

[davyK]

So basically, we need 16-bit shmups with modern gameplay depht. :p :p :p

Sort of.......


And as for new Parodius......if Treasure did a modern take on Parodius I'd buy the console.

[Squire Grooktook]

Sorry, I meant I wanted to see more verizontals. I was referring to the old vert display resolution, not actually vertical scrolling lol.

[davyK]

Hadn't thought of verizontals to be honest. Was thinking more about trad hori. The mainstream would be more likely to take to that as it is less abstract than a vertical game.

[Squire Grooktook]

Hmmm, I actually feel the other way around myself. The top down perspective feels less "abstract" to me.

Also better if you wanted to do something cool for player characters like mechs or character shmups or something (see: Cybattler)

[davyK]

Maybe. I always thought that side on games have more scope for backgrounds and landscapes etc.

I prefer vertical games myself (though I like RType, Gradius and Parodius) but just always thought a side-on game could look prettier.

[Tregard]

I'll bite on this. Only played around with a few credits in MAME before and as a filthy casual I quite liked it, excepting the robot loli bosses which are just appalling.

Looking forward to finding out first-hand why everyone hates it!

[Xyga]

whens Axelay 2

[Squire Grooktook]

Maybe. I always thought that side on games have more scope for backgrounds and landscapes etc.

I prefer vertical games myself (though I like RType, Gradius and Parodius) but just always thought a side-on game could look prettier.

Yeah, I had thought of that too.

It might be a bit of a character vs environment trade off. I tend to be very "character based" so I usually choose character.

You can do some wonderful things with top down environments with a good artist though. I can certainly think of some beautiful and atmospheric worlds presented through vertical scrollers (Guwange Stage 3 is probably one of the most atmospheric moments for me in any game).

[BareKnuckleRoo]

vertizontals are a thing and should absolutely be explored now that there are enough pixels on screens to put 2½ vert gamefields side-by-side. I want to see what devs can come up with when not limited by old-hat dimensions. Jamestown and Strania were pretty good but I can't think of any others.

Giga Wing 1 & 2, Mars Matrix, ChoRenSha 68k, the Salamander games (alternating hori and vertizontal levels) were all great. I'd love to see more vertizontals too.

[Shepardus]

Strania too, and Astebreed in parts.

tbh we just need a new Parodius

They tried that and failed miserably (Otomedius), they're probably not going to do it again.

Shh, those games don't exist.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Looking forward to finding out first-hand why everyone hates it!

It usually gets flak for being able to cancel bullets during hyper, but really this feature isn't something that's designed to be abused - hypering repeatedly in stages is bad for score as you want to hyper once or twice early to get a large chain, then chain everything out of hyper with a maxed hyper bar to get the multiplier bonuses. Any time you hyper, you aren't getting the chain multiplier. And there's hyper rank, that basically stops you from being able to cancel bullets if you hyper too much.

DFK Black Label is super silly though, and it's basically all about bullet cancelling for score, it plays very differently.

[TransatlanticFoe]

What's different between Black Label and the base game, and Ketsuipachi and the main game?

God it's annoying no-one DRM free is interested in putting these games out. Steam is unnecessary shite.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Best to look in the strategy section for the mode guides. There's a lot to list, and without going way too in-depth, each game mode feels very, very different from one another due to how the scoring, and hypering mechanics change between them. All of them may use the same art assets and enemies, but DFK 1.5, Arrange A, Arrange B, DFK BL, and BL Arrange are very different games due to how they control, how rank mechanics change, etc.

Black Label Arrange a.k.a. Ketsuipachi is Black Label with a Ketsui spin, using its wide shot heli and Ketsui style scoring mixed, as well as a new TLB. I think a lot of people like BL Arrange more than BL itself, at least in part because scoring isn't about constantly hypering and hiding in a corner to cancel bullets...?

[qmish]

Easy to 1cc, ya say? Hm, now i'm hyped Only tried a bit in mame on laptop so i maybe couldnt see bullets pretty much therefore died.

I like music (original more than arrange though) in DFK, and it looks visually much more appealing for me than SaiDaiOuJou, so it's sad to hear that game is considered unsatisfying.

[OmegaFlareX]

Giga Wing 1 & 2, Mars Matrix, ChoRenSha 68k, the Salamander games (alternating hori and vertizontal levels) were all great. I'd love to see more vertizontals too.

I meant modern examples. That said, Aero Fighters 2 and GW1 were the games that made me a fan of the genre.

Steam is unnecessary shite.

Ugh, I'm probably going to regret sparking this, but why does a small minority of people hate Steam? I don't get it. You use it to buy and play games, it's the software version of a console. You can't play console games without turning on the console, so how is this any different? We have ridiculous parallel-architecture BIPS CPUs and multiple gigs of RAM so computer resources are a non-issue. Do they live in a place without broadband internet? Is this resistance to digital distribution? Help me understand.

[soprano1]

Do they live in a place without broadband internet? Is this resistance to digital distribution? Help me understand.

Combination of the two for some, i think. People like physical, too.