LiveWire ports SaiDaiOuJou to the Switch (all regions)

[beer gas canister]

To turn the conversation back around to the game - how are people trying for the first time feeling about Saya mode? When I first played on 360 I wasn't sure how I felt about the lifebar, but ended up finding that the ways you rebuild it lead to some pretty interesting gameplay. Not to mention spending your lifebar to fire the shotlaser feels pretty fun.

The lifebar is an awesome mechanic, and more home console shmups would benefit from some kind of recovery system that goes beyond the typical extend/1up stuff. Recovering from a low life bar can be very tense!

[CerealPT]

I didn't know there was this much bad feelings towards The Electric Underground on here, I've enjoyed a lot (but not all, sure) of his content... Anyway, yeah this is OT. There's still no word on a european release at all (I asked Clear River Games who released the physical versions of the other shmups here in Europe but they haven't gotten back to me) so I'll wait for any news regarding that before posting in this thread again.

that will take a long long while, Limited run games and superdeluxe in Japan will likely release it first.

[SavagePencil]

The game seems to want to output at a 480p base. With Switch set to 720p output, I have to scale to 1.5x (gross!) in Tate mode. Was it originally 240p?

[Steven]

PCB is 240x320. The HD version is weird... and not actually HD, I think, but who cares about that. I haven't messed with it too much and I don't do tate mode, but it should still be possible to get correct scaling with tate mode at 1080.

Why would you set the thing to 720, though? It's not like that is going to actually give proper scaling on ACA or anything else as far as I'm aware. Edit: checked on Raiden 1 and it definitely doesn't.
Well, I guess if you are using it with a 720 display it makes sense.

Even for something like Sonic Mania, which does actually have an internal 240 vertical resolution, it still won't give perfect scaling because of the game's 424 horizontal resolution and the forced interpolation that the game has. Sonic Origins also doesn't have correct scaling at 720, either, and it's even more apparent because that seems to lack the interpolation that Mania has.

Anyway, I tested it on 360 and tate does give correct scaling if you use an integer scale, but the only integer scale that actually fits on the screen is 100 vertical 100 horizontal. It would have been better for scaling to simply retain the PCB's resolution.

[SavagePencil]

PCB is 240x320. The HD version is weird... and not actually HD, I think, but who cares about that. I haven't messed with it too much and I don't do tate mode, but it should still be possible to get correct scaling with tate mode at 1080.

Why would you set the thing to 720, though? It's not like that is going to actually give proper scaling on ACA or anything else as far as I'm aware. Edit: checked on Raiden 1 and it definitely doesn't.
Well, I guess if you are using it with a 720 display it makes sense.

Yep, my tate monitor is 1440p. Thanks for confirming the original title was 240p. I guess they’re doing pixel doubling on the arcade mode.

[Emerl]

The Xbox 360 version (and Switch by extension) uses redone assets and a 480p base resolution. 2x scale won't fit in a 720p window.

[Ms. Tea]

To turn the conversation back around to the game - how are people trying for the first time feeling about Saya mode? When I first played on 360 I wasn't sure how I felt about the lifebar, but ended up finding that the ways you rebuild it lead to some pretty interesting gameplay. Not to mention spending your lifebar to fire the shotlaser feels pretty fun.

The lifebar is an awesome mechanic, and more home console shmups would benefit from some kind of recovery system that goes beyond the typical extend/1up stuff. Recovering from a low life bar can be very tense!

Glad you agree! Yeah, since that mode's not designed for arcades I'm happy for a life system that's not explicitly designed around arcades. Like you say, I love how tense it can be to try to recover from low life and salvage a run. It's good stuff.

re: the HD mode output, yes, it's 480x640. If you're outputting to an SD monitor and want fullscreen tate, 480p is your best bet. For HD tate outputs, does it support 1080p? A 2x scale in 1080p should also fill more of the screen than a 1x scale in 720p.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

So if you're playing DDP-SDOJ with a Flip Grip or a Pintendo Flip in tate, is it already running at 480 x 640 in handheld mode (or do you have to manually select that particular resolution aside from 720p resolution format)?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Warp_Rattler]

I've had this on X360 for years and never spent much time with it--I didn't read up much on the game mechanics and never realized that choosing Expert Mode meant a huge difficulty spike (I assumed it worked the same way as choosing EXY in DOJ and just liked the added power to both shot and laser). I gave it a few perfunctory tries and figured the entire game was just that difficult, being the final DDP title and all.

I'm really glad to revisit this and actually put some time into learning the game mechanics a little more. Maybe spending so much time with M2's spectacular DOJ port has put me into a mindset that's more receptive to playing DDP games, but I'm finding this to be not quite as crushingly difficult as when I last gave it a go (still hard, though).

I know conversations about chaining have been done to death (and DOJ Rinne Tensei has really helped me learn to work within the system), but I really do appreciate the slightly more relaxed approach to chaining that SDOJ and DFK take, where a death or missed enemy doesn't immediately kill your chain for the whole level.

To turn the conversation back around to the game - how are people trying for the first time feeling about Saya mode? When I first played on 360 I wasn't sure how I felt about the lifebar, but ended up finding that the ways you rebuild it lead to some pretty interesting gameplay. Not to mention spending your lifebar to fire the shotlaser feels pretty fun.

It took me a few tries to figure out how the lifebar worked, but I'm really starting to have fun with this mode. I'm not advanced enough yet where the shot-laser feels like anything other than a liability (the increased power isn't worth the drain on the life gauge), but I do like the ability to claw back a potential death or two through the use of hyper mode. I still get completely wiped by not-Vinogradov in Stage 3.

Does anyone else feel like the hitbox placement on the player ship seems "off" somehow? I find myself dying frequently when my vision is focused on enemies further up the screen and my ship gets hit by bullets that I thought should pass harmlessly to the side. It's probably just my lack of familiarity with the game and I need to recalibrate my mental map of where the ship's hitbox is in my peripheral vision, but I don't seem to have this issue with DOJ or DFK. Age could certainly be a factor, as well as trying to play on a Switch Lite.

[EmperorIng]

Playing on a tiny screen is probably a factor; I find it difficult to play danmaku effectively in handheld mode. What else is probably causing mistakes is that SDOJ hitboxes are larger than the last several cave hitboxes. Only picking Expert makes it smaller (by half, iirc), at the cost of increased difficulty.

Your hitbox also gets smaller when your ship sprite is tilted, iirc.

[beer gas canister]

The big hitbox really fucks me up. There are so many spread patterns that would be permeable in DOJ

[ThundergunExpress]

The hitbox took some getting used to for me, but I'm having more fun now that I'm more used to it.

The arrange mode is so much fun. I love the gameplay between keeping your life bar up, hypers, and using the mega laser or whatever it's called.

[Steven]

The big hitbox really fucks me up. There are so many spread patterns that would be permeable in DOJ

As I said before, Daioujou's hurtboxes are larger than Saidaioujou's.

[defected78]

Hi.

How do I download this onto a UK switch. Do I need to create a US account (fake address) and add a US points card balance?

Thanks

Sam

[DenimDemon]

Hi.

How do I download this onto a UK switch. Do I need to create a US account (fake address) and add a US points card balance?

Thanks

Sam

Exactly.

Bet some of you might blast trough it...but I'm sweating to 1cc this on Novice ( making it halfway trough the last stage).This is a great easy mode. Nothing like the nonsense Super Easy mode of Shottriggers. Even if you can costumize a lot the shotttrigers releases.

[Tim James]

Yeah novice is really hard for me. I'm having a lot of trouble with large hit box. I think it's pointing out how sloppy I am playing novice modes 15 feet away from a big screen TV.

[CerealPT]

game is finally out on European Eshop.

[Marc.bret.87]

game is finally out on European Eshop.

Is it? I looked in the french eShop and couldn't find it

[guigui]

I can access the "buy it" page on the EU eshop by clicking the "nintendo eshop" link on the Deku Deals page :
https://www.dekudeals.com/items/dodonpachi-saidaioujou
Did not buy it yet so can not confirm the link works;

Though I can not access the game page on the EU eshop yet.

[Starfighter]

I can access the "buy it" page on the EU eshop by clicking the "nintendo eshop" link on the Deku Deals page

Thanks for the heads up! I checked (Sweden) and it's now accessable through the EU eshop.

[CerealPT]

what a stupid decision to have such a giant hitbox, completely throws me off, game hard as nails on top of it.
I much prefer ressurection (and DOJ) to this one.

[DenimDemon]

what a stupid decision to have such a giant hitbox, completely throws me off, game hard as nails on top of it.
I much prefer ressurection (and DOJ) to this one.

Game is fantastic give it a honest chance.
I would suggest Novice to get the groove and 360 mode (it's awesome).
Don't forget you change dificult modes on ship select screen, the less clothes the doll have, the harder the game mode.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Try the Arcade HD mode and see how tough it really is -- requires a good arcade stick setup if played in docked mode (the Switch based "Hori Real Arcade Pro V Hayabusa" setup is excellent and recommended -- of course, "your mileage may vary" depending on what "pro competition grade arcade stick" is used on the Switch gaming platform as it is).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[CerealPT]

what a stupid decision to have such a giant hitbox, completely throws me off, game hard as nails on top of it.
I much prefer ressurection (and DOJ) to this one.

Don't forget you change dificult modes on ship select screen, the less clothes the doll have, the harder the game mode.

Thank you for that, considering the price some extra in game translations would had been nice, happy to support these releases anyways.
gotta say the higher res sprites look really good on my switch OLED screen, even better than DDP Ressurection, everything really pops even compared to all the other cave releases.

[Ms. Tea]

Could someone who bought this give me a hand with something? I've been trying to get all the credits for the Live Wire ports catalogued and submitted to Mobygames; I find it interesting seeing who's worked on all these ports. Anyone notice if there's any credits for the new port anywhere, either in-game or in the menus? I saw a copy of the arcade novice credits and it's only got the old credits, but not sure if the new ones are hiding anywhere else or if anything's different in Saya mode.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Could someone who bought this give me a hand with something? I've been trying to get all the credits for the Live Wire ports catalogued and submitted to Mobygames; I find it interesting seeing who's worked on all these ports. Anyone notice if there's any credits for the new port anywhere, either in-game or in the menus? I saw a copy of the arcade novice credits and it's only got the old credits, but not sure if the new ones are hiding anywhere else or if anything's different in Saya mode.

You'll find the longer staff ending credits if you beat the Arcade HD mode (hint: it's easier to gain access to the longer staff ending credits by simply credit-feeding to the very end and save as it as a replay to view at your leisure the next time around). Easy as pie.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Starfighter]

I tried it out last night just to feel if I was okay with the input latency (I was, it's definitely good enough for me) and tried the first mode, "Ver. ??". What is that? It must be some sort of novice/story mode because I soared through it with ease. And then when trying Ver. 1.5 I was all out of lives on stage two. I guess I could watch a few videos talking about this game and learn it that way, but sod it, I'm asking!

[CerealPT]

first two bosses are 100% references to the first two DOJ bosses, both in looks and atack patterns, not sure how i feel about the OST but game slowly growing on me.

[DenimDemon]

About ost

https://youtu.be/W-zhoqQD0CQ?si=RKmHOO193m6gWb9V

This track and stage 3 combo feels great.
Getting cornered by the battleship ( Ketsui stage 3 mirror mode lol ), turrets and incoming popcorn...epic stuff.

Been playing daily since release...
Novice mode as actually improved my game on vanilla Arcade...on Novice the first two stages are way too easy but things start to get hectic from stage 3 onward with the last stage keeping you on your toes from start to finish. There's the harder dolls within Novice that I haven't really tried yet.
And then there's the real fun 360 mode...
Talking about 360, will setup mine this weekend and take this for a spin.
Really feeling the lack of online leaderboard on this new release

[banjoted]

Regarding Mark @ Electric Underground, I appreciate his passion for the genre and his clear investment in shmup history and mechanics knowledge sharing.

What does frustrate me, though, is his unwillingness to move on from what are some really quite ridiculous views about the role of the media. He remains hugely frustrated that IGN or whoever don't pore over input lag data in their shmup reviews, oblivious to the fact that 99.99% of their audience could not give fewer fucks about such things. That's what specialist shmup media - like his channel, for instance - is here for.

He doesn't even acknowledge the good work that's done to keep the genre relevant in the press. We have people like our very own OTA_spadgy providing fantastic reviews of new shmup releases on sites such as Eurogamer, several sites recognise the cultural value of shmups enough to spare indie shmup titles digital column space, and I can tell you for a fact that big shmup enthusiasts are alive and well in the mainstream games media. The EIC of one of the big Nintendo sites, for instance, is a huge shmupper (as can clearly be seen by their enthusiastic and normally knowledgeable coverage of the genre), yet Mark has a bee in his bonnet about them in particular because they stopped offering him review gigs when he was unwilling/unable to adapt his writing to the site's audience.

In fact, the whole thing rubs me up thee wrong way to such a degree that I've even spoke with Mark directly about it. But his mind's made up.

Incidentally, I'm not arguing that input lag is never an issue, but I do find the idea that the moment you move from 4 to 5 frames of lag a game is instantly rendered unplayable. I also find the fixation on the topic to be quite tiring. In my opinion, input lag need only ever be mentioned in the rare instances when it is excessive enough to be a problem. In all other instances, there loads and loads of much, much cooler and more interesting stuff we could be talking about.