Why the Change For CAVE After DonPachi?

[jugemscloud]

i dont think you can really generaize it to asian = lolis western= mecha+expolsions. when you look at more mainstream art in terms of both quality comics/manga/animation and fantasy art, aesthetically the worlds of the likes otomo and masamune clearly have had much more influence on sci-fi than anything any western artist/studio or publisher has produced over the last 20-40 years the only thing on a similar level to me would be 2000ad during the black and white newsprint days, and early ridley scott and james cameron stuff, in terms of both quality of concept and artistic execution.

i think you need to look at it a bit more broadly in terms of the style of the times - 80s - big brash, 90 - more refined, introspective, 2000s - all about the money - you make what sells particularly when working in a dying genre. its just a reaction to the times/tastes.

[lrdr]

DonPachi is only 'western' in the sense that the contemporary Japanese aesthetic is basically fetishistic lolis and impractical tits all over the place, and obviously DonPachi isn't like that.

DonPachi is from 1995. I wouldn't compare it to modern contemporary Japanese aesthetic, as the big push to lolify everything really didn't come till after that. (See any of the anime threads in the off topic area for comparisons of 90s anime to 2000s anime)

Yeah that was my point. It was still in line with most Japanese stuff coming out around that time, so the aesthetic is only 'western' compared to what's coming out now.

[EmperorIng]

Cave was a brand new company and they were told (presumably by Atlus) to make a Toaplan-style game first so that they would be seen as the successor to Toaplan, hence Donpachi was born. It has noticeably slower pace and longer levels than other Cave games.

And keeping true with the Toaplan vision, the final stage of DonPachi was frustratingly long!

It's really interesting to see how the series progressed from DP, DDP, and DOJ. DP is still somewhat a "traditional" shooter in the sense and it does feel very Toaplan (at least it feels a lot like Batsugun). At this moment in my shooting-game fandom, it's still a toss-up between DP and DDP over which I like more. >.>

[jepjepjep]

Interesting enough, DOJ was made with the goal of producing twice as many bullets as DDP.

And with that in mind they made the game have extremely low bullet cap?

I'll see if I can find the interview I was thinking of. I hope I wasn't misremembering.

Edit: Turns out it comes from the description on the world-of-arcades site, not an interview: "Apparently Dodonpachi (1998) was born out of an ambition to create a game with twice as many bullets on screen as Batsugun. And with Dodonpachi Dai-Ou-Jou, CAVE wanted twice as many bullets as Dodonpachi!" http://www.world-of-arcades.net/Cave/Dd ... iOuJou.htm

Cave was a brand new company and they were told (presumably by Atlus) to make a Toaplan-style game first so that they would be seen as the successor to Toaplan, hence Donpachi was born. It has noticeably slower pace and longer levels than other Cave games.

And keeping true with the Toaplan vision, the final stage of DonPachi was frustratingly long!

It's really interesting to see how the series progressed from DP, DDP, and DOJ. DP is still somewhat a "traditional" shooter in the sense and it does feel very Toaplan (at least it feels a lot like Batsugun). At this moment in my shooting-game fandom, it's still a toss-up between DP and DDP over which I like more. >.>

There's a great interview on gamengai that talks about this progression from Ikeda's point of view: http://www.gamengai.com/cmnt_inf.php?id ... ranslation . I'm not sure which style I like better either. They're both great, they just play differently.

-Before we start talking about Dodonpachi, I'd like to ask about your previous game, Donpachi.

IKD: Donpachi was the first thing I worked on once I started at Cave. For the first one, I was thinking about making a shooter with the areas of expertise fostered at Toaplan. As such, it seems to have a very simple system at it's base, but is still deep and exhilirating.

Atlus Publicist: From Atlus' side, rather than having them make games of completely different genres, we wanted them to make shooters like those those crazy Toaplan ones. Sticking to that, we wanted something that would make people think that "Atlus is picking up where Toaplan left off!"

-And now two years have passed and Dodonpachi has been released. As a sequel, are there any newly established concepts?

IKD: Yes. For Donpachi, even though we wanted to make a product that was noticeabley "Toaplanish", that "Toaplanishness" had something that even now hasn't fully "digested" in me. Therefore, for Dodonpachi, while we carried over the system, the feel this time was made by ignoring it's prequel and putting in only elements we found most interesting.

-I think most Toaplan shooters have two types of firing in them. The fast kind of bullets that you would counter against, and the rather slow moving but plentiful bullets you would pass through. For the games that IKD-san has been involved with, I'd say there seems to be more of the latter.

IKD: I am personally no good against fast bullets. When I was a player, I was playing a bit of Tatsujin and Kyuukyoku Tiger, but moreso I found an appeal in Salamander. Even now I won't forget the shock of making it to the 2nd and 3rd loops (laughs). Dodging your way through a screen filled with bullets... I like that "tasting the bullet-dodging" feeling (laughs).

-I fully understand that. Dodonpachi also requires one to dodge his way through swarms of bullets.

IKD: I think the invigorating feeling of dodging the more abundant, but slower bullets is different, and even visually I think has more of an impact and can really show off a players abilities.

[EmperorIng]

Very interesting; especially the idea of going the Darius Gaiden route. Though the thing I wish they kept over from DonPachi was the Wing Leader guy!