Anyone else feeling the Saidaioujou meh?

[Skykid]

I had to do it, for tradition.

In all honesty, I quite enjoyed playing it today. Question is, is it really the ultimate send off or even the ultimate Pachi?

I'm definitely undecided about that.

Keep in mind, we're focussing strictly on arcade original here, and not the other modes (which improve the formula somewhat.)

Even compared to past Cave games it seems a little lacking in… something… that I can't quite put my finger on. The game's presentation is marred by the plastic look of everything on screen, the amount of effects dripping off objects everywhere overwhelms the eye (and makes it really hard to approximate my ships position).

Visually it's completely soulless and bland. That was the first aspect that I really had a 'meh' over. There's very little character about the game, less so even than DFK, which had similar criticisms levied.

Personally I see DFK and SDOJ as clear proof of Ikeda's burn out. There was a time when he could burp out games as intricate, beautiful and timeless as Espgaluda II, but these days there seems to be some struggle to create something new that has the same overall refinement. There are a lot of strange decisions both mechanical and aesthetic that don't seem entirely comfortable. On top of that, overflow bugs and superior console modes (as with Akai Katana) don't help much in the confidence dept.

SDOJ is nice, but seems a tad unsure of itself - not something one usually feels about a Cave title. Hypers take forages to build and the process is a little repetitive and uninvolving, and then if you go for triggering the overflow bug the entire scoring system is for absolutely nothing anyway. And the bullets are very oddly generated and unreliable, and the difficulty unhelpfully absurd at points.

Cagar said not too long ago that from his observations this was the best Cave game hands down. I'm not seeing that yet. In the past I can confidently say I've had day one experiences with Cave games that outclassed this one, but I'd definitely like to hear what he has to say.

[trap15]

Akai Katana and Saiaioujou isn't nearly as good of a send-off as P47 Aces and Desert War, that's for sure.

[AntiFritz]

This is going to be good


While I know neither I nor many people here will ever pull off the overflow bug I still think it sours the overall game. Knowing that your highscore was not even 1/100th of what someone managed to get in 3 seconds due to dumb glitch puts a sour taste in your mouth.

I also agree that the backgrounds and graphics seem really samey from what I've seen. I mean at least in daifukkatsu you could call stage 3 "the purple one" or stage 5 "the one with the rotating lasers". In sdoj they're all just blue with nothing setting the backgrounds apart.

[SuperSoaker360]

SDOJ has too much blue. Everywhere.
So much it hurts.

[Special World]

tbh I feel like v1.5 is the ultimate send-off for Dodonpachi. Yeah, it's not the arcade release, but it's in the final release of the game. Fixes the game-breaking bug, and the scoring of Saidaioujou really does address problems some people have with scoring in DOJ, notably that it's a little too restrictive. It also adds Cave's visual scoring into the mix better. Yeah, the stages are too similar but I think the visuals are otherwise stellar. Also, I love the music in this game.

It's maybe not quite as good as DOJ, but it's otherwise fantastic imo. But why is it so hard @_@

[Weak Boson]

I don't dislike the graphics. They're not the best but I think they look pretty good.

I mean, at the start of stage 2 you fly over the Dodonpachi community centre. Presumably Longhena never visited there. But just think how different things could have been.

Anyway at this point any DFK meh I felt has fully dissipated. It took a while to get to grips with how that game worked but I think I've finally come to appreciate it for what it is rather than what I thought it would be. And so I'm going to wait a bit before I start making conclusions about SDOJ.

So far at least, no meh, I like the game. It's incredibly intense, the bosses are amazing (and they look great too) and we're finally rid of absolute all of nothing chaining. As far as I can tell with my limited experience, it looks like the most serious criticisms leveled at arcade mode are things fixed in 1.5. This does kind of make the arcade game look inferior, but it doesn't mean it's bad. The bug thing doesn't bother me either. Seems you can tell when it was used and when it wasn't just by counting the number of digits.

[Skykid]

the bosses are amazing (and they look great too)

Honestly, I gotta chime in and disagree with this. They look fucking ugly. DFK's Ura bosses are pure graphical sex compared to SDOJ's. They look like they've been assembled out of Kinder egg plastic.

It generally feels like they sorta ran out of time/resources in the art dept. DFK has some incredible background graphics, a lot actually happens in those stages, from Ura bosses jumping through rifts in space time to the general movement through different territories. The only remarkable thing I noticed today was the boss where it looks like there are doors opening up behind it, and it's a really fake looking effect.

But why is it so hard @_@

It is a pretty tough cookie!

I've got no prob with difficulty, even if it means I'll never claim the clear - I prefer it hard (ooh matron!). But I don't like the weirdness of the bullet trajectories. I notice they do very odd things which alter slightly from one run to the next, and your hitbox seems a micron too thick sometimes. Otherwise, the patterns are better than DFK, because... well SDOJ actually has patterns.

I will say though, stage 3 midboss is a weenie bit excessive for the game's halfway point.

[Deca]

I don't think anything is going to top DOJBL and at no point expected SDOJ to. However, I think that SDOJ is a perfectly fine game. My only issues with the visuals are that this is the first DDP in which I've had trouble seeing bullets. I think it's mostly the st1 background screwing with my colorblindness because it seems worse in that stage than elsewhere, the pink bullets have a habit of disappearing on me.

I kind of like the stage backgrounds actually, I feel like they're an interesting change of pace from other DDPs with stuff like the forests in 2 (which I guess we sort of got in DFK st4) and the water park theme in 3. I dig the music, not sure why some people dislike it as much as they do. I wouldn't call it my favorite soundtrack by any means, but the big arranged DDP medley thing for st4 is really cool.

I see a lot of people commenting on the hitbox being a bit larger, I don't think that's the case. I feel more like it's actually a lot of the bullets that have larger hitboxes than I've come to expect than past games. I could be wrong, however.

This game is definitely aggressive, but I feel I should at least be able to get a normal clear out of it. It's already improved my dodging skills a bit going back to DOJBL, so I'm going to say it does a pretty solid job as a skill builder.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

Ikeda is not burned out. I don't know why you keep mentioning DFK when there was an interview that said he pretty much didn't program it at all because of having to attend to other duties. It did feel lacking his touch probably because he didn't touch it. His changes in Katana Limited could have made the original more of a success if they would have included them but they went for the full double farm milk instead. But he still has it. SDOJ either needed more time in the oven or less, whichever would have ended up with it being less difficult to clear. It certainly looked a lot different through the location tests and pushes me to believe the feedback was superplayers keeping saying "make it harder". DOJ is not perfect in these categories either as you try to paint it. The chaining sucks balls, it's not fun at all to play a shooting game in such a strict manner and people have complained more about its graphics than any other Cave game just about, with its pea soup puddles and whatnot.

[SuperPang]

LOL, play it for more than two hours in a shop Skykid, it's crack.

[Skykid]

LOL, play it for more than two hours in a shop Skykid, it's crack.

Ha ha! I will, tomorrow I'm going to try to get three hours! Actually the girl there is really nice. I showed her the game and she was like "ah I know this one!" She opens the Xbox and what game comes out? Mushi HD. I knew I'd found the hangout I was looking for.

She just watched but I kept trying to get her to play. She was just a bit embarrassed (cos she was really crap, to be fair.) But it was a fun afternoon.

Don't belittle my playtime cos I was in a store though, it's a tiny place with one huge Sony Bravia, and I was parked right in front of it.

As for SDOJ, first impressions mang, I ain't dogging it. My only main issue is the aesthetic really, the A/V doesn't really do much for me.

[SuperPang]

I wasn't blown away at first but nailing the bullet cancelling on stage 3 was a turning point.

To be fair, it's not perfect. It looks like an explosion in a Stabilo Boss factory (and sounds about as interesting) and mere mortal players like me will hit a fairly low score ceiling.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Skykid, have you had the rare opportunity to play the original SH-3 powered PCB version of SDOJ? It's quite a gorgeous STG to behold if seeing/playing it in action for the first time. Of course, it's all presented in it's 15kHz low-res glory and then some. Sure, with the SH-3 PCB of DFK version 1.5, it has it's bone-jarring frame drops and instant frame speed ups with no noticeable flow from sudden slow down to gradually ease into the normal 60fps framerate spec -- it's akin to trying to wring out 110% from an aging arcade platform that is the Cave SH-3 hardware.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[trap15]

I honestly wish I had never played SDOJ on a PCB. The sound on it is so abhorrent that it left me with an immediate sour taste for the game, and the scoring bug makes it even less attractive.

[system11]

The looks are definitely bland, been saying that ever since the arcade location videos started seeping out. It's also too hard, making games for superplayers is counterproductive because it just puts others off. It's like they put all the work into the static doll art here and there, then went to My First Tile Factory for the backgrounds.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I honestly wish I had never played SDOJ on a PCB. The sound on it is so abhorrent that it left me with an immediate sour taste for the game, and the scoring bug makes it even less attractive.

I think brentsg might actually be right about the best way to handle it being have it output to the shittiest quality speaker you can find. It's like a low res movie rip looking better on an old crt tv than it does blown up on HD. "Unfortunately" for me my supergun outputs to a speaker of incredible quality. Picks up every bit of every flaw.

system11 needs to team up with Dr Trou for some shump commentary. I see potential. A STG Weekly where you just talk about what went wrong with x game(s).

[brentsg]

I feel like all the graphical complaints I've heard are more related to missing scanlines than anything.

[Giest118]

Haven't really played much of Arcade mode to be honest; I've played 1.5 mode way more. Still, they're almost the same game, barring some gameplay tweaks, so...

I like SDOJ a lot. At first I was a bit weirded out by bullet trajectories and whatnot, but having played the game for a little bit every day for a week now, I've gotten used to any weirdness of that sort. I'll even go as far as to say that stages 4 and 5 aren't actually the impossible motherfuckery that a lot of people say they are. They appear that way at first, but I'm already getting used to those stages with like... maybe two hours total in practice mode?

And what is this about the stage 3 midboss being retarded hard? Have you guys played Ketsui? That game's stage 3 midboss is at least as difficult.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I've heard people say it both ways but personally I got used to the stage 3 midboss in Ketsui a lot quicker, maybe partially because that game puts me in the zone like no other while SDOJ is overload. In SDOJ I quickly got into the habit of using hyper/bomb during the fight. In Ketsui I never do. Of course you don't have much choice if you want the 1UP. But it's much shorter and easier in Ketsui loop 1, to me.

[Giest118]

The no-bomb requirement in Ketsui is probably a big factor, yeah. And to be fair, the much greater presence of hypers in 1.5 is probably skewing my difficulty judgment a bit.

[jepjepjep]

I wish Cave put out version 1.5 on a PCB, then we could all forget about the scoring bug. Because 1.5 isn't the real arcade mode, I find myself just playing Arcade HD mode even though 1.5 is probably better.

The visuals are okay with me. I think they have a certain charm.

I find the difficulty offputting because the bullets are nearly all of the needle type (that don't have a hitbox like the round bullets in most DDP games), plus they move erratically. The big hitbox of the ship is fine, it just requires more precise dodging, but I feel like I've experienced more "cheap deaths" in this game than any other. A lot of the patterns seem erratic and hard to judge the trajectory of the bullets.

[Deca]

What's all this nonsense about bullet trajectories? Are you guys just not used to getting far enough in games to see stuff you need to stream/misdirect/dodge? SDOJ doesn't do anything particularly weird, it just sort of starts on what might normally be a short stage 2 and goes from there.

Ketsui has much stranger/less conventional patterns with odd trajectories than SDOJ.

[jepjepjep]

It's the way the bullets wobble. I can't tell if they're going to curve left or right. Ketsui's patterns have more curve to them, but they're easier to judge.

[Giest118]

What's all this nonsense about bullet trajectories? Are you guys just not used to getting far enough in games to see stuff you need to stream/misdirect/dodge? SDOJ doesn't do anything particularly weird, it just sort of starts on what might normally be a short stage 2 and goes from there.

Ketsui has much stranger/less conventional patterns with odd trajectories than SDOJ.

Not even sure I can describe what I'm experiencing; for some reason it's just easier to misread bullet trajectories in this game.


I'll tell you one thing that's always pissed me off though: Enemies who shoot aimed shots, but they can only aim in a certain number of directions, so they round to the nearest ~8 degrees or so. I fucking hate this every time I see it, and every god damn Pachi does it.

[chempop]

Skykid, you are such an attention whore, need your own SDOJ thread lol. And people flock, I guess if you can't beat em

First of all, cave has been making cut-paste repeating backgrounds for a while now. What is shocking to me is how SDOJ's stage 1 is really an incredible background, while stages 2, 3, 4, and even 5 do not compare.

As for the bosses, I think they are fantastic and fit the style of the game perfectly. The bosses in DOJ, now those there ugly... but they too even fit with the gritty and darker style of that game so I didn't mind. Comparing stuff to ESGP2 is pointless because that game is on an entirely different level of art and design.

Does it really take that long to get hypers in arcade mode? I get 5 on the first level, that more than I got in DOJ.. then again I couldn't chain DOJ for crap.

Maybe I'm a sucker and I'd be foaming at the mouth regardless of what cave tosses at me, it's highly possible. I do understand the early complaints about how SDOJ is a visual clusterfuck, but I have adjusted to it now and am fine with it. Complaining that it's a very "blue" game is kinda silly, that's like saying Ibara is a very "gray" game, or Galuda is a very "tan", mushi is a very "purple" game, etc

[Obscura]

I'll tell you one thing that's always pissed me off though: Enemies who shoot aimed shots, but they can only aim in a certain number of directions, so they round to the nearest ~8 degrees or so. I fucking hate this every time I see it, and every god damn Pachi does it.

That's actually one of the reasons the Pachis are better than a lot of other Cave games.

It's much more fun than, say, the Mushis, where you don't even look at the screen when streaming.

[KAI]

I would like to play this game so I can join the bitchening.

[Cagar]

The graphics are only messy in stage 1.

Music is great.

Patterns are great, no lasers or other stupid DFK-shit.
(some unforgiving stuff at stage 4 boss though)

One thing that keeps me from playing is the ridiculous input lag.
Haven't played much because of this, so I can't say if the game is what I excepted.
(Cleared with all shot-types already though, just for fun/practice)

1.5 is superior mode.

EDIT: If they don't do something to this lag in the upcoming patch, then i'm fucking pissed

[Kollision]

Complaining that it's a very "blue" game is kinda silly, that's like saying Ibara is a very "gray" game, or Galuda is a very "tan", mushi is a very "purple" game, etc

well, DFK always struck me as "green" game

reason enough for me to outright like it
shmups definitely need more green

[Zerst]

How about we all play DDP2 instead.