GREAT, JUST LIKE A KING
Hamster's gonna bring a shmup like no other.
After the surprising debut of Athena's Strike Gunner S.T.G in the Arcade Archives, Hamster brings another title of the now-defunct company to the catalog.
This time is the "Athena-Warashi" transitional point: Daioh, or like the game yells it, DAI-OOOOOOOOOH!!!
Pay attention!
The game shifts from classic shmup to speed shmup faster than you can imagine.
If you are gonna think Daioh is "another Raiden clone", this game will prove you wrong. At first it might look like the basic shmup if we compare it with Strike Gunner's weapon variety that made it very strategic, tactical and fun. But even without it, Daioh is here to prove that what is necessary is skill, not weapons, and it will definitely see if you have what it takes to face its challenge.
To begin with, the weaponry of your ship is reduced to three alternatives: Vulcan (Red Crystal) which is your initial, basic and mid-damaging wide spread fire which is backed up with large twin bullets for greater damage. You can increase the damage by getting close to a boss and tap the firing button like crazy. Next one is the Homing Laser (Blue Gem), and here is where things go different from Raiden or any of its clones. While in those games, the Laser is the power type weapon, in Daioh is the weak, yet enemy chasing lighting bolt that locks on targets. Being a weak weapon also means it racks a little more points in your score compared with the other weapons, but still it is a routine-breaker if its compared with other Laser weapons. Finally, there's the Missile (Yellow Crystal). This is the "Power" type weapon which fires missiles in a frontal trajectory causing great damages but with a somewhat slow firing rate. But when the Missiles are at full power, they will unleash homing missiles adding an extra to the weapon's firepower.
While Raiden and other clones like Thunder Dragon had a standard bomb, Daioh reutilizes the concept of Final Star Force: Each weapon has its own bomb. In Daioh, the Vulcan Bomb unleashes a spiraling circle of fireballs that expands to a radius covering 3/4 of the screen. The Laser Bomb fires a fast volley of murder beams in a frontal but short wide range and the Missile Bomb which is an instant nuclear-like explosion with a small radius, but heavy damaging. Its fast burn time and instant explosion allows you to spam it very quickly. Speed is the major player in this game, because the difficulty will be based more on bullet speed rather than spamming curtains and strategic enemy placement. The first three stages are what can be considered a warm-up and a preview of what you're about to face for the rest of the game, and you've better start to learn and develop speed fast because even with the speed ups at maximum, if you're slow-reacting your gameplay will end in seconds. Also, losing a life comes with a harsh price to pay: Being pushed back to a checkpoint and recovery is gonna be a top priority forcing you to burn a bomb or two in order to stay alive at power level 2. You can "override" the startback by playing in two player mode and be able to respawn right where you are. Summing up the difficulty-challenge factor, the game lacks of a missile sub-weapon, making the game more tactical just like Thunder Dragon where you had to choose which weapon was the most effective for you. Fortunately, you only need three power ups to max out your ship, and that's really helpful since we're talking "Gotta go fast" in shmup form. Along with the traditional items, there's the "Special Power Up" which is a shield item also provides items to fully power up your ship. The only flaw is that the shield is gone with one single hit, making it more of a failsafe than a defense against the blazing fast onslaught. Once the shield is gone, you're on your wits and bomb blastings in order to survive.
If you clear the game, you'll have to play a second loop in order to fully complete the game, pretty much like the first two R-Type arcade games, and if you thought the first loop was way too fast, the "Special Game" will increase the speed even more at the point of making level 1 a bullet speed-hell where a fraction of a second is what separates you from death.
Vulgar Display of Power (Ups)
In terms of power ups, the game is average enough with the item dropping. But, there's a lone section in the game where you can get items galore, and that's during the first stage boss, if you don't destroy him too soon and instead you decide to dodge his firing, you'll be on a runway segment floored with Power ups, Weapons Bombs and Speed Ups. Having spare bombs is the key for larger score bonus, and this game is extremely generous with that. While games like Aero Fighters and Raiden limit your bomb stock to 5 or 7, Daioh's limit is of a staggering 20 bombs, but that would require you to either cheat on MAME or be one hell of a pro in this game for the reasons mentioned before.
Daioh had two versions: The Japanese version where the game acts like a Raiden clone with the power up mechanics and weapon switching through crystals, and the International version released by American Sammy. While the game is virtually the same in both releases, there's one major thing that makes the Sammy version different and that's the button layout. Back then the arcade operators reutilized their 6 button cabinets when the fighting game they've bought simply gave up the ghost. I guess someone at Sammy/American Sammy noticed this detail and decided to modify the gameplay of Daioh in order to exploit the 6-button cabinets destined to the Street Fighter II / Art Of Fighting / Fatal Fury craze and adapt them on a shmup. Rather than choosing a weapon by a power up, each button was a weapon and its respective bomb: Vulcan, Laser, Missile, Vulcan Bomb, Laser Bomb and Missile Bomb, and the unexpected idea worked incredibly well in this game, since this is not a simple Raiden-clone and you'll definitely need to make a quick weapon switch since that might be the difference between life and death.
On the wake of its 30th anniversary, Daioh gets a well deserved home port.
While Strike Gunner S.T.G got a SNES release, Daioh didn't had the same luck, being destined to be forgotten for all the consoles that came and went. Honestly, this could be THE definitive SNES port that would put Strike Gunner to shame as the Super Nintendo was on the year of flexing its Arcade-accuracy muscles. Daioh remained forgotten until November 2nd of this 2023 when Hamster decided to release the game on the PlayStation 4/5 and Nintendo Switch as part of Arcade Archives. 30 Years had to pass until Daioh arrived to both home and portable consoles. Unlike their release of Strike Gunner S.T.G which was the Japanese ROM only, the Arcade Archives version of Daioh has both Japanese and International versions giving us what we can call "The Basic" and the "Complete" variations of the game. I like to call them like that due to the simplicity of the Japanese button schematic and the International which exploited the fighting-destined 6-button cabinets. Hi-Score and Caravan modes are present too, and with enough luck you will finish the first two levels within 5 minutes. Like all the PlayStation 4 Arcade Archives release, the score based trophies are focused on the Original mode, leaving the Caravan unexploited (compare that with an XBOX ACA Neogeo release which exploited said mode).
You've thought the mid-boss was incredibly animated?
Wait until you see the rest of the game!
Graphically, it is waaaaaay beyond from what we saw on Strike Gunner S.T.G as the scenery is overdetailed in both natural and artificial structures, for instance the multi-scrolled backgrounds and the solid animations of the enemies are the most impressive and way beyond from what we've saw on Strike Gunner. For instance, the tanks have turrets with solid, smooth pixel rotation and the amazing animations used on the mechanical arms of the 5th mid-boss which definitely rivals Namco's System II. The player's ship and carriers still retain a Strike Gunner-esque look, mostly on the carrier design and the ship's colors, but other than that it ditches the predominant military theme of its predecessor and blends science-fiction with some fantasy-ancient culture settings. This is notorious in Stage 2 where we fight egyptian sculptures and heads on mechanical pistons. I could just go on and on talking about the graphic aspects of Daioh, but I think you should check that out by yourself.
The music is also a great improvement as it sounds more like a shmup soundtrack with upbeat music that lasts as long as the stage itself rather than a 20 second guitar riff like Strike Gunner S.T.G did. Not only that, it has a boss theme. While Strike Gunner had the level theme playing even during the boss battle, Daioh throws us a fast, aggressive song that suits the speed-based battle. The overall sound clarity was also improved from Strike Gunner's muffled music. Now we have a crystal clear soundtrack in between MIDI and Redbook just like Konami's TMNT games did. Some tracks, including the intro had a slight Konami feel, but the most remembered thing is the voice sample yelling "DAI-OOOOOOOOOH!!!" giving the impression that this game is gonna blow you away.
TRIVIOH (*"TRIVI-OOOOOOOOH!!!" yell is heard*)
Emergency, Emergency...
The target is approaching. Are you ready?
- Daioh (大王) means "Great King".
- The word "Daioh" is pronounced "Die-Oh".
- The logo is quite reminiscent of Raiden as the title is a metal font with large red brush-written kanji behind.
- The Arcade Archives release is the first overall home port of the game.
- Second Athena game in the Arcade Archives.
- The game throws a small contradiction: In the introduction, we see Daioh taking off from a base tunnel, while in the game, it takes off from an aerial carrier.
- Like BioMetal and its semi-sequel BioMetal Gust, Daioh had semi-sequels in may other Athena games as "Sample Games" in the Dezaemon series: Daioh Gale in Kaite Tsukutte Asoberu: Dezaemon, Daioh Gale ver.2 in Dezaemon Plus and Daioh-P! in Dezaemon 2.
- Another similarity with BioMetal Gust was the use of wind references for its name. In Daioh's case was "Gale".
- Daioh's producer Noriyuki Takasaki left Athena with other staff members and formed Warashi Inc. Multimedia Lab.
- The similarities between Shienryu and Daioh are no coincidence since Warashi's staff remade Daioh as their very first title.
- Along with J.J. Squawkers, Daioh was one of the final arcades game developed and released by Athena.
- As an Athena-made arcade shmup, it was the last one, probably due to the staff splitting and forming Warashi.
- At Warashi, Noriyuki Takasaki was the Executive Producer of the Shienryu series and the Arcade, Dreamcast and XBOX Live Arcade versions of Triggerheart Exelica, being Triggerheart Exelica Enhanced the lone exception since Shigenobu Urano was the EP back then.
- On Sengeki Striker, Takasaki appeared in the "Special Thanks" part of the credits since "Sho" was the director.
- Another Athena worker who kept his position at Warashi was the programmer Tsutomu Tabata, who returned on Shienryu as Director and Programmer, and he was the Lead Programmer on Warashi-Kaneko's Sengeki Striker.
- The first boss fight of the game takes place on a long runway. This was repurposed with the bosses Hell Moa (Shienryu) and Ver'mith Aragabis (Triggerheart Exelica).
- Both Hell Moa and Ver'mith Aragabis were also first stage bosses, fulfilling the nod to Daioh's first boss.
- Just like Warashi was founded by Ex-Athena staff members, Cosmo Machia was formed by Ex-Warashi staff.
Be a "Great King" rather than a King or an Expert.
Honoring the meaning of its name, Daioh is a fast, intense and experts-only shmup that will prove if you are a "Great King" of shooting, a Knight who can survive up to the first 4 stages or a mere Jester who gets pummeled on the first level. That "Legacy" within the name was undisputed as the Dezaemon bundled sequels were unable to surpass it, making the original Daioh the "Opus Magna" of Athena.
Unknown to him, destiny was already decided.
Hamster once again brings an unexpected surprise with the release of another Athena shmup which is a nice piece not just of Athena, but also the very first page of Warashi's history. With Athena and Warashi acquired by Hamster it is more than clear that we will be getting Shienryu and Triggerheart Exelica sooner or later, as long as they don't threw more Namco stuff on the Arcade Archives. I didn't mentioned Sengeki Striker 'cos that would need Kaneko's permission and obviously Hamster to pick up "The House of Air Buster" to release it.
The Eda Scale is suprised with a great game!