Dodonpachi Saidaioujou [Cave 2012, ARCADE]

Started by joeks, December 21, 2011, 02:27:41 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

SuperPang

I'm not a fan of DDP chaining either :laugh: and yet I love DOJ. I'm hoping this has a similar feel. It's refreshing to see Cave doing something more straight forward.

iconoclast

Quote-When the GP meter runs out your hit count and GP bonus multiplier reduce by 30%

I think this is a good change. You'll be able to drop your chain and still get a decent score out of the game, unlike DOJ where it's all or nothing. But maybe that's what made that game so good in the first place. High risk, high reward.

eckart


Hope the chainsystem is not so brutal like in doj.

MikeNeko

#183
Hooo, i have been away for quite some time... and there a nice surprise, a new ao DDP which looks not bad at all :)

I have just one stupid little question... were there hidden bees in the location test versions ? I never take things for granted, i know this is a DDP but i am afraid of rushed efforts... less secrets and more wasted cycles (i hate 0c7fff00-ff ><)... i love the hidden bees :x i am like my reco, abnormal.

the Release is on Friday if i remember correctly what i read 3 minutes ago... so we should get new feedback soon from the land of the rising sun !


MikeNeko

I wish one of these were for me...
*sigh*
i ll be positive and say that anyway i have no room at home for a cab and the whole flat is a carpeted death trap for PCBs (-_-)

Is there one for you Spork ?

Muchi Muchi Spork

I'm getting it but I don't have one on preorder.

rtw

It looks like they do all programming, assembly and packing in-house  :oogle:
The future of ST-V rests upon our work and your work

MikeNeko

Spork: N-Ice~ i hope you will enjoy the game ! :)

rtw: the arcade gaming artisans~ heartwarming. I wish there were photos of the early cave prototyping era with hand-soldered debugging boards ^^ i always enjoyed that kind of imagery.



drboom

So damn excited about this - it looks great, can't wait to hear what the top JP guys think about it. 1 day to go.

EOJ

My score archive
twitter: @cavexstg
youtube: @cave-stg
Xbox gamertag: eojx9999

EOJ

Promo video is up:

http://www.cave.co.jp/gameonline/saidaioujou/movie/

Looks pretty good, but all the stages sorta look the same. Reminds me of DOJ's look. They also added in talking face boxes in the upper right of the screen showing conversations between your character and the operator chick.
My score archive
twitter: @cavexstg
youtube: @cave-stg
Xbox gamertag: eojx9999

MikeNeko

Thank you for the pointer EOJ !
I liked what i saw there, even though it took about 2mn20 before i found a music piece i enjoy... but i still have not spotted a bee-bonus T-T

I wonder what the final patterns will look like, it s always a marvel to see 2000 bullets moving :3

A47A47

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ3NXPMl2gw

I think that Taisa's voice is SAWASHIRO Miyuki's (same with JAKOU Kuroe of INSTANT BRAIN).

EOJ

Looks like they toned down the crazy bullets in stage 3, they move slower and don't seem as dense as in the location test version I played. Ditto with the patterns in stages 1-2 (including the bosses).
My score archive
twitter: @cavexstg
youtube: @cave-stg
Xbox gamertag: eojx9999

EOJ

I've confirmed A-cho arcade already has the PCB, so I think I'll head down there tomorrow.  :righton:
My score archive
twitter: @cavexstg
youtube: @cave-stg
Xbox gamertag: eojx9999

TimingTripod40


CIB


x91

Dunno when I can get my hands on this one! My best hope is, the local game center, that shmup reserve in Shanghai would get it asap, already can't wait.

brentsg


EOJ

I'm back from the arcade. I spent about 6 hours there. I'll type up my impressions in the next post.  :cool:
My score archive
twitter: @cavexstg
youtube: @cave-stg
Xbox gamertag: eojx9999

EOJ

I got to A-cho at about 9:15am. I thought they already had the game, but I guess I was wrong. Anyway, some other guys were loitering around for a bit, so I played Futari 1.5 for about an hour and a half. On my last credit, I noticed some workers scurrying about to my left. I look over and there's the SDOJ kit sitting on the floor, with the Dodonpachi cab gutted, ready for a new PCB. So, I got to see the whole thing set up (and I was the second person to play it!). I had a good look at the kit contents too. First, the box just says Cave in the upper left, no Annex or whatever, just Cave. They did this one by themselves. Second, the instructions were in sort of a booklet, I think it was glossy. Looked pretty snazzy. I got a good look at the dip settings as the guy was starting it up. First, in the settings menu you can turn on a "trial version". What this does is add a FREE 60 second trial version to anyone. You have infinite lives for this. When the timer gets to zero, it asks if you want to add more money to continue. No one used it except the worker dude setting up the game. By default trial mode is OFF. The other dip settings are pretty standard stuff, though there's an "Autobomb Default" setting that's set to OFF by default. I think it starts you with Autobomb ON on the menu, instead Autobomb OFF. Master Ver is 2012/04/20. I took pics of all this on my cellphone but I'm not sure of the quality. Will check later and post them if they don't look like shit.

On to the game - oh boy, this is Cave done right. Easily the best DDP game. Ever. Made. It's balls to the walls hard, but doesn't feel unfair. Harder than DOJ's first loop, Ketsui's first loop, and Futari 1.5 Maniac. Bomb and Laser are about as hard as Futari 1.0 Maniac. Expert is Ultra mode level. I don't like DOJ much but I love this game to pieces. Everything about it feels perfect.

I played mainly B-Laser, I got up to the Stage 3 boss twice, and made it to Stage 4 once on my last credit (with autobomb off). I tried a credit with C-Expert and got to the stage 2 midboss, but it's too fucking hard to waste 100 yen on in the arcades for a few minutes of play. Only one other guy tried it, then he never went back either.

As for differences from the location test version, the difficulty is nearly the same, but they slowed down the nasty bullet spam in stage 3. The stage is now really perfect - I love it. This game feels mainly like Ketsui on steroids with a fine-tuned DDP scoring system. Feels like pure Ikeda and Ichimura and not much else. Doesn't feel like Yagawa at all. The stage 4 midboss slams you with a total Ketsui-ish pattern right at the start, I had to smile when I saw that. I saw one guy get to Stage 5 but he didn't last long. Stage 4 is awesome. Dark, gritty, shit flying at you from all directions. Hard as hell.

It felt like it was harder to get higher hyper ranks in this compared to the location test and I never saw the rank get over 02. Even at rank 00 it's brutal. This game will wipe the floor with all the scrubs out there. It's old-school Cave done right in 2012.

Oh yeah, extends are at 800mil and 1.8bil. There is a 1UP (the icon is on the movestrip), but I didn't see anyone get it. You may have to no-miss/no bomb the stage 3 midboss. That's my current theory. My best score was 900mil, best score of the day was 1.9bil (with B-laser).
Scoring is pretty hard, keeping your chain going is tough and a couple breaks and your hit count is demolished. The chaining meter did seem to last longer than in previous DDP games, though.

Sorry for the ramble, thought I should post this ASAP.
My score archive
twitter: @cavexstg
youtube: @cave-stg
Xbox gamertag: eojx9999

sh00g


EOJ

No problem. One thing I didn't make clear - Shot and Laser are identical in difficulty (bullet patterns, etc are all the same). Only Expert is harder.
My score archive
twitter: @cavexstg
youtube: @cave-stg
Xbox gamertag: eojx9999

EOJ

Another thing I'd like to mention is this game is all about bullet dodging. There are very few bullet cancels and comparatively little slowdown (which is a major reason why the game is so hard). When you use a hyper you get a bullet cancel, but not when you exit a hyper. So the result is you have to dodge a lot, and it really brings back that great feeling of dodging bullets that has not been as prominent in some recent Cave titles. And it's not just tapping left or right over and over through easy-to-see openings in a bullet stream, you really have to move around a lot (up, down, all over the screen) to dodge this stuff. I made the comparison to Futari 1.0(1) Maniac because that is probably Ikeda & Ichimura's last great dodger and SDOJ feels much like it in that there aren't many bullet cancels and the difficulty level is high (Futari 1.5 Maniac is a great dodger too but there are a lot of bullet cancels). Getting back to SDOJ, the bullet patterns are so well designed that dodging them successfully is a great thrill and just becomes more and more fun and rewarding as you go through the game. I think this is the game's greatest accomplishment.

Also, I bet they kept it really hard because there's a chance this could be their last arcade game and they wanted to go out on a high note. I hope that's not the case, but I wouldn't be surprised.
My score archive
twitter: @cavexstg
youtube: @cave-stg
Xbox gamertag: eojx9999

rtw

Thank you for the inpressions EOJ  :righton:

"This game feels mainly like Ketsui on steroids with a fine-tuned DDP scoring system" :D
The future of ST-V rests upon our work and your work

MikeNeko

O-ma-i

Thank you so much EOJ for the feedback, this is a great comforting piece of news you just brought me there. We should refund your crediting on expert as it was a total loss ^^

So, a good ketsu-dodonpach-ui saidaioujoukamoshirenai :) (it s just too early in my country, sorry)


x91

Great experience!

There were reports that the game could crash and get stuck often... EOJ did you encounter any of these?

EOJ

Nope, game never crashed on us. Not a glitch to be found. I watched/played for about 5 hours.

Pics of the game being set up will be posted soon, they turned out OK!
My score archive
twitter: @cavexstg
youtube: @cave-stg
Xbox gamertag: eojx9999

THE

Thanks for the report, EOJ. I'm hyped

Bullet canceling ruined DFK/BL for me.

Could anyone see which PCB revision it is?
The future is 2D