Author Topic: Dodonpachi Saidaioujou [Cave 2012, ARCADE] (Read 51511 times)

EOJ · « **Reply #120 on:** February 20, 2012, 10:52:17 PM »

Man, am I lucky. The next location test for this game will be in my local arcade, a-cho, here in Kyoto.

http://www.a-cho.com/

The twitter feed on their site says they'll announce the dates soon. My bet is it's this weekend.

Cave always do at least one Kansai location test. They'll probably do one around Osaka later on.

A47A47 · « **Reply #121 on:** February 21, 2012, 02:06:09 AM »

http://twitter.com/#!/omaccya/status/171815870102908928

The manager of a-cho says "from the morning of Feb 24th through Feb 26th"

I'm 1 hour from a-cho. I'll go there on each of 3 days.

EOJ · « **Reply #122 on:** February 21, 2012, 02:08:14 AM »

Cool beans. I'll walk down there on Friday or Saturday. It's only 15 min from my house.

Sapz · « **Reply #123 on:** February 21, 2012, 03:47:29 AM »

Awesome! Man, I wish I could go play this. Hoping for lots of juicy info.

eckart · « **Reply #124 on:** February 21, 2012, 05:07:15 AM »

Cool news. Maybe we see the 4th level.

Got this mail this morning from sophia:
?DODONPACHI SAIDAIOUJOU?

*INFORMATION AND CONDITIONS :
*UNIT PRICE : JPY186,000
*PRICE TERMS: EX GODOWN
*ADVANCED ORDER: CLOSED ON 9/MAR/2012
*RELEASE DATE: SCHEDULED IN MID/APR/2012
*DEPOSIT: JPY60,000 IS REQUESTED AS DEPOSIT WHEN YOU CONFIRM ORDER.
*REMARK: ADVANCED ORDER WILL BE CLOSED AS SOON AS THE ORDER QTY WILL REACH THE SCHEDULED QTY.

A47A47 · « **Reply #125 on:** February 21, 2012, 06:42:51 AM »

http://twitter.com/llakihabara/status/171892066085908480

Tokyo leisure land Akihabara will hold a location test from Feb 23 through Feb 26.

http://llakihabara.sakura.ne.jp/LLA_site/

Kaneda · « **Reply #126 on:** February 21, 2012, 07:17:27 AM »

I wonder if all the loke tests are because Cave can't afford to do a version 1.5. I don't recall there being so many for past games.

I might go check it out this weekend to see if it feels any different. Hopefully the line won't be as long so I can put in a few credits.

moozooh · « **Reply #127 on:** February 21, 2012, 07:21:07 AM »

Or maybe they've become smart enough to actually avoid terminal fuckups on the initial releases. If so, more power to them. Personally, so far I don't see anything wrong with the game in terms of mechanics. If the difficulty gets high enough at some point, this could as well be the second coming of DOJ, just without the style.

EOJ · « **Reply #128 on:** February 21, 2012, 08:01:59 AM »

Their previous games had multiple location tests. This is nothing new.

SuperPang · « **Reply #129 on:** February 21, 2012, 09:09:13 AM »

I'm not sure AK did though? They seem to have learnt from that experience which is great to see.

A47A47 · « **Reply #130 on:** February 23, 2012, 07:59:20 AM »

moozooh · « **Reply #131 on:** February 23, 2012, 08:08:29 AM »

Sapz was right all along, Type A is clearly superior.

Sapz · « **Reply #132 on:** February 23, 2012, 03:51:25 PM »

Ahahahahahaha. Well, I guess this is further confirmation that A-L and A-E are the modes of choice here. :V

Special World · « **Reply #133 on:** February 24, 2012, 12:01:13 AM »

Dodonpachi Saidaioujou Or: How Type-A Poked My Eye Out

EOJ · « **Reply #134 on:** February 24, 2012, 03:13:47 AM »

I just got back from 2 hours at the a-cho location test.

I played it as B-Expert, with Autobomb OFF. Doesn't get much harder than that, but everyone else was playing Shot or Laser all day and I wanted to see the tougher bullet patterns. My credit ended before the first boss, but it was a fun ride. No one got to the Stage 3 boss in my time there, but it was the same 5-6 guys rotating over and over. Some were getting progressively better and even making some neat scoring patterns. I watched the runs for a good time, studying the bullet patterns.

Some things about the autobomb I noticed:

Shot starts with 3 bombs with autobomb ON or OFF, but with each death with OFF you get an extra bomb whereas with ON you only get 3 bombs per life. Laser starts with 2 bombs, and Expert with 1, progressing to 2 once you die (with OFF), but staying as 1 (with ON). Autobomb kills your entire bomb stock, and the bomb doesn't last as long as a normal bomb. I don't think there's any difference in score among ON and OFF. At least I couldn't see any difference. Most people started with ON but switched to OFF because it's actually easier that way with the extra bombs, provided you bomb at the right times. I'm also pretty sure an autobomb kills your chain, but a regular bomb doesn't. I did see some bombs that killed the chain, but the last guy I remember would manually bomb in the stages and his chain didn't cut. I'll have to check on this again.

On the difficulty:

I'd say this is a very hard game indeed. Even with Shot types it's very difficult to get past stage 3. If they keep this difficulty in the final product I will be amazed. They billed the game as easy for beginners to get into, but that couldn't be further from the truth right now. Guys were getting reamed left and right by the end of stage 3, and these were no shmup schmucks. I saw one guy nearly clear DFK BL with Strong style right before his SDOJ credit and he still got mauled. Another guy was destroying Ketsui for awhile, and his credit ended at SDOJ's second boss with Laser Style. I couldn't see much difference between Shot and Laser - perhaps they are the same in regard to bullet patterns?

On the bullet patterns:

They remind me a lot of stuff in DOJ, and Ikeda's recent arrange modes DFK Arrange A and DFK BL Arrange. There's also a lot less slowdown than other SH3 games, the bullet speed on the bosses felt like Futari 1.0 (not 1.5) Original but with more density.

On the graphics/music:

Both are fantastic, top notch stuff. Lots of voice work in the game too.

There was no feedback card to fill out so it seems like Cave wasn't interested in what we thought about it. Oh well.

Anyway I'll probably head down there tomorrow morning and try and take some pictures, I didn't have a camera with me today.

Sapz · « **Reply #135 on:** February 24, 2012, 03:32:52 AM »

Sounds really promising! Nice to hear what the autobomb does, I'd been wondering what the disadvantage was.

moozooh · « **Reply #136 on:** February 24, 2012, 03:47:42 AM »

Sounds good! I hope the game does well in the arcades. I like Icarus's idea that there'll be a hidden route, since I don't believe it's going to have two loops at such a high difficulty setting.

EOJ · « **Reply #137 on:** February 24, 2012, 03:52:55 AM »

Hidden route would be cool! I kinda doubt it though. I just want to see if they gave this location test version stages 4 and beyond, so I'm going to head back tomorrow and focus on shot type.

emphatic · « **Reply #138 on:** February 24, 2012, 07:29:11 AM »

Hard 'pachi's is where it's at.

SFN · « **Reply #139 on:** February 24, 2012, 08:03:46 AM »

It's good to hear that they ramped up the difficulty. Looks like this will be a worthy successor to DOJ.
By the way, I'm curious about a few things,
- Is the hitbox bigger than in DOJ/DFK ? People seem to get hit so easily, and mostly by stray bullets.
- Can you destroy Suzaku's side pods ?
- How high can your Hyper and Rank go ?
Maybe you can take a look into these tomorrow, I'm looking forward to any new information !

EOJ · « **Reply #140 on:** February 24, 2012, 08:10:19 AM »

Quote from: SFN on February 24, 2012, 08:03:46 AM

- Is the hitbox bigger than in DOJ/DFK ? People seem to get hit so easily, and mostly by stray bullets.

Feels more like DOJ than DFK to me. I didn't think it felt too big, though. I was weaving through dense bullet streams in EXPERT for awhile, and my deaths felt fair.

Quote

- Can you destroy Suzaku's side pods ?

Is that the first boss? If so, yes. I saw a guy do that today with A-Laser. He got a big star item when he did it.

Quote

- How high can your Hyper and Rank go ?

I saw Rank go up to 7 but I don't think we'll be able to see really how high these things get until the final version is released in April. I'll try to take note of this tomorrow and see if anything interesting occurs.

drboom · « **Reply #141 on:** February 24, 2012, 09:55:08 AM »

This is sounding really good now. Thanks for the impressions, EOJ!

Shalashaska · « **Reply #142 on:** February 24, 2012, 02:49:24 PM »

This is sounding better and better. I just hope they don't dumb it down too much in the final release. Though, unless it eventually gets a port I'll probably never play it...

Thanks for your impressions EOJ.

Erppo · « **Reply #143 on:** February 24, 2012, 03:22:18 PM »

If you exclude stuff like Ultra modes, there are no other Cave games where experienced players would have much trouble reaching stage 4 with couple of attempts, so I really doubt the difficulty will stay like that.

It sounds more likely to me that they just wanted to make the three stage trial a bit more exciting.

eckart · « **Reply #144 on:** February 24, 2012, 04:22:23 PM »

Sounds right.
The midboss on level three looks realy strong. Maybe they downgrade him a bit in the final version.

Kaneda · « **Reply #145 on:** February 24, 2012, 08:00:08 PM »

The highest I ever saw the rank go was 8 or 9, but who knows how rank will behave in the final version. With a lowered difficulty it'll be easier to jack it up and keep it there I would imagine, so we may be seeing people getting to 99, especially if there's a loop. It's a Yagawa game, so anything could happen.

I thought the hit box was big compared to the Mushi games, but it's still no Sol Divide.

EOJ · « **Reply #146 on:** February 24, 2012, 11:11:33 PM »

Quote from: Kaneda on February 24, 2012, 08:00:08 PM

It's a Yagawa game, so anything could happen.

Really? I know Ikeda is a programmer on this, where did you see Yagawa was the lead programmer?

Quote

I thought the hit box was big compared to the Mushi games, but it's still no Sol Divide.

Yeah, after playing some more today, I did notice it felt bigger, but still not too big. Maybe Muchi Pork size?

I took pics and jotted down various notes about what I saw, I'll post it all in a write up on the front page in a bit.

Kaneda · « **Reply #147 on:** February 24, 2012, 11:23:18 PM »

Quote from: EOJ on February 24, 2012, 11:11:33 PM

Quote from: Kaneda on February 24, 2012, 08:00:08 PM
It's a Yagawa game, so anything could happen.

Really? I know Ikeda is a programmer on this, where did you see Yagawa was the lead programmer?

Maybe I'm just talking out of my ass, but I could've sworn I heard someone say he helped work on this. The long spear-like bullets and rank emphasis are certainly Yagawa-y, so we'll know for sure once the final game comes out. It'd be strange if Ikeda didn't have some hand in this, though.

EOJ · « **Reply #148 on:** February 24, 2012, 11:29:33 PM »

They interviewed Ikeda as a programmer in the recent SDOJ developer interview pamphlet thingy, so I know he's working on this. I do see elements of Yagawa in there, but it feels more Ikeda to me. DFKBL feels much more Yagawa-esque to me. And let's not forget Ikeda games can have nasty rank too (look at Futari Original or DOJBL).

I think the hyper rank system in this game is just an extension of DOJBL.

Anyway, we'll have to wait for confirmation on this point. I wouldn't be surprised if they're working on it together. They have done this in the past and their collaborations always turn out grand.

EOJ · « **Reply #149 on:** February 25, 2012, 12:12:19 AM »

Pics and my report from the Kyoto location test:

http://www.cave-stg.com/?p=1876