Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label Extra [JP X360] - Patch is out!

[EOJ]

Decided it would be proper to open a single thread for this game (and another for Ketsui X360). The game's official website is finally up:

http://5pb.jp/games/div2/ddpdojblex/index.html

Only the story section is available right now, but the other sections should fill up in the weeks leading up to the game's release on Christmas 2008.

Previous info on this game is archived here:

http://www.cave-stg.com/forum/index.php?topic=135.0

[adverse]

Jesus christ in fucking heaven, can't these guys get anything right??

http://5pb.jp/games/div2/ddpdojblex/story.html

Add to that the fact that almost every category on the site has no info on it.  This is scarily amateur.

[rtw]

Jesus christ in fucking heaven, can't these guys get anything right??

http://5pb.jp/games/div2/ddpdojblex/story.html

Add to that the fact that almost every category on the site has no info on it.  This is scarily amateur.

Are you refering to the fact that they wrote "STOTY" ? Or that the story itself is wrong ?

rtw

[adverse]

Jesus christ in fucking heaven, can't these guys get anything right??

http://5pb.jp/games/div2/ddpdojblex/story.html

Add to that the fact that almost every category on the site has no info on it.  This is scarily amateur.

Are you refering to the fact that they wrote "STOTY" ? Or that the story itself is wrong ?

rtw

STOTY yes.  Would it kill them to hire one person that can spell English words at the level of a middle schooler?

I'm also annoyed that they don't even have a page for this game up in the Xbox store.  They just seem to be doing a really shitty job at promotion imo.

[adverse]

In this month's XBOX360 mag, they note re: the visuals that you can change the aspect ratio, change the wallpaper and that there is a setting called Smoothing->which has four types of image interpolation to choose from.

[EOJ]

Likely the same 4 filters that RFA had. Too bad there's no scanline mode.  All the "smoothing" stuff looks
like ass. Here's hoping the 5pb guys are nice enough to release a patch with a scanline mode later.

[adverse]

Game jacket up @

http://sp-game.cocolog-nifty.com/38/2008/11/extra-8b63.html

[adverse]

Yikes.

This was just posted on Mihara's blog:

"大往生ＢＬでちょっと不安な噂を聞いたので..."

Which means that he's heard rumors that DOJBL is a little problematic.  Given that the game is getting near zero promotion outside of some game magazines and we have seen zero videos from the MAIN game mode, yeah I am officially not hoping for much at this point. : /  Fucking CAVE, choose better port companies.

[drboom]

I did see a picture for DOJ BL EX in the latest issue of PLAY, the one with Persona 4 on the cover (which is why I bought it). Easy to find as well - just flip from the front and its opposite the first poster in the mag. One shot for that and one for Ketsui under the Microsoft section of TGS.

[adverse]

And wouldn't you know it, game DELAYED until sometime 'this winter'.  No longer the 25th.

http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1220288_1124.html

Nice one 5PB.   

[EOJ]

Well I'd rather they delay it and fix it up a bit than release a crappy rushed port. Though they'll probably just release a crappy delayed port. 

In the meantime we can all enjoy the great port of Daioujou on the PS2.

[adverse]

I bet Ikedasan took particular offense at the job they're doing on the project given that DOJ Black is one of the games he's most proud of. 

Wonder when they'll get their shit together?  At latest it'll release in February I guess?

[EOJ]

I doubt Ikeda cares about ports. His own company made the crappy Mushi and Ibara ports, after all.

[adverse]

Hmm yeah, but I think we're seeing a slow fade-out of arcades here in Japan, even though I'm still hanging out there as much as I can.  There is a shift towards home consoles, for instance look how quickly Street Fighter 4 and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom were ported to home systems, basically 7 months and 1 month respectively.  Bemani and other games are keeping the arcade afloat and STG games just don't get much attention.  DDPDFK has actually made it into the Arcadia top 10 a few times which is nice, but last month Deathsmiles MBP did not and that's a brand new product.  They hardly promoted that either, just a video at the arcade game expo.  They also don't seem to have anything on the horizon at the moment though we could see something announced at the CAVE matsuri this year. 

Bottom line, I feel like CAVE is probably seeing value in more home ports of their games and possibly a hurting arcade scene.  In that case I could see Ikeda being worried about both DDPDOJ and Ketsui's port accuracy...

[EOJ]

In any event I still don't see why he'd care about ports his company isn't doing. The Deathsmiles port, maybe, but not this 5pb stuff. If he really cared about making accurate ports of his games for consoles he'd be doing it himself (or having some of the guys working for him do it). It's certainly within his power, if he chooses. Instead, CAVE chose to license the Ketsui and DDPDOJ BL ports to some no-name dating sim developer. Doesn't sound like something a company would do if they really cared about the quality of the ports.

Also:

-Almost every fighting game gets a home port, and often a quick one. Nothing new there, and hardly analogous to the shooting game situation.
-Mushi Futari BL had even less press (it wasn't even shown at an expo) than DSMBL. They don't promote Black Labels much at all.

[GaijinPunch]

With only 100-200 (?) pieces around, and being a remix of sorts, it's not going to get much recognition.  It's only for the hard core.

[adverse]

With only 100-200 (?) pieces around, and being a remix of sorts, it's not going to get much recognition.  It's only for the hard core.

I think it'll do 8k or so first week and then do well later on.

BTW, was just reading some report backs from the Shooting Festa, and it seems that all stages of DOJ in both the arcade port and X-mode were playable, which is good news.

[jpj]

i can see you're frustrated adverse, but at least you have the luxury of being able to play it in arcades in the here and now 

[gsl]

Um, this is a bit late, but that cover art looks really shitty.  I liked the original DOJ art because the main focus was the utterly totaled ship, and only then you notice there's the doll-thing crouched at the bottom.  It was sort of representative of the role they played in the game itself: very little, just select your shot option and forget about them.  The new one isn't quite at Mobile Light Force levels of WTF misleading, but if I knew nothing about the original game I'd guess it would be some sort of Deathsmiles-like character shooter.

[EOJ]

Yes, the cover is horrid. Might as well just toss the case, take out the Daioujou superplay DVD from the PS2 version, and put the X360 disc in the PS2 case. 

[adverse]

i can see you're frustrated adverse, but at least you have the luxury of being able to play it in arcades in the here and now 

Yeah, and I'm definitely happy I can still do that.

All I really want out of 5pb is a capable port with a GOOD online mode, i.e. rankings, replays that actually work.  That's it.  If Treasure can (almost) do that with Ikaruga as a DLC title, 5pb should be able to do it if they're charging me 6000 yen or so for it.

Reading more report backs from the STG festa, people seemed pretty optimistic on the arcade mode of the DOJ port which is good news.

Off-topic, but why do people want scanline modes for shmups like these?  Also, how bad do you guys think the delay will be to an LCD monitor?

[EOJ]

Off-topic, but why do people want scanline modes for shmups like these? 

Because it looks like the original 240p arcade game with scanlines. Without the scanlines it's either a blocky mess or a blurry mess. Play RFA with the scanlines on and the scanlines off. It's night and day.

Also, how bad do you guys think the delay will be to an LCD monitor?

I notice a little delay on my LCD. Very, very minor. But still noticable to me since I'm so used to my CRT monitor I use with my supergun. I only notice it with the Xbox 360 shooters though. When I play fighting games like MK2 and SSF2THD on my PS3, I don't feel any input lag. Weird.

[adverse]

Okay, so 5pb guy just updated his blog.

Pics of achievements:

http://blog-imgs-31.fc2.com/h/g/q/hgqp/20090108163651.jpg

Some are: get the 1-up in Stage 4.

Collect 10,003 star items.
Collect 100,001 star items.
Kill 53,396 enemies.
Kill 200,000 enemies.
Get 500+ chain on stage 1.

Easy stuff so far.

Still no news on a release date.....

[rtw]

@adverse, do you have a link to his blog ?

rtw

[markedkiller78]

Well I finally bought a Jap 360 & a 22? LCD monitor with pivot

Although I?m not very excited by either this or Ketsui I?m still going to pick both up. It?s good to hear some positive feedback about the port

[adverse]

rtw,

here ya go:

http://hgqp.blog44.fc2.com/

[Kiken]

rtw,

here ya go:

http://hgqp.blog44.fc2.com/

Like we didn't know already... he is quite the achievement whore.  I sent him a friend request last night... I'm interested to see if he adds me.

[EOJ]

The official site has been updated, nearly every section is viewable now:

http://5pb.jp/games/div2/ddpdojblex/index.html

Still no concrete release date listed there.

[adverse]

Not sure how this information was obtained, but the 360 Achievements Wiki for Japan has all the game's achievements up:

http://www12.atwiki.jp/xbox360score/pages/619.html

Edit: Bottom line wit it is that most people posting here should be able to get a 700 or so on their first playthrough.  The only real challenge so far seems to be the last 170 points which is for the second stage of the last boss and the Hibachi fight. 

[adverse]

So, unless we see some kind of announcement, previews etc. in the next issue of Famitsu 360 (coming out at the end of January) I think we can say for sure this game is not coming out this winter.  Specifically because 5pb is putting out Chaos Head Noah in February and then some weird DS pedo loli game in March.  I somehow doubt they have the resources or advertising budget to get DDP DOJ out during either of these months.

Here's hoping we'll see something...