Ketsui and DDP DOJ BL ports [JP X360]

[EOJ]

Besides, last I checked, wasn't Ikeda somewhat of a hardass when it came to ports?

No. Mihara is the hardass. Ikeda doesn't seem to care about ports at all, he's only really concerned with the Arcade games. Look at how CAVE ported Mushi and Ibara - inaccurate slowdown and improper display resolution, among other problems. Hardly being a stickler for quality. Mihara's ports (Galuda and DDP:DOJ), on the other hand, are superb, actually some of the best ports ever made.

5PB bought the rights, they got the code from CAVE, and they're doing it themselves. Like I said Ikeda must have known about them buying the rights, but since no one from CAVE has any part in the port, they don't know the progress until 5PB releases updates.

[RemyK313]

Thanks for the update EOJ. I assumed as much. I always knew Mihara was pretty strict about stuff, I didn't know if Ikeda objected too much to things or not.....

I guess what we have to do is just wait and see...

[SuperPang]

Remember theres a new boss at Cave. Its entirely possible the company sold old IP rights without consulting the programmers. I get the feeling Ikeda felt obliged to make a new DDP as well, although hes come up with some great ideas so hopefully nobodys feeling put out.

[professor ganson]

Yes, I'm a fool.  I went ahead and ordered a J360.  Raiden Fighters Aces and Shiki 3 are enough to justify it for me, really, so there isn't too much risk if it turns out that Ketsui is a XLA release.  Shiki 3 runs pretty nicely on my PC, but I'm such a Shiki fan that I really want to play the XBox port.

[GaijinPunch]

Remember theres a new boss at Cave. Its entirely possible the company sold old IP rights without consulting the programmers

Ikeda is no longer "a programmer".  He's a director, for lack of a better term.  There are 3 on the same level as him, then the CEO, AFAIK.  Very, very hard to believe he didn't know, as there's only one person above him now.

Liar

I wouldn't say he's a known liar.  If you're not allowed to talk about something and someone point blank asks you about it, what are you going to do?  Denying you can talk about it is answering it.

[EOJ]

Ikeda is no longer "a programmer".

Well, he was listed as a programmer on Futari Black Label, and he's programming Daifukkatsu apparently. He's the head of programming, so yeah, he must have known about this.

I wouldn't say he's a known liar.  If you're not allowed to talk about something and someone point blank asks you about it, what are you going to do?  Denying you can talk about it is answering it.

Judging from the Ketsui meet #3, he seems to laugh like a nervous school girl instead of answering questions. I guess that's one way to avoid a question.

[GaijinPunch]

Well, he was listed as a programmer on Futari Black Label, and he's programming Daifukkatsu apparently. He's the head of programming, so yeah, he must have known about this.

That's not to say he's not programming, I'm just talking about his title (Torishimeyaku)
as you can see here.

[EOJ]

his title (Torishimeyaku)
as you can see here.

Ah, I didn't notice that. Good point.

[RAR]

Ganked this from Shmups Forum...

http://www.famitsu.com/game/coming/1214031_1407.html
http://www.famitsu.com/game/coming/1213991_1407.html

Any new infos being mentioned in the links? What about the ability to tate it?

This is somewhat intriguing as this development / drama unfolds as it goes.

[gsl]

I'm just talking about his title (Torishimeyaku)
as you can see here.

Little known fact: the title "torishimeyaku" (鳥死女焼く) is often affectionately known as the "Burning maiden death bird" around many Japanese game company offices.

[SuperPang]

Ikeda is no longer "a programmer".  He's a director, for lack of a better term.  There are 3 on the same level as him, then the CEO, AFAIK.  Very, very hard to believe he didn't know, as there's only one person above him now.
.

Ahh, OK, I knew he was lead programmer but I didn't know there was only one guy above him. Its easy to forget what a relatively small company they are. I assumed there'd be a board of directors above him and Ikeda left to sort out the new games.

I'd love to know exactly how a Cave development cycle works and how much input the likes of IKD have in games like DeathSmiles. He's listed under the programmers after all.

[GaijinPunch]

"Burning maiden death bird"

Not even going to ask where you learned that one.

I assumed there'd be a board of directors above him and Ikeda left to sort out the new games.

You'd think so, but they're so small.  The fact that Cave prides themselves as being a company that was built on people that loved the arcades, I imagine the corporate interference is somewhat low, although it does seem they will push the sequels even though Ikeda doesn't particularly like to.

[Geezer]

Google translate of the DOJ BL page at Famitsu says

Replay easy-to-use features. PUREIDETA to save my butt, it is always watching.

I really wish it was Arika doing this project as Mihara would at least drip feed us info as the project progresses. We don't know when we'll next hear from these 5pb dudes.

[EOJ]

Ganked this from Shmups Forum...

http://www.famitsu.com/game/coming/1214031_1407.html
http://www.famitsu.com/game/coming/1213991_1407.html

Any new infos being mentioned in the links? What about the ability to tate it?

The caption under the first pic in the DDP:DOJ page gives the impression there isn't any TATE.
They say "the gameplay screen is displayed vertically in the middle (of a horizontal monitor), and if you want to have the display be the size of in the arcade, you'll need a very large monitor (to display the image in the middle)".

[KOMA]

I can't' believe they don't included a tate mode for a vertical shooter.

[zakk]

This is what happens when you let a dating sim company port shooters.

It's really perplexing; you think they'd look at all the other shooters released on the platform and go 'hey, they'll putting tate in...hmm'.

Of course they say they're not even 50% done, right? So there's still time for them to add it in.

[EOJ]

Yeah, the version shown to Famitsu was just in Yoko mode, and if they're not told of any TATE feature yet, they obviously can't report that it has it.

[slateman]

Looking at the Famitsu scans, both list the game as Xbox Live releases, not necessarily Xbox360 releases.  You all know more than me, but that suggests the obvious to me.  Wouldn't list them as that were they standalone 'box on the shelf' releases, would it?

[EOJ]

No, Famitsu lists them as "Xbox 360" releases. They just say they have "Xbox Live features" (which many disc games have). There is no mention of "XBLA" anywhere in the articles.

[GaijinPunch]

Of course they say they're not even 50% done, right? So there's still time for them to add it in.

There's always time to add it in.  It's like 8 lines of code.

[Geezer]

Lets hope they add it in, it would be criminal not to include it and it would be a total deal breaker for me.

Are they using emulation techniques or will they be true ports?

[RemyK313]

Ahh, neither one would necessarily be better! I mean, if you're able to accurately emulate the hardware, then the game should run perfectly true to the arcade. However, unless Cave is able to provide documentation on the PGM system, and some of the other components, the guys making it won't know how to emulate it. A lot of emulation is done on the premise of reverse-engineering the hardware/software... this isn't something that a gamehouse picks up just for the hell of it. And when they do, they usually pick up a person who's already familiar with that kind of stuff (like some of the Mamedevs have actually done work on commercially emulated games). A port isn't necessarily better... a port entails that they looked over the original sources, and are in the process of converting the original stuff to run on the 360.

However, that being said, I would sincerely believe that they're taking the obvious route, have the original sources, and are in the process of converting the original sources into stuff that can run on the 360. I would imagine that a port wouldn't be all that hard on the Xbox, I don't know if you guys have looked at XNA, but if the dev kits are anything like that, they shouldn't have too hard of a time bringing it over.

And yeah, tate mode shouldn't be all that hard.. not if you do it the lazy way that they did it for the PS2 ports. Basically, at the drawing level (which would be easy to access if you're familiar with what you're doing, near impossible to tinker with if you're not) you take your entire screen buffer, apply a 90 degree transformation (easy to code if you've got access to it as if it were a matrix, harder if you don't) and then stretch it to fill the screen...

I would imagine that the 360 kits probably include a library of stuff that directly interacts with the hardware that way they don't really have to engineer anything at the hardware level.. If it's anything like doing it in directx, and if they're using something similar to what I stated, they wouldn't even need to code it at the hardware level; there are libraries that will do it for them easily... possibly in the "8 lines of code" that was mentioned.....

In other words, the developers don't really have to "touch" the xbox, they should have it all nice and set up, and all they REALLY have to do is convert the game's rules (gameplay, bullets, etc) to work on the 360...

But hey, I'm not a 360 developer (though I'm thinking of giving it a go... when I get $100 to throw away on a license for it)

[GaijinPunch]

if you're able to accurately emulate the hardware, then the game should run perfectly true to the arcade.

Ports don't attempt to emulate hardware.  That's the problem, and is where slowdown emulation comes in, and is extremely hard to do.  They could, of course, be using emulation but who knows.  I'm sure they won't tell us.  We'll have to wait for some 13 year old European kid to hack the game and tell us.

[RemyK313]

Oh... that's right... sometimes games have hardware-induced lag... Does Ketsui have slowdown in the arcade version?

[MX7]

Oh... that's right... sometimes games have hardware-induced lag... Does Ketsui have slowdown in the arcade version?

Yeah, same as most Cave games. It's how this slowdown is handled that can make or break a port. The PS2 port of Mushi was, to me at least, largely acceptable, but there are instances of the game suddenly speeding up after an instance of slowdown, which can lead to cheap deaths. Still, Ketsui isn't as bullet heavy as Mushi, so hopefully the problems will be less pronounced.

[EOJ]

According to IGN, these games are indeed full retail releases, not XBLA downloads.

[Geezer]

According to IGN, these games are indeed full retail releases, not XBLA downloads.

Their source is possibly here or at Shmups. Or more likely, GAF.
I do hope they are indeed boxed products, digital distribution doesn't really do it for me.

[EOJ]

Their source is possibly here or at Shmups. Or more likely, GAF.

Maybe, but they seem to get their info straight from Japanese sources in most instances.

Also, Famitsu wrote there will be a big update on both games in their 3/21 issue, so I guess we'll just have to wait for that.

[EOJ]

Hopefully these are NOT emulated versions. According to this Success blog I was reading today, they originally tried to emulate the Raiden Fighters games for the new Raiden Fighters Aces compilation. They soon discovered that due to the X360 hardware and input system, there is an unavoidable lag between the time when you press a button and when it registers on the screen during emulation. With an LCD display, the delay becomes even more pronounced. They said the slowdown was also impossible to emulate properly. So, they had to use the original code and build the port from the ground up.

So, we have to hope 5pb is doing the same thing, otherwise these are going to be full of lag and improper slowdown.

[RemyK313]

Yeah, I would hope so.
Honestly, building from the ground up isn't "reinventing the wheel." Assembly is a finnicky language and is different for all hardware... If they were trying to emulate it, they were probably going to use MAME as a reference (there have been instances where developers have used MAME to help them make their own emulation on consoles, I think it was SNK-related).. and emulation is just.. blegh...

Converting from source to source, if you ask me, is a much cleaner approach... I mean, trying to develop (source code) at a high level on a compiler that reduces to low level (machine code)... using a high-level source reverse-engineered from hardware? Yeah, that's the chain'o'development for emulation.....

At least when you have the original source code, you take the higher-level sources and convert it to another high-level source. If you guys know about programming, you'll know that converting a C++ program to run on Java is pretty easy.

The slowdown simulation... I can see where that would be a problem... cuz there's so many ways to take that on.... and the way they did it on the original hardware may be non-transferable to a new target.....

Still, any news on getting this thing as region-free? See if we an round us up a delegate to make our case for us?