Game:

DoDonPachi (1997)

Duration: 49:11

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7

Played on MAME 0.217

I finally got my first DDP 2-ALL! though it isn't exactly a PB (which you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVMAwcQsT3o if you are interested) and fell short by quite a lot lol. In any case, since this is my first 2-ALL I figured I should write an actual description about the game now.

DoDonPachi is the second game released by CAVE and the one that would shape their general style. Furthermore, it is the game that would really define the concept of a bullet hell shmup.

There are 3 ships you can select:

-Type A: Fastest speed, narrow shot.
-Type B: Medium speed, the options rotate in the direction you're moving.
-Type C: Slowest speed, wide shot.

You can also select to have an enhanced shot or enhanced laser. Technically Shot Types are better in stages but they struggle against bosses due to weaker Laser damage and as a result just end up being harder to use for a 2-ALL compared to their Laser counterparts.

There are many scoring aspects but to describe the most important ones:

Max bonus
Collecting surplus bombs will activate the maximum bonus. This is a per-frame bonus during stages. The multiplier will increase by 1 for every extra bomb unless you lose the bonus by either bombing or dying.

Chaining
Destroying enemies will fill the meter in the HUD and doing so in quick succession will start a chain. Shot kills give more meter than Laser kills but Laser can stall the meter when attached to a big enemy. All the stages except for 4 (1-1/2-1, 1-3/2-3) can be fully chained but actually doing so is quite hard, it takes a lot of practice to do a full chain once, let alone consistently. The chain meter drains much more slowly during the second loop and killing an enemy with Shot gives you full meter, this makes sections much simpler to chain.
This system is very usually why people dislike the scoring in this game but I always found them pretty fun to do tbh.

Bees
Every stage has 13 hidden bees. Collecting all of them without dying increases the value of the bees in the next stage. Uncovering bees also gives you chain meter so it's related to that as well.

There is a second loop but you need to meet at least one of the following requirements to access it:

-Achieve a chain of at least 270 hits (Type A), 300 (Type B), 330 (Type C).
-Die 2 times or less.
-Collect all the bees in at least 4 stages.
-Have 50 millions points or more at the end of 1-6.
-Can't be in co-op. This is probably because getting a Game Over and continuing locks the loop regardless of requirements achieved and when 2P side joins the game considers it a continue (?).

The second loop is where the difficulty really skyrockets in this game. Enemies shoot a lot more and sections that are mindless in the first loop can be quite tough now, very easy to be walled in a split second especially with Type A.

The main problem spots are 2-3 boss, entirety of 2-5 and going from 2-6 boss into the TLBs which is a huge bomb spam, but 2-2 and 2-4 aren't free either honestly the whole loop is fucking hard lol. Then there are things that just feel like RNG hell such as most of 2-3, the green wall enemies in 2-6 and Hibachi. The only merciful thing in the loop is power down after dying isn't an issue and chaining is easier, but if you can't survive you can't chain to begin with so lol

This run had some strange mistakes. I miss a bee in 1-3 and didn't feel like resetting, I don't even know how much that cost lol (bee perfect across the entire game is about 37 millions). Then I die stupidly in 1-5 and enter the loop with 1 miss, not the end of the world but a bit concerning due to 2-3 boss, ideally I'd first die there. I die in 2-4 and end up no-missing 2-5 (usually it's the other way around lol). These mistakes didn't drastically fuck up my resource management in the grand scheme of things but despite of that I had no confidence going into Hibachi (I need 3 lives and about 2 bombs to feel 'comfy' and I had previously choked there with these resources), even entering the final pattern I felt I had no chance and simply tried to do my best with the dodging, it wasn't until about 30 seconds in that I thought "this guy might actually die" the whole thing felt pretty surreal. Looking back at the footage Hibachi stayed at the top of the screen almost the entire time, shmup RNG gods were definitely gentle with this encounter.

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