DoDonPachi (怒首領蜂) - Sega Saturn Mode ALL Clear
26My first clear of the Sega Saturn exclusive "Saturn Mode" for DoDonPachi, played on a real Saturn. This mode adds a new first level while featuring slightly lower difficulty (well kind of, read below). It also removes the second loop entirely although you still have to face off against a toned down version of Hibachi at the end.
Stage Listing:
00:00 - Intro / Stage 0 (new level)
02:53 - Stage 1
04:53 - Stage 2
07:17 - Stage 3
11:14 - Stage 4
14:43 - Stage 5
18:24 - Stage 6
22:26 - Stage 7 / Hachi / Big Bee
23:25 - Hibachi + Ending
Despite looking like DoDonPachi, the Saturn version has some strange changes and rebalances that are probably not apparent unless you are very familiar with the arcade version. Here are some of the changes that I noticed:
-The game overall just runs faster, probably because it's running at 60Hz instead of the 57.5Hz of the arcade PCB.
- Less bullets overall, although also less slowdown as a result of this
- Some enemies fire sooner than normal (large ships in stage 4)
- Some enemies fire different patterns (small helicopters in stage 4)
- Bullet cancels are shorter (stage 3 needles in particular)
- Chaining seems harder or at the very least the routes from the arcade version do not transfer over completely due to several small variations/changes that have been made to enemy health and possibly other factors.
- Stage 5 boss has altered behavior, safe spots have been eliminated and is overall much harder because of this
- Lots of different sound effects, much more pixelated explosions
So I said earlier that this version is easier than the arcade version (loop 1), well that's not really true. If you are playing for a no-miss/no-bomb, this version is much harder because of the changes that have been made to the stage 5 boss. No longer can you exploit any safe spots, you have to fight the thing straight up and dodge everything. Good luck beating this guy without heavy bombing.
Hibachi does make an appearance at the end and is actually a lot of fun to fight in this version because for once, all of his attacks are actually dodgeable without extreme bombing. The drawback is there is virtually no slowdown to most of his patterns, so it plays a lot differently than the arcade version (and is much more fair as a result).
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