DonPachi / 首領蜂 / Leader Bee / Gunfire
0DonPachi[a] is a 1995 vertical-scrolling shooter arcade game developed by Cave and published by Atlus in Japan. Players assume the role of a recruit selected to take part on a secret military program by assaulting enemy strongholds in order to become member of the "DonPachi Squadron".
DonPachi was conceived as a project that evoked the same spirit from shoot 'em ups created by Toaplan, a request Atlus wanted as publisher though conflict emerged as how close the game should be to Toaplan shooters while members at Cave pointed out elements uncharacteristic from Toaplan during development. Although first launched for arcades on Cave's first-generation hardware, the title was later ported to Sega Saturn and PlayStation, each one featuring several changes and additions compared to the original version. The PlayStation version has since been re-released through the PlayStation Network download service.
DonPachi proved to be popular among Japanese arcade players but was later deemed by Cave to be a "creative failure", while the Saturn version was met with mixed reception from critics. It was followed by six sequels: DoDonPachi in 1997, DoDonPachi II in 2001, DoDonPachi DaiOuJou in 2002, DoDonPachi Resurrection in 2008, as well as DoDonPachi Maximum and DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou in 2012.
Gameplay
DonPachi features a scoring system known as the "Get Point System" (GPS). By destroying large groups or chains of enemies in a short period of time, the player can build up a number called a combo, similar to the kind found in fighting games. They receive an increasing number of points with every enemy they shoot down; the more enemies the player hits in one chain, the more points they receive. They can break the chain by waiting to shoot an enemy; the combo number will turn blue when the player's chain is broken. This system brings a new challenge after the player has cleared the game; plot out the stages to achieve a high score. The player flies their selected fighter over 5 areas of various terrain, encountering a number of land, sea and air enemies. The player's ship has two modes of fire: by tapping the fire button, shots are fired; holding it down produces a concentrated vertical beam, but also reduces the ship's speed.
The game has 5 areas, which can be "looped" if the player succeeds in completing them. The second loop has the same areas, enemy patterns, and bosses as the first loop, but enemies fire denser bullet patterns as well as explode into bullets when destroyed (sometimes called 'suicide bullets' or a 'ricochet effect'). However, if enemies are destroyed with the player's ship nearby, such bullets disappear. Destroying the final boss in the second loop unlocks a secret area where the player fights the trademark boss of the series, the giant mechanical bee Hachi (蜂; 'bee'). After completing the first loop, the storyline reveals that the commander tells the pilot to continue the missions of fighting against the fellow troop members until one side is completely destroyed, with the game's second loop beginning 7 years later.
Introduced in this game and subsequently carried over to other CAVE games is the ranking system. Through skillful play (conserving lives and bombs, powering up your ship, obtaining bee medals, obtaining large combos, etc.), bullets fired by enemies will get subtly faster. In the original version rank starts at 0 and increases by 1 per stage in addition to rank collected through skillful play, but in the Hong Kong version rank starts at 10 and increases by 4 per stage in addition to rank collected through play.
Depending on the reigon released the game will have minor differences from the original Japanese version. The USA release has lesser rank and bombs are refilled after every stage, making the experience slightly easier. The Hong Kong version removes all story and is much more difficult, mainly through higher rank by default meaning faster bullets, and the hitbox is enlarged to fill up much more of the ships sprite. The Hong Kong version was considered near-impossible to complete until a 2-ALL playthrough (a completion of the game going through both loops) was uploaded to Youtube on December 29, 2021.
Synopsis
The premise of DonPachi differs from most of its brethren: the players assume the role of a pilot whose mission is to survive an eight-year-long training mission, where he proves his worth as a fighter and gain entry to the future elite "DonPachi Squadron".
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Developer(s) Cave
Publisher(s) Atlus
Producer(s) Kenichi Takano
Programmer(s) Hiroyuki Uchida
Toshiaki Tomizawa
Tsuneki Ikeda
Artist(s) Atsunori Aburatani
Jun Fujisaku
Kazuhiro Asaba
Composer(s) Ryūichi Yabuki
Series DonPachi
Platform(s) Arcade, PlayStation, PlayStation Network, Sega Saturn
Release
JP: May 1995
NA/HKG/KOR: 1995
Genre(s) Bullet hell
Mode(s)
Single-playerCo-op
Arcade system CAVE 68000
#DonPachi #atlus #arcade# 90s
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