DoDonPachi: Resurrection

So the other day hailed the release of DoDonPachi: Resurection on the various idevices out there. As soon as I was able to download the game from the Apple App Store I did and immediately started playing it. I'm going to tell you right off the bat it's a good game but read on for more details.

Cave is a video game company known for it's scrolling shooters and DonPachi/DoDonPachi is probably their biggest series the one everyone who is into shooters knows of. Their games have been out in arcades and home consoles in Japan for years. I think DonPachi was in the U.S. arcades and maybe on the U.S. Saturn but I'm not positive on that one.

Lately they've been testing the waters outside of Japan with region free versions of some of their 360 games and by putting games out on the iphone. I reviewed the last iphone game, Espgaluda 2 on this very blog a few weeks ago. You can read that review here.

http://withrpgelements.blogspot.com/2010/07/iphone-game-review-espgaluda-2.html


So now we have DoDonPachi: Resurrection for the idevices. This game first off unlike Espgaluda 2 works on the ipad so you can get big screen bullet hell on you ipad.

DDP:R is the fifth game in the series and picks up after the events of part 4 with the DonPachi squad going back to base until the latest threat rises. One thing I've noticed with Cave shooters is that the stories are really fleshed out. Most of these type of games are just fly to boss and kill it then move on finish game for a high score. But these games always to me at least have very interesting stories and this one isn't any different.

Instead of typing it all out I'm taking this from Wikipedia...

After the turmoil caused by the machines' assault on Lunapolis (as depicted in the previous installment), peace seems to have been restored, with the legendary DonPachi Corps retreating to its HQ in a space-time fold. Six years later, anomalies are detected in the space-time fabric, yet tests reveal nothing out of order, with the portals regularly functioning for both teleportation and time travel; also, the leader of the DonPachi squadron Colonel Longhena Gottvin dismisses the matter due to the lack of actual danger.

Neverthless, a technician delves deeper into the anomaly, discovering that something has infiltrated the HQ computer systems and is using the portals to send large quantities of materials and data to the past, spreading out like a virus and quickly evolving. In an ironic twist, the virus is discovered to be the program originally installed in the Element Dolls six years ago, now reaching beyond the DonPachi Corps programming and seeking to annihilate the human race in retaliation for their "enslavement" (after the war, they were sealed on the Moon) by waging war in the past rather than in the present: unsettled, the Colonel authorizes the last transport ship to time jump in order to fight back the invasion before future changes. However, he states: "Start over from the past... I never thought of that", echoing the ideas of mankind's imperfection which has always been a recurring theme in the series.

And once again, the three pilots jump back in time to 2008 and enter the fray, the transport ship being targeted as soon as it exits the portal: the Element Daughters, gigantic evolutions of the Dolls, are awaiting...

The bee is still humming.


The game starts out with you choosing a mode and a difficulty. You can play the arcade game verison 1.5 or the new iphone mode. Arcade made is well the arcade game. You choose a ship one out of three and you're off. The three ships differ in shot spread, with ship A shooting pretty much straight and B and C spreading out their shoots more then A. After choosing a ship you can pick the type of powers you want. You can play with the standard ship shoots and you can drop bombs, You can power your gun up faster but can't use any bombs or a mix of both. After that the game sends you into battle and it's up to you to save the world.

The game controls like Espgaluda 2 did on the iphone which is perfect. You use your finger to drag the ship around the screen, the shooting is done automatically. The various buttons run along the side of the screen and can be edited into preset spaces if just on the right or left side of the screen isn't something you want. The buttons control your shot being on or off, the switching to laser, entering Hypermode and dropping bombs. As with Espgaluda 2 they never get in the way and work when you hit them. I'm going to say so far they don't get in the way even less than they did in Espgaluda 2 where I sometimes found myself sitting the shield button on accident a few times.

You have two forms of attack, the standard shot and the laser blast. The laser blast shoots directly forward in a thick beam of power but it also blocks enemy laser blasts allowing you to cut through the enemies and finish them off. I found it extremely useful during bosses and would just end up switching to it at the start of a boss fight, using it the whole battle. You can also drop bombs, these are some killer weapons that just devastate the normal enemies and do a massive amount of damage on the bosses. One thing about the bombs I like is if you have any in stock and take a hit you don't lose a life but you drop a bomb really making you feel like you have way more lives then you really have. You also have a meter that fills as you kill enemies and when it's full you can unleash your Hyper mode attack which takes whichever weapon you're using and amps the power up significantly. This weapon in shot mode will destroy enemy shots and the laser mode destroys lasers. It's pretty cool to use it and it feels like you're giving the enemies a taste of bullet hell for them to deal with.

Now you also have iphone mode which is similar to the above with a few changes, it's called Slaughter and Menace. You have a meter and it fills to the left and right. As you kill enemies it fills to the left or the S side. When you fill the S side up all the way your standard shots get maxed out but as you shoot you loose multiplier. You'll see in iphone mode your ship has a small field around it. If enemy shots pass into this field and don't hit you it's called scraping and that fill the right side of the meter or the M side and when that bar is full your multiplier goes up. When the M side fills your Hyper meter gets a boost and fills faster. When you activate your hyper cannon you are stationary and can't move but you can rotate the cannon left and right to target enemies. It's an interesting mode and I plan on spending some more time with it.

The graphics and sound are top notch. The game looks amazing on the iphone but I notice some major slowdown mainly when I use bombs so it's not a big deal. I am playing it on the 3GS so if I had an iphone 4 maybe it would run smoother but again the slowdown isn't really that bad but it's there. The music is awesome. I cranked it up the first time I played and I love it all. The title screen song is my favorite though.

DoDonPachi: Resurrection is an amazing game. It's even more amazing playing it on a mobile device but that's the age we live in. If you love scrolling shooters you need to pick this up. For the first few days it's on sale for 5 bucks and it's a steal at that price. I've only finished the arcade mode with one ship at the time of this writing but I'm no where near done with it. I still need to dot he second loop and get into the iphone mode a bit more. While I think it's a great game between the two that are out for the iphone I'd have to give the edge to Espgaluda 2 I don't know why but I like it a little more.

DoDonPachi: Resurrection - 9 out of 10