The latest M2 ShotTriggers reissue is out in just two weeks: DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou Rinne Tensei, a deluxe version of the third mainline game in Cave's illustrious series of arcade shooting games, originally released in April 2002 and quickly followed up with a "Black Label" revision later that year, as well as some other minor variants released in Asian territories. While players were initially split on the game's immediate, intense difficulty, it eventually solidified itself as a fan favourite and a game that many aficionados consider the peak of Cave's output.
Unlike many of the games selected for the M2STG treatment, DOJ was fortunate to have already received an excellent home port by way of Arika's 2003 PS2 version, with the only fault being the fact that it only covers the original "white label" version and not Black Label. The 2009 Xbox 360 port of Black Label, published by 5pb. and produced by an outsourced studio using stolen code from Arika's PS2 version, was pulled from sale and plagued with technical issues that Arika themselves made an attempt to fix but were never fully straightened out, so there's long been a demand for a fresh port that does justice to both versions of the game.
As usual, M2's gone all-out with their version of DOJ, throwing in multiple version and a ton of supplementary features and new modes for both new and returning players. They've been drip-feeding info on all these additions over the last several months via periodic live streams, the last of which just wrapped up, so lemme run down all the info in one place:
GENERAL ENHANCEMENTS
- border gadgets with lots of granular readouts & info that might otherwise be invisible
- optional visible ship hitboxes, hidden bee indicators & an altered life gauge for bosses that'll indicate when they're about to change forms
- three different soundtrack options (original, a new stereo mix by original composer Manabu Namiki and a brand-new arranged soundtrack produced by Super Sweep)
- "ver.2002" and "ver.2023" visual modes, with give you the option of replacing the original doll select, stage-clear and ending illustrations with all-new illustrations drawn by original illustrators/designers Junya Inoue and Shohei Satoh (viewable in high-res in the gallery)
ARCADE CHALLENGE: training mode, basically: you can jump in and play any segment of any stage on either loop with any ship/doll combo, with very granular settings for rank, hyper state, etc; there's also a metagame of no-missing segments under certain conditions, stringing together segments, etc. (AFAIK this is all white label-only...)
ARCADE REVIEW: a collection of snapshots of your deaths in the arcade mode that let you jump in, rewind by five seconds and immediately practice whatever killed you
SUPER EASY MODE: a staple M2STG arrange type, which for this release they're jokingly calling "daionjou":
- 1 loop with guaranteed Hibachi
- fewer & slower bullets across the board, but enemy durability remains untouched for the sake of chaining practice
- hyper automatically acquired once the gauge is full
- auto-hyper & auto-bomb on hit (priority on auto-hyper)
LUNA TOUR: another more casual mode with a stamp rally framing: the game is broken into 1-minute chunks for each doll/ship combo across loop 1, loop 2 and character-specific arrange, with an auto-adjusting difficulty that makes each segment easier or harder depending on prior performance. Clearing out all the segments unlocks yukkuri-esque stamp emote things, drawn by drawn by Akimaki Yuu (Touhou Chireikiden)
ARRANGE S: a Shotia-exclusive arrange with the following changes:
- permanent max-power hyper shot, but no laser or bomb (which also means no focus movement iirc)
- hyper rank governed by lives in stock
- additional extends for beating bosses and mid-bosses
- concentrating fire on tanky enemies builds a "rinne gauge"; once the gauge is maxed out, destroying an enemy will make it drop a bunch of bonus score items
ARRANGE L: a Leinyan-exclusive arrange with the following changes:
- permanent max-power laser
- using the laser on tanky enemies builds a "tensei gauge"; once the gauge is maxed out, destroying an enemy with the laser will cancel on-screen bullets into bonus items
- using the laser builds hyper gauge
- auto-hyper and auto-bomb
ARRANGE EX: an EXY-exclusive arrange meant for expert players, with the following changes:
- locked to loop-2, with no continues
- max power weapons
- the same laser properties as Arrange L
- auto-hyper & auto-bomb
- auto-pickup for hyper items
- hyper items generated at 3x the usual rate
- extends for beating bosses and mid-bosses
BLACK LABEL: for whatever reason, it's being treated as a secondary thing and not the main focus of the package, but it's here and playable with all the gadgets and custom settings and so on
DODONPACHI III: an international-only "grey label" version produced between the original and Black Label, which has never been ported before; it's more of a novelty than anything else, but if you want the changes, here are the big ones:
- English text (and compared to some of their other EN versions, it's fairly legible)
- the ability to bring up to 3 lives into loop 2 under certain conditions
- unique conditions for accessing the second loop
- unique maximum score bonus values
...and then there's all the other tertiary features like screen settings including tate, save states, replays and leaderboards for WL, BL, DDPIII, Super Easy and Arrange S / L / EX.
They're charging ¥4950 for the digital version, ¥7480 for the standard physical version and ¥10780 for the limited-edition package; here's a little info on those:
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first-print copies of the physical versions come with DODONPACHI DAIJOUBU, a 24-page strategy primer written by superplayers SPS and Clover-TAC that break down the first loop of white label
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the LE box includes an interview/materials book, a CD containing the new stereo-mixed BGM, reproduction arcade cards and a hyper item pin badge
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there's a whole bunch of retailer-specific bonus junk that I don't feel like breaking down, but I will point out a couple things: Amazon's bonus is an alternate game cover newly illustrated by Shohei Satoh, and one of AmiAmi's bonus items is a roll of masking tape with entire stage maps printed on
On top of all that, there are a few other separate items being released in tandem with Rinne Tensei: Super Sweep's releasing their new arranged soundtrack as a 2CD set on December 15, and RC Berg's putting out new garage kits for the DOJ ships in 1P colours, which will be available to order from November 25 to January 25, with shipping to commence in late March. (Some gunpla dork interjected on the stream with a breathless explanation of some new coloured resin technique they're using to provide quality cost-effective kits that don't require painting.)
