DoDonPachi

1997 · Vertical Shooter · Arcade

About DoDonPachi

DoDonPachi (1997) is Cave's second game, an arcade bullet-hell shooter built around combo chains and a laser that slows the ship, with a hidden second loop and a twist about who the enemy really is.

DoDonPachi in Depth

The player picks one of three craft, a red fighter with a narrow stream, a green helicopter whose side guns turn with its movement, or a blue fighter with a three-way spread, and plays it in Shot or Laser mode. Tapping fire shoots normally; holding it merges the two option guns into a powerful laser that slows the ship and damages enemies it touches. Bombs act differently depending on the firing style: a screen-clearing explosion that cancels bullets, or a short-range, high-powered beam. Bomb slots start at three and rise by one with each life lost, up to six.

Scoring rests on combos. Destroying enemies or parts of them adds to a hit count and a draining gauge, and keeping the laser on an enemy holds the chain. Thirteen golden bees are hidden in each stage, worth more with each one found as long as the player does not die. Collecting a bomb with every slot full starts MAXIMUM mode, which adds points constantly and raises a multiplier. Clearing six areas on one credit while meeting conditions such as losing no more than two lives or scoring 50 million opens a far harder second loop, ending with the giant mechanical bees Hachi and Hibachi.

Making DoDonPachi

Atlus released DoDonPachi in Japanese arcades on 5 February 1997 on Cave's CAVE 68000 board, the sixth game on Cave's first-generation hardware. It builds on DonPachi's Get Point System, which it improved, and added MAXIMUM mode. A Saturn conversion followed in September 1997 and a PlayStation version by SPS in September 1998 with optional slowdown, both able to display in horizontal or vertical orientation. Cave later made mobile versions and its own sequel, DoDonPachi DaiOuJou, in 2002, after a DoDonPachi II from another developer in 2001.

Readers of Sega Saturn Magazine in Japan gave the Saturn version 8.9766 out of 10, and the game was included in 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die. Time Extension called it "one of the series most beloved entries".

DoDonPachi Trivia

Like DonPachi, its name joins a Japanese sound for gunfire with a term for bees; here it means roughly "angry leader bee".
Meeting the second-loop conditions reveals that the "aliens" were the pilot's own comrades, and the true ending shows that the commander Longhener wanted to wipe out humanity.
A harder Campaign Version was given as first prize in a Cave score contest; only one board is confirmed to exist and Cave said it lost the source code.
The Saturn port added a new stage and boss in its exclusive Saturn mode.
Players who finish without unlocking the second loop get no staff credits.