It absolutely feels that M2’s ShotTriggers series has been building up to this moment.
And yet one thing has been missing from an imprint that so often emphasises bullet hell shooters.
That thing is a DoDonPachi title.
And yet now, finally, we have it.
A good number will even tell you it is the best shooter there is.
Switch owners seem to have to endure three-frame lag, but that is still a trivial deviation.
Let’s be clear.
The original DaiOuJou is appropriately generic.
In spirit, it is a shooter that never lets up.
After perhaps three seconds at the game’s start, it is relentless.
The visual nuance is enchanting, with every explosion and piercing laser beam oozing aesthetic flare.
Like DonPachi and DoDonPachi before it, DaiOuJou is a chaining shooter.
Hold your laser on a larger enemy, and the chain is maintained or creeps up.
And then there’s the Hyper; an alternative to the bomb earned through the likes of destroying enemies.
Fill your Hyper bar, and a Hyper medal appears.
One credit into DoDonPachi DaiOuJou, and it feels impossibly insurmountable.
And that’s just the start.
That essentially offers up a version of DaiOuJou generally agreed to be a shade easier.
And then there are those three brand new ‘arranges’, entirely built by M2 for this release.
Played simply, Arrange S is very easy to the point of occasionally feeling empty of substance.
But the more you Hyper, the more you increase the risk summoning the real bullet hell.
There’s more to be unearthed than first meets the eye.
Multiple modes offer a very wide variety of levels of challenge.
Controller rebinding and autofire controls are available.
Customisable difficulty, life stock and extend parameters are included.
Significant customising of UI is offered.
Note much menu text to adjust these options is in Japanese, while some is in English.
A Camera-based translation app makes reading the menus navigable for non-Japanese readers.
There’s a language barrier here and there, but on the whole English dominates.
What ShotTriggers does to trump DoDonPachi DaiOuJou Blissful Death re:Incarnation, I can only imagine.
