While we were excited and prepared for the release of Project Diva F on Playstation Vita as well as M***’s August 31st birthday which already marked her fifth anniversary, there was some announcement from Cave.
Two days ago, Dodonpachi Resurrection and Espgaluda II were finally on Google Play globally for Android so there’s not much to say in this article.
Apparently, the game was recently released two days ago for the Iphone but there’s some problem that holds back the port. Although the non-in-game backgrounds and foregrounds are sharp enough for the Iphone and Ipad versions, the in-game graphics themselves are not in HD. It’s the same for the prequel as Mushihimesama Futari must be using the same sort of template as the prequel elsewhere for Dodonpachi Resurrection and Espgaluda II, they already have the HD graphics that are optimized for other IOS devices besides the Ipad. Also, you get the smartphone exclusive wallpapers outside the gameplay which are different than the Xbox 360 ports. It’s kind of shameful that the Smartphone mode is missing in this game and that’s the second disadvantage.
Well, I already had the Xbox 360 version from the Asian Games On Demand service and from that time, you could remember that I set the settings to max lives and max bombs and other stuff before starting the game in Ultra Mode like I spammed lots of bombs at the patterns I couldn’t dodge. It’s so hard and the same thing applies to the smartphone version but the smartphone version contains four difficulty ranks or whatever which are the overall game difficulties where else the three difficulties are the sub-difficulties but they serve different purposes. Original mode doesn’t bring up the danmaku a lot but for Ultra mode, it is a must if you want to face the true last boss.
Now this one seems to be d***ing some forest off ever since the prequel if you have known the storyline. In this sequel, Aki is killed in the battle in the prequel and it seems that the poison is over for awhile. But to Queen Larsa’s reaction, she has decided to send out her forces including Palm to deal with Princess Reco as revenge. Indeed, it’s a 200-year peaceful living that the 15-year old person must be sacrificed for the villagers in the forest to survive.
Unfortunately, one of the songs, Intense Singing of H****** M*** is seriously the hardest song. I still can’t clear this on Project Diva Extend on PSP in Extreme Mode and the same problem went to the arcade version where things got that trickier like there was a lack of memorization of the beatmap. So far, I had done the songs from January and February updates and the March Update is the next.
From the March update, it will feature two new songs we don’t even know of at first as well as three of the songs from Project Diva 2nd. This brings a total of five and the update will be available in late March or something.
Meanwhile after this, I bought 1600 MS Points to buy Espgaluda II from Asian Games On Demand but think that I’m free after this? No, I’m still not free like that as it may be boring without working on something anyway on my computer.
Now, speaking of Miku Flick on Iphone, even AppSpy had talked about it and guess what, the music in the background is the concert version of one of the songs. Oh man, will you stop referring to the Vocaloid concerts as the first step of Vocaloid research and knowledge like that? So in the game, you’re supposed to flick on the respective Japanese characters to the music on the virtual keyboard. The markers appear on the keys like you’re playing Jubeat but then you’re supposed to swipe your finger on the markers in the respective directions. The downside is that the frame-rate is kind of choppy than smooth and the number of songs is obviously the least. Imagine treating the Japanese virtual keyboard on your smartphone as that game to whatever song you’re playing that is NOT on that game. That will be Break The Limit + Stealth Mode which this combination is twice as hard as Break The Limit mode. It may be a good deal to memorize the beatmaps from that game but the way you insert the Japanese words by typing like that will be inaccurate as if the lyrics you typed to the music may look like rubbish or something. However in the game, it appears that certain Japanese words will be fixed for you so think before you try treating the 10-key Japanese virtual keyboard as that game on your smartphone as things may be inaccurate. It’s a great idea but inaccurate to be frank.
In fact, there was a doujin Vocaloid rhythm game where you have to type in the lyrics with the computer keyboard to the music which could be even trickier as I thought. You’re supposed to type in the sentence of the lyrics on time to the music before the song moves on to the next line.
Well, what do you know? The Omake mode may seem to be one of my favorites and is one fun mode you may want to try. Even at Rank 4, you’ll still be able to one credit clear that mode. When the bullets come close to you, they turn red and when you destroy an enemy, the red bullets that are close to you are cleared. Also, you’ll get like so much of Spirit Gems like crazy in Omake mode that you may have to spend time going into Awakening Mode a lot to score points. However, the downside of the mode is that, there’s no second level of Awakening Mode that decreases the number of Spirit Gems collected quickly and you can’t even make the bullets turn red once you run out of Spirit Gems in Awakening Mode. Instead, you’ll immediately return back to normal mode once you run out of Spirit Gems. You cannot go to Awakening Mode without those gems. You’ll have to collect them first. Also, you can’t even use the Energy Laser thing manually so the only way to activate it is to get hit by something which is sort of like auto-bombing. All the modes are accessible unlike Deathsmiles from Asian Games On Demand in which I couldn’t access the Mega Black Label group of modes entirely and the DLCs for Mega Black Label related modes are not in Asian Games On Demand as well. You can also use the Energy Laser to obtain Spirit Gems from enemy bullets just like the prequel’s Arrange Mode.
The Arrange mode is sort of like Ikaruga except that you have to shoot the bullets of one corresponding color. Wide Shot = Blue Bullets and Straight Shot = Pink Bullets. However, if you run out of Spirit Gems while in Awakening Mode, you can shoot all the bullets regardless of shot type and bullet color but be careful, even this method is limited as once you run out of Gold Bonus Gems, you’ll be kicked out of Awakening Mode similar to Omake Mode in which you’ll be kicked out for running out of Spirit Gems or Gold Bonus Gems. You must collect either Spirit Gems or Gold Bonus Gems in order to activate Awakening Mode. You can also collect Spirit Gems by shooting down the enemy bullets in Normal Mode while you can collect Gold Bonus Gems from enemy bullets in Awakening Mode as long as you run out of Spirit Gems.
Black Label has grazing but the way you cancel the bullets is opposite. This means that you don’t cancel bullets in Awakening Mode but who knows?
Lastly, there’s a strange problem regarding Espgaluda II HD. From what we know at Espgaluda II Smartphone official page, the HD version works on the Apple tablet devices only so what the heck is the HD version doing on the Iphone version category. You know, this is not gonna work on your Iphone and will crash like crazy like it did on my Ipod Touch. However, it turns out that they were actually planning to make the HD version for the game for Iphone but how the heck can this work on Ipod Touch 4th Gen?
Looks like the Iphone 4 series and Ipod Touch 4th Gen users will get the HD update of the game that was released two years ago. It may be the same for IPad version but this is not the first time anyway as the previous game on that tablet with HD support is Espgaluda II which was also released two years ago. Last year, Espgaluda II for IPad had the HD update as well as the Smartphone Mode music that applies to the entire IOS version of the game.
The downside of this news is that they forgot to show off the trailer of the HD version of this game that was recently released yesterday. Basically, the HD version features the graphics that are similar to the Xbox 360 version. Also, the Smartphone Mode exclusive stuffs will get the HD look as well.
However, there are some differences by the way between the IOS and Xbox 360 versions. The Smartphone mode of Espgaluda II has you touch any part of the screen to clear off everything while in Awakening Mode. For example, if you touch the area with the turret, everything on that area will be cleared. Whether it’s the other enemies or the bullets that are above or next to that turret, touching that area destroys them including the turret and you get more Spirit Gems from clearing the enemy bullets while in that mode. Elsewhere in Black Label edition in Xbox 360 version, you can graze for awhile without getting hit while in Awakening Mode but who knows if that is true or not as I still haven’t got that game yet from Games On Demand. Also, the Arrange Mode can allow you to shoot back the enemy bullets while in Awakening Mode as long as you run out of the Spirit Gems. For Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu on smartphones, you get the giant hyper laser that looks like the rip off of Marisa’s Master Spark after spinning a lot in Hyper Mode. This is also in Dodonpachi Maximum for Windows Phone 7 but the bombing system may seem to be based on Dodonpachi II so that you can fill up the Laser Bomb bar as many as you can. Plus, there’s also grazing but that reduces your firepower to increase the Hyper Bar. Shooting lots of enemies on the other hand increases your firepower. For Xbox 360 version of Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu, the Arrange A Mode features the ships from Dodonpachi Daioujou and it is somewhat harder than usual while Arrange B has true graphical enhancements and like Espgaluda II’s Arrange Mode, the enemies may somewhat get stronger on higher levels. Also what’s different from Black Label edition is that you get two bars on top which may be equal to two bombs but that doesn’t mean you get two Hypers though as using Hyper Mode takes away one of the bars that is completely filled. The better side of Arrange B is that you get unlimited lives and it is somewhat the Arranged Training Mode.
After buying Eschatos from Games on Demand, it seemed that there were two more to buy like I already purchased yesterday. But when I went to Games on Demand section from Xbox Live Marketplace to get those two games, another one, Espgaluda II was recently released in March 6th. That was one day before Dodonpachi Maximum was released.
Furthermore, I went to the arcade to play the same game again and now there are four machines compared to two the other time. What a game clustering in case the buttons refusing to work usually one day and nowadays, the redundancy power has risen. So I played three of the songs from the January update as well as one of the songs from February update. The February update was none other than the pack of songs from Project Diva 2nd. Even if you have that game, the beatmaps are different between the arcade and PSP versions. Unfortunately, I felt nervous to play that song in Extreme mode from that February update so I decided to try it in Hard Mode as I can’t even clear this song in Project Diva Extend in Extreme Mode. Well, I keep on failing that because it’s way impossible for me in Extreme Mode but at least I can clear it in Hard Mode.
For Mushihimesama Futari in Ultra Mode, I even attempted it with highest amount of lives and bombs and I keep on spamming bombs on shit I can’t even dodge. This is one mode that will kick your ass in seconds and even I’m not an expert in this genre. So hard that that IAP faggot who presented with me can go and troll on that difficulty mode like she’s going to say stupid things like, ‘We don’t want so many bullets/dots.’, ‘We don’t want the game that is so difficult.’, ‘Playing simple games is better’, etc. Perhaps I can take her for a difficulty-fag and she can go back to play casual games after February 10th. As my case study presentation was successful, she deserves to repeat anyway next month.
So remember, visual and motion simplification is a test of limits by the way. You don’t want to see the games with the interface being too simple.
This includes Iphone Mode where you can touch the area as a mini bomb thing. The green touch effect reminds me of one of those bomb effects in Imperishable Night. However, you can’t move while in Kakusei Mode and choosing the simpler control mode reduces your intentions when playing this game. Also, the title screen is modified to make use of pixel perfect foreground positions while the background itself is resized. Better off playing in Horizontal Mode if available but that can be troublesome with touchscreen feature. Maybe you can put down the Iphone on the table for better playing but because it’s small, there will be trouble playing certain games properly with the finger. Seems that Iphone HD and Zune HD will be better in terms of resolution. The Iphone Mode can be useful for DS port but porting to DS will not be what I already want the game to look like. The game play resolution of Iphone version is perfectly fine saying that this is what the Iphone shmup game should have been. The graphical problem with Iphone version is that the transparencies of the effects have been turned off into darkening them apart and the gameplay problem is that it’s not easy on the smaller screen.
Meanwhile, the modern destructive war had apparently begun as we know and there's no way this can be stopped. Apparently, there may be misunderstanding but of course not. There may be admits that such true involvements have been happening. Everyone's time is running out and there's no rights for us to stop this even if someone has the power to freeze time forever that such destructions from outside will be left unaffected.