I've been wanting to start a series on writing about all of CAVE's shooting games (Shmups, STGs). I enjoy a lot of them, they're interesting, and I think there's a mildly interesting narrative I can weave about the evolution of a company's design over a decade and a half of being the most influential developer in a niche genre.
The problem with starting that series is that it has to begin with Donpachi, which is kinda boring. It's the sort of shmup that you'd see in the background of a sitcom taking place in an arcade. A extremely generic aesthetic combined with gameplay that's really not that compelling, decent but basic scoring, and a difficulty curve that often feels more unfair than challenging. The music is also very bland, especially considering the strength of the music in pretty much every other CAVE title.
The only things that really sticks about donpachi is it's very good sprite art and very good sense of control, which is something CAVE would continue to excel at. There's also the delightful announcer, who brings a certain energy to the game that only a foreign man pulled off the street for a mid-90s japanese videogame truly can.
It's really only in the minutae, and in the context of the past and future, that Donpachi becomes interesting - CAVE was formed from ex-Toaplan staff after that company went defunct, and Donpachi feels way closer to the style of Toaplan than CAVE's later work - fast bullets rather than lots of them, relatively large player hitbox, very little in the way of intricate bullet patterns. But just under the surface, the start of the style CAVE would effectively codify as "bullet hell" is just peeking out from under the surface. It's particularly evident in the second loop, where enemies stream large swathes of revenge bullets at the player on death, there's more of a reliance on hardware slowdown as a gameplay mechanic, the bullet count is generally higher, and the true last boss, Taisabachi, almost plays and feels like later CAVE bosses, albeit with far more of an emphasis on bullet speed than interweaving patterns. It's a shame that more of the game doesn't play like the second loop, considering it takes about half an hour of a pretty meh shmup to get to a more interesting, and absurdly brutal one.
In the end, I don't think Donpachi quite works. It's fundementally fine, but even comparing it to the work of late Toaplan - Notably Batsugun, Dogyuun and Grind Stormer- its pretty forgettable, and certaintly lacks thier flair. And to some extent, I think if it werent for who made it, and the game's successors, DonPachi would be mostly forgotten as one of many average shmups from the mid-90s. Fortunately for CAVE, their second STG - the sequel to DonPachi - was anything but forgettable.
The problem with starting that series is that it has to begin with Donpachi, which is kinda boring. It's the sort of shmup that you'd see in the background of a sitcom taking place in an arcade. A extremely generic aesthetic combined with gameplay that's really not that compelling, decent but basic scoring, and a difficulty curve that often feels more unfair than challenging. The music is also very bland, especially considering the strength of the music in pretty much every other CAVE title.
The only things that really sticks about donpachi is it's very good sprite art and very good sense of control, which is something CAVE would continue to excel at. There's also the delightful announcer, who brings a certain energy to the game that only a foreign man pulled off the street for a mid-90s japanese videogame truly can.
It's really only in the minutae, and in the context of the past and future, that Donpachi becomes interesting - CAVE was formed from ex-Toaplan staff after that company went defunct, and Donpachi feels way closer to the style of Toaplan than CAVE's later work - fast bullets rather than lots of them, relatively large player hitbox, very little in the way of intricate bullet patterns. But just under the surface, the start of the style CAVE would effectively codify as "bullet hell" is just peeking out from under the surface. It's particularly evident in the second loop, where enemies stream large swathes of revenge bullets at the player on death, there's more of a reliance on hardware slowdown as a gameplay mechanic, the bullet count is generally higher, and the true last boss, Taisabachi, almost plays and feels like later CAVE bosses, albeit with far more of an emphasis on bullet speed than interweaving patterns. It's a shame that more of the game doesn't play like the second loop, considering it takes about half an hour of a pretty meh shmup to get to a more interesting, and absurdly brutal one.
In the end, I don't think Donpachi quite works. It's fundementally fine, but even comparing it to the work of late Toaplan - Notably Batsugun, Dogyuun and Grind Stormer- its pretty forgettable, and certaintly lacks thier flair. And to some extent, I think if it werent for who made it, and the game's successors, DonPachi would be mostly forgotten as one of many average shmups from the mid-90s. Fortunately for CAVE, their second STG - the sequel to DonPachi - was anything but forgettable.