I think the original DoDonPachi is one of the weaker early Cave shooters, having a lot of stage portions and scoring mechanics that don't jell well with one another as much as it seems they intended to do so. While still being a good game, I would prefer going back to games like Guwange or the original DonPachi nowadays.
DaiOuJou on the other hand, feels like a realization of what they wanted to originally do with DoDonPachi, and it works
This is another case of being a game that is primarily filled with highs and lows like the original DoDonPachi, but I feel DaiOuJou has them much more well sparsed throughout the game. While the balance somehow seems worse than the original, with some ships like B-S and A-L being absolutely abysmal, and how with the Shot and Laser types, dropping a life makes your secondary shot drop all levels. This wasn't as bad in the OG DDP since you still dropped power-ups upon death, but not in this game, making the supposedly expert only EX type feel like a better option in many ocassions even with the lower bomb count. Also, exclusive to WL, for some god forsaken reason, your life total cannot go up over 5 lives, making the last life up completely useless if you no missed up to that point. WL in general feels very rushed out the door, which makes sense, as it was made in around 4 to 5 months.
This is luckily the only real complaints I have with this game, everything else is a direct upgrade from DDP. Stages feel much better designed and most chains feel like they have a lot of intentionality behind them. Bosses are just as good as in DDP which is great since they were the best part of that game. Bees being a multiplier of your current chain adds a lot of neat optimization to the game, and the newly added hyper system works wonderfully as a screen clear, and scoring tool, without being extremely centralizing as in DFK. It recharges your chain meter upon activation while increasing the number of chain hits you deal, according to the number of hyper medals you have collected. All of this makes for a game very open to routing for the player, with optimizations being found everywhere, instead of being a very static but brutal affair as it was in the original DDP.
My sole reason to go back to DDP nowadays is to get the remaining 1-All with the other ships, if I want some good DDP chaining and hypering action, DaiOuJou satisfies all my needs.
For reference, this is how I rate each version:
WL: 7.5/10
DDP3: 8/10
BL: 9/10
DaiOuJou on the other hand, feels like a realization of what they wanted to originally do with DoDonPachi, and it works
This is another case of being a game that is primarily filled with highs and lows like the original DoDonPachi, but I feel DaiOuJou has them much more well sparsed throughout the game. While the balance somehow seems worse than the original, with some ships like B-S and A-L being absolutely abysmal, and how with the Shot and Laser types, dropping a life makes your secondary shot drop all levels. This wasn't as bad in the OG DDP since you still dropped power-ups upon death, but not in this game, making the supposedly expert only EX type feel like a better option in many ocassions even with the lower bomb count. Also, exclusive to WL, for some god forsaken reason, your life total cannot go up over 5 lives, making the last life up completely useless if you no missed up to that point. WL in general feels very rushed out the door, which makes sense, as it was made in around 4 to 5 months.
This is luckily the only real complaints I have with this game, everything else is a direct upgrade from DDP. Stages feel much better designed and most chains feel like they have a lot of intentionality behind them. Bosses are just as good as in DDP which is great since they were the best part of that game. Bees being a multiplier of your current chain adds a lot of neat optimization to the game, and the newly added hyper system works wonderfully as a screen clear, and scoring tool, without being extremely centralizing as in DFK. It recharges your chain meter upon activation while increasing the number of chain hits you deal, according to the number of hyper medals you have collected. All of this makes for a game very open to routing for the player, with optimizations being found everywhere, instead of being a very static but brutal affair as it was in the original DDP.
My sole reason to go back to DDP nowadays is to get the remaining 1-All with the other ships, if I want some good DDP chaining and hypering action, DaiOuJou satisfies all my needs.
For reference, this is how I rate each version:
WL: 7.5/10
DDP3: 8/10
BL: 9/10