[1all] Dodonpachi DaiFukkatsu 1.5 (B-Strong) - 2025-12-16

Описание: This is the arcade 1.5 version, played on FBNeo. I would have played the Steam version but don't have access to my PC right now, and having save states makes it a lot easier to practice. All told I've probably played this mode for around 10hrs or so, spread over the last few months. I practiced for about 2-3hrs over the last few days before getting this clear.

00:00 Stage 1: I hyper at the midboss for a little score. Otherwise not much to say
02:14 Stage 2: Bulk of scoring to reach the 1 billion score extend happens in this stage. Mainly I hyper slightly before the midboss and carry the chain through the midboss fight, then hyper again as soon as I get the next one. Sometimes this can get me to 1 billion points by itself, but more often gets me around 500-700m points. For the boss, I try to build up a hyper for the final pattern to avoid dodging it.
05:05 Stage 3: Surprisingly tricky stage with a lot of bullets. I try to aim for no-miss but losing 1 life is OK here, as long as you get the hidden extend. I save a hyper to ensure getting the hidden extend, since killing the big cannon with a bomb loses the extend. For the boss, I again save a hyper for the last pattern.
09:12 Stage 4: Had to spend some time routing this stage, but with a good route it's not too bad. I use bombs on the boss to skip all its hard patterns, and again save a hyper for the last pattern.
13:37 Stage 5: Bulk of the difficulty is the laser wheels. I took some strats from this video    • [STG] - Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu 1.5 Laser W...   to try and minimize resource usage, but still budgeted around 5-6 bombs to get through it. Rest of the stage is challenging but not extremely difficult. For the final boss I try to pointblank while bombing to build up hypers, but otherwise just bomb a lot. 6 bombs should be enough to consistently kill the boss.

I've played DFK on and off since clearing Novice on the PC port some time ago, but always found it a little too hard and chaotic to clear. Could make it to stage 5 consistently but would always get murked up by the laser wheels. After clearing DOJ and grinding Ketsui for a while, I found the other parts a lot more manageable, and was able to find a route that would get me to the laser wheels with enough bombs/extends to tank through it. I did the bulk of my practice with C-Strong, which I found better on the stages. But after playing a bit of B-Strong I found it worked fine for the stages and was a little better on bosses.

Generally I like DFK but not as much as the other Dodonpachi games I've played so far. I like how fast-paced and intense the game is moment to moment, but I find that nothing stands out as much as the other games and it all kind of starts blending together in my mind. It doesn't help that you can basically use the same overall survival strategies for most of the game (fly in a U-shape or circles to misdirect bullets, hyper when bullets get too dense for survival, focus down big enemies, alternate laser and shot when passing through purple lasers to clear popcorn). The one big exception is the laser wheels, which I don't find fun/rewarding to learn and feel very out of place for a bullet hell game. The scoring system also seems weirdly obtuse and I'm not really motivated to get into it. The second score extend is as 10 billion points and I can't find any examples (outside of superplays) on how to get it - all the "regular" 1cc videos I found scored significantly lower.

Even though DFK has a reputation for being a very easy CAVE 1cc (at least using Strong ships), I still found it fairly challenging due to the general high bullet count, non-trivial scoring extends, and routing required to get through final stage with enough resources. I think it becomes relatively easier than other CAVE games the better your core dodging skills/fundamentals are, since the auto-bomb system means you can be very consistent - especially compared to something like Mushi where you can die unexpectedly and lose a ton of bombs for a very small mistake. But I feel like it's harder to strictly route out the game to overcome weak fundamentals because of how much stuff is going on. In any case I'm happy to cross this one off my list, and maybe now I will stop procrastinating on Ketsui :)