Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Dodonpachi Daioujou is a bullet hell shooter created by CAVE, originally released in arcades back in 2002. In 2023, M2 released an incredible port for the PS4 and Switch (known as Dodonpachi Daioujou Re:Incarnation) that finally gave this game the treatment it deserves for consoles, with every option you could ask for and near flawless port accuracy. If you're not familiar with Daioujou, I'll start off by saying that it's the best game that's ever been (and ever will be) made, and it's also one of the hardest games in existence. It can't be overstated* how brutally unforgiving this game is. Once you get into the second loop, which strips away all of your lives and makes you earn them back one by one, any mistake at any point can be the end of your credit. The obscenely high difficulty is what keeps this game exciting though, even after you've spent thousands of hours playing it. There's always room to improve.
I should also note that there are two different versions of this game. There's the original arcade release, that's commonly referred to as White Label (due to its white title screen), and a version they released a year later, known as Black Label. They made a lot of changes in Black Label, but to quickly summarize them, they made it much easier to survive, and increased your potential scoring opportunities. Both games are still widely played, and I love both versions for different reasons. The enormous pressure of the original, and the more interesting scoring of the revision compliment each other very well.
I've been playing White Label in particular on and off for the last year. This is the first time I got a score that I'm really satisfied with, although my ultimate goal is to get over that 2 billion point wall. I'll have to take a few more risks for that, so it'll probably be a while before I get it done. In this run, the only significant score mistakes were a death on the 1-1 boss (lol), which costs less than 10 million, and an early hyper usage on the 2-2 midboss, which costs 15-20 million. I'm pretty sure everything else went more or less as planned, so I'm really happy with how this went overall.
PS. Daioujou was featured in Daigo Umehara's Kemonomichi series a few years ago. I HIGHLY recommend checking that out if you haven't seen it yet. This game could not be presented any better to a new audience, and two STG gods put on an incredible show:
youtube.com/watch?v=6jBKVqE517Y
youtube.com/watch?v=tcYkpEijW_I
0:00 Intro
0:31 1-1
3:15 1-2
6:08 1-3
10:08 1-4
14:51 1-5
20:58 2-1
23:12 2-2
26:04 2-3
29:57 2-4
34:43 2-5
38:49 Last Boss
41:27 Ending & Credits
-----
Beat 'em Ups (e.g. Final Fight): youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfI6IYca_kvMhpG1GR9sk8OYiWQMZZTgl
2D Action (e.g. Metal Slug): youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfI6IYca_kvNFjpnJ59Th6N0IU1PSpD3d
STG/Shmups (e.g. Dodonpachi): youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFE6B3779BE759F71
Dodonpachi Daioujou is a bullet hell shooter created by CAVE, originally released in arcades back in 2002. In 2023, M2 released an incredible port for the PS4 and Switch (known as Dodonpachi Daioujou Re:Incarnation) that finally gave this game the treatment it deserves for consoles, with every option you could ask for and near flawless port accuracy. If you're not familiar with Daioujou, I'll start off by saying that it's the best game that's ever been (and ever will be) made, and it's also one of the hardest games in existence. It can't be overstated* how brutally unforgiving this game is. Once you get into the second loop, which strips away all of your lives and makes you earn them back one by one, any mistake at any point can be the end of your credit. The obscenely high difficulty is what keeps this game exciting though, even after you've spent thousands of hours playing it. There's always room to improve.
I should also note that there are two different versions of this game. There's the original arcade release, that's commonly referred to as White Label (due to its white title screen), and a version they released a year later, known as Black Label. They made a lot of changes in Black Label, but to quickly summarize them, they made it much easier to survive, and increased your potential scoring opportunities. Both games are still widely played, and I love both versions for different reasons. The enormous pressure of the original, and the more interesting scoring of the revision compliment each other very well.
I've been playing White Label in particular on and off for the last year. This is the first time I got a score that I'm really satisfied with, although my ultimate goal is to get over that 2 billion point wall. I'll have to take a few more risks for that, so it'll probably be a while before I get it done. In this run, the only significant score mistakes were a death on the 1-1 boss (lol), which costs less than 10 million, and an early hyper usage on the 2-2 midboss, which costs 15-20 million. I'm pretty sure everything else went more or less as planned, so I'm really happy with how this went overall.
PS. Daioujou was featured in Daigo Umehara's Kemonomichi series a few years ago. I HIGHLY recommend checking that out if you haven't seen it yet. This game could not be presented any better to a new audience, and two STG gods put on an incredible show:
youtube.com/watch?v=6jBKVqE517Y
youtube.com/watch?v=tcYkpEijW_I
0:00 Intro
0:31 1-1
3:15 1-2
6:08 1-3
10:08 1-4
14:51 1-5
20:58 2-1
23:12 2-2
26:04 2-3
29:57 2-4
34:43 2-5
38:49 Last Boss
41:27 Ending & Credits
-----
Beat 'em Ups (e.g. Final Fight): youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfI6IYca_kvMhpG1GR9sk8OYiWQMZZTgl
2D Action (e.g. Metal Slug): youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfI6IYca_kvNFjpnJ59Th6N0IU1PSpD3d
STG/Shmups (e.g. Dodonpachi): youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFE6B3779BE759F71
