Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label [strats]

[Sapz]

I'm a little unsure about the best way to actually play this game, and I figured others might be too, so I'll start by sharing what I think I know about it so far. Hopefully you guys will find it useful, and feel free to chime in and fill in the gaps/correct me where I'm wrong. 

Your Ship

• If you use an autobomb ship, hypers and bombs work the same way as in DFK WL; you have a bomb stock and a hyper bar, and a miniature bomb will be used if you get hit. You cannot store hypers in this mode. This mode is not recommended for scoring.
• If you don't use autobomb, your bomb stock is replaced with a B/H item. Every time you bomb or hyper, one item is removed from your stock; every time you collect a bomb or fill the hyper gauge, one is added (and the hyper bar is reset if you got it that way). This mode is recommended for scoring!
• With Bomb or Strong style ships, you can increase your maximum bomb/hyper stock by collecting a bomb while already at full B/H stock (you know you've done it when you see 'Maximum x2', up to a max B/H stock of 6.
• Bomb and Power styles have first loop patterns/rank (though Power may be slightly harder in spots?), while Strong styles have Tsuujou patterns, including suicide bullets. I don't think rank resets to 0 between stages in Strong style either, though I could be mistaken; if it's the same as Tsuujou, it halves between stages.

Rank, Hypers and Other Stuff

• If you use shot and laser at the same time, the rank bar at the top starts rising. If you stop using both, it will stop, and start decreasing after a short while. It has 4 distinct modes - low, about half full, in the red, and maxed, and at each of these the amount of bullets increases. This is imperative for scoring well, but makes survival harder. Also, your hypers will charge faster the higher your rank is.
• Rank rises at normal speed if you use a Bomb ship or a Power ship in Normal mode. Rank rises at double speed if you're using a Power ship in Boost mode, or a Strong ship.
• Bees can be collected while gold, flashing or green. When they're gold, they cancel all on-screen bullets into small stars; when flashing, they cancel into larger, more valuable stars, and fill up your hyper meter slightly. When green, they fill up the hyper meter without cancelling bullets. Ideally, you'll always collect bees as they flash.
• You can end hypers prematurely by pressing the hyper button again. In return, hyper invincibilities and hyper length in general are shorter than in DFK WL. When a hyper ends, half a bar's worth is removed from your rank. If you cancel a hyper during the warning screen before a boss, you do not lose any rank.
  
• I'm not 100% sure on reaching Ura with Bomb or Strong, but these are the conditions that have worked for me:
  • Don't let any silos get run over (the same silos as in DFK).
  • Make sure the rank is maxed ASAP, ideally before the first tank, and that it stays maxed until the midboss spawns.
  • Make sure you collect all three bees, the first two of which must be flashing.
• If you die on an Ura midboss, I think you get kicked out for the next stage onwards. They're very tough requirements, don't worry if it takes a while to get them to show up.
• If you use Power style, you are forced into Ura midbosses for stage 1.

Scoring

• Your main sources of points are stars (preferably large) and shooting bosses while at high rank. The amount of points you get from either of these is affected by your chain value, displayed in the top left.
• Your chain value increases for shooting enemies, and decreases if the hits meter starts going down; if the chain breaks, it goes back to 0. Generally, small enemies increase it by a pretty insignificant amount, while big enemies like the really wide Stage 4 ships can increase it by millions at a time.
• You can make enemies add more points to your chain value by using the hit multipliers; I'm not sure, but I think this works with the same values as regular DFK. This means x2 value at 500 hits, x3 at 1k, x4 at 3k, x5 at 5k, x6 at 7k, and it maxes at x7 value at 10k hits. I'm 90% sure that this multiplier only kicks in when the rank is red. I think there may also be a bonus applied when the rank is maxed, though I'm less sure about this.
  
• You don't gain any hits for cancelling bullets with hypers; you can only get hits by shooting enemies, or from bullets cancelled by other means, like grabbing bees, or destroying enemies who cancel their own bullets. Many enemies will self-cancel if you destroy them with shot + laser at the same time, so do this a lot. Aside from this, more bullets means more hits gained, so try to keep the rank as high as possible by using S+L often. It's also worth waiting for a bee to flash as a screen fills up with bullets before grabbing it, turning the whole screen into huge stars and raking in the points and hits.
• There appear to be three ways you can break your chain:
  • Using any kind of bomb.
  • Dying while a hyper is active.
  • Letting the chain meter empty while a hyper is active.
  Therefore, if you use an Autobomb OFF ship, you should never use bombs until the EX stage, unless you've already broken your chain. If you use an Autobomb ON ship, you can save your chain after autobomb by using a hyper during the autobomb.
  
• Once there are a lot of bullets on screen and you have a high chain value, you can use a hyper to cancel a lot of bullets into stars; try to keep enemies alive so there are more to cancel. However, half a bar gets removed from your rank meter after a hyper ends, so be careful not to end one at a bad moment when valuable enemies will appear. Cancelling bullets at a boss or midboss with a hyper does not yield any stars.
• When at a boss, try not to hit them as little as possible until your rank is at least red, unless you've broken your chain. At red rank, you start getting huge points for hitting the boss with S+L, and the points come even faster if the rank is maxed. If you destroy a boss at max rank with S+L, they release larger stars, which are extremely valuable - you can often get almost half your stage's score from the boss fight alone. You can milk bosses for extra points by shooting invincible parts (e.g. using an enemy laser to block your own laser, shooting at the mini robots on the third boss, shooting at the red balls or satellites on the fourth boss).
  • Be warned that if you try to milk, you will start to encounter some special, extra vicious patterns on some bosses, notably the first and third (and maybe others?). The attacks seem to come in at different points depending on the ship you use - the third boss' final phase gets nasty on the third cycle for A-Bomb, but on the second for A-Power, presumably because of the power difference. For this reason, it's easiest to encounter them with Power ships in Normal mode.
  
  

That's all I've got so far. Feel free to weigh in, I'm still pretty new to the game so likely I screwed up somewhere and/or am missing something vital. :laugh:

[EOJ]

Nice write-up.

One tip to add: if you use Bomb, Power, or Strong style with Autobomb ON and you use a hyper (if your hyper gauge is full) right when you autobomb, your chain will not break.

[CIB]

Some replays I have uploaded on youtube:

A-type bomb mode:
http://www.youtube.com/maximilianodent#g/c/B1187C9C992CC916

B-type bomb mode:
http://www.youtube.com/maximilianodent#p/c/4B9D8EAB7E4EB811/0/-3f7QsMXmu4

C-type power mode (low quality but the guy really knows his shiet  )
http://www.youtube.com/maximilianodent#g/c/AE923A807C719E6F

B-type strong mode:
http://www.youtube.com/maximilianodent#p/c/3C50C241E74B149F/0/tNuW-Pw9xuE

[Sapz]

Nice write-up.

One tip to add: if you use Bomb, Power, or Strong style with Autobomb ON and you use a hyper (if your hyper gauge is full) right when you autobomb, your chain will not break.

Thanks, and interesting! Didn't know that.

Got a few more tidbits:

• Power in Boost and Strong ships gain rank at double the speed compared to Bomb and Power in Normal ships.
• In (some/all?) boss fights with Power ships, if the fight goes on long enough (usually meaning you've used Normal rather than Boost to attack the boss, for more hits and points), attacks become far more difficult - notable ones I've found are the Stage 1 boss' pink spread attack becoming more vicious, and the Stage 3 boss' streaming attack in the final phase throwing solid walls of pink rather than having gaps between the waves.
• If you cancel a hyper during the warning screen before a boss, you don't lose any rank.
• Also, it seems that green and flashing bees both add to your hyper meter a la WL.

Will add these into the first post. This seems like quite the complicated game!

[Shalashaska]

Thanks for starting a strategy thread for this awesome game Sapz.

I can't say that I notice large stars when I'm canceling bullets, even when the red meter is full but maybe I'm doing something wrong. One other thing to note is that your chain will break if your GP meter drops all the way while in hyper (you've covered this already). If you're not under hyper your chain won't break even if you die. So if you're in hyper mode happily canceling bullets and there's a lull in the action it is better to manually cancel out of the hyper so your chain will count down rather than break completely.

The green and flashing bees do indeed add to your hyper meter like in 1.5.

[CIB]

You get big stars if you cancel bullets by taking the flashing bee.
That's one base of the strategy: get the ennemies shoot at you like madness, make the screen full of bullets and BAM, flashing bee

[Sapz]

I can't say that I notice large stars when I'm canceling bullets, even when the red meter is full but maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Yeah, I think I must have mistaken some small stars for large stars behind all the bullets, I haven't been getting them either since I've been actively checking for them. I'll remove it from the first post unless something concrete comes up, thanks for the heads up.

EDIT: Okay, it's not just Power that throws the crazy timeout phases. I reached a third cycle of the third boss' final phase with A-Bomb, and she started throwing solid walls around. Presumably these phases just activate faster with Power since you have Boost at your disposal. I'd imagine that these phases probably come into play with Strong too, but I haven't checked any yet.

[Aliquantic]

As far as I can tell, the only way to gain extra Hyper/Bomb slots with Bomb (and likely Strong as well) is to get the Maximum x2 bonus (I wonder if the x2 multiplier does anything else other than increase the standard worthless Maximum bonus, though).

[Aliquantic]

I'm not 100% positive yet about the exact conditions, but grabbing bees (both green and flashing) at Red rank gives you double the usual hyper refill, though it might involve hypering somewhere too... does anyone know how it works exactly in BL?

[Sapz]

The max bomb stock info is correct, thanks for that, very useful. Will add that in. As for the bees... I'll look into it.

[crackfox]

Great strategy guide Sapz 
Very useful indeed, although i still suck at the moment
Practice, practice, practice needed.....

[cstarflare]

You can make enemies add more points to your chain value by using the hit multipliers; I'm not sure, but I think this works with the same values as regular DFK. This means x2 value at 500 hits, x3 at 1k, x4 at 3k, x5 at 5k, x6 at 7k, and it maxes at x7 value at 10k hits. I'm 90% sure that this multiplier only kicks in when the rank is red. I think there may also be a bonus applied when the rank is maxed, though I'm less sure about this.

IIRC, in white label you needed to have your hyper gauge maxed for the multiplier to kick in. Are there any such requirement in BL, or is it always active as long as you have the hits?

[Sapz]

From what I can tell, red rank replaces full hyper gauge for the multiplier in BL. The hyper thing wouldn't really work since filling up a hyper will often just empty it again and add another hyper to your stock.

[Aliquantic]

From watching AJPN on Livetube... It's critical to get hypers back quickly and to time them very well, and you should make sure you can end the stage at Maximum to gain an extra one... and of course time your hypers well. As far as I can tell, the safest way to get a "big" hyper refill is to grab a flashing bee while hypering, though I think I've managed to get a large refill without hypering a few times.

Some lasers can still be used to raise the hit counter very quickly (the stage 4 turret is still the biggest one, or the stage 5 laser wall, or the tanks on stage 1 on Strong, and even the extend installation on stage 3 for a couple extra thousand hits), though I'm not really sure which ones can be used for that purpose (I don't remember seeing AJPN go through the Ura stage 2 midboss, say). Other than that, there doesn't really seem to be any scoring "trick", outside of some boss milking for the bold.

[kyuzo]

Noticed some things while watching the nicovideo record that EOJ posted in the video thread...

- It looks like he chooses to get the ura bosses through the perfect bee collection method (I'm assuming that's still the same from WL?) rather than the silos, is there some specific reason for that? Or does it just turn into "you can get more points doing omote bosses for the first stages"?
- I guess if you fill up your hyper meter while in hyper it doesn't actually add to your hyper stock but does the purple glowy hyper meter thing?
- I can't tell if he cancels his hyper on the first bit section of stage 5, but it looks like it isn't quite time for it to run out yet. Does cancelling your hyper actually wipe out all bullets like your hyper ending normally in WL? Do you get the invincibility?
- He lets his red meter drop completely after the second midboss on stage 5, does anyone know why? Is it purely difficulty control? Or can you score better that way?

I'll try to find some time tomorrow to test some of these out

[Moskovskaya]

If you use Laser+Shot during a hyper, you cannot cancel all bullets like you would with Shot only, right?

Type is B-Bomb.

[lam47]

Is there a good beginners guide for BL. I have never played 1.5.

[Shalashaska]

What's wrong with what Sapz wrote?

[lam47]

Nothing wrong with it at all.

[Shalashaska]

Was there something specifically you were looking for lam47?

@Sapz
Two other things:
 -In Strong style if you get the URA bosses you also get URA patterns such as the 3-way shot from the little popcorn helicopters.
 -The invincibility period when you activate/deactivate a hyper is shorter with Power style.

[lam47]

Nothing in particular. I am waiting for my own copy to come and have borrowed a friends. Just trying to figure out all of the basics.
I know very little about the game so some of the info above goes over my head.
Bee locations and more info on the different styles (power, strong, bomb) I guess are what I'm after.
Not to worry if its not up somewhere already. Once my copy arrives I will be playing a lot more and will probably work it out myself.
I'm not as stupid as I think I'm sure.

[Aliquantic]

The bee maps from an older post a bit hidden away, but otherwise you could look at the 1.5 thread for those basic things that stay the same in BL (like the shot types or how hypers work).

I found a map with all bees (7 in normal stage & 9 in ura mode)

here is normal mode :
http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown-Knight/1496/hatiomote.html

here is in ura mode :
http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown-Knight/1496/hatiura.html

[Shalashaska]

Not sure if this helps but I wrote this over on shmups for Skykid.

You're right about the power type ships. Their red gauge fills the fastest of all types when in Boost and once the red meter is in red their hyper meter fills the fastest as well. Power has no bombs and can have a total of 2 hypers ready. One can be stocked and one can be used when the hyper meter is full a la DFK 1.5. Also you are forced to the Ura mid-bosses when playing power style. I'm not sure if you can get the regular mid-bosses; never tried.

Bomb is pretty much the same as power except your shot and laser is weaker obviously, you have bombs, and the red meter fills the slowest of all the styles. Your bomb stock can be used as hypers; it just depends on whether you hit the bomb or hyper button. So when you start stage 1 for instance, you already have 3 hypers ready to go or 3 bombs if you want/need them. The enemy patterns seem to be the same as power.

Strong style ships have a beefed up shot and laser and their red meter raises at a rate in between bomb style and power-boost. The enemy patterns are that of the second loops in DFK 1.5 and you also now get the revenge bullets/lasers when you're canceling enemy shots with your hyper. Your bomb stock can also be used as hypers just like in bomb style. Strong also has Zatsuza if you can get to him.

[lam47]

Perfect! Thanks you both.
Very good info. Just waiting for my own copy now

[lam47]

I'm having trouble going route B with Bomb or Strong. I'm sure I pick up the 3 bees; destroy the 4 silos and make sure to have a full hyper meter and be in hyper mode once the mid boss should appear. Do you have to collect all the bees flashing? Or am I just missing something?

[Shalashaska]

I always collect the very first bee when it flashes but almost never the 2nd and sometimes the 3rd. So I know you don't have to get all 3 as they flash, though I'm unsure if the flashing bees are part of the requirement at all (I'll test that out). Whenever I miss route B it's usually due to not destroying that very first silo in time. Really concentrate on it to make sure it goes down before the tank runs over it. Also make sure you're at a full red meter from the start until the mid-boss appears.

Once you get it down and make it part of your route it's actually hard to not get route B. Whenever I play strong style I try to purposely miss it due to the meaner enemy patterns but I'll often trigger it if I don't focus on deviating a little bit from my normal route.

[EOJ]

FYI in ISO's 1+ trillion point superplay with C-Bomb, he doesn't trigger the Ura midbosses until stage 3. So it's probably better to stick with route A for the first couple stages.

[lam47]

Thanks guys. I actually just triggered it when not trying to at all. If it's not important for high scores I will forget about it for now. Not that I'm very good mind.

[bitkid]

So is Arrange mode scoring just Ketsui scoring on top of Black Label scoring?

[EOJ]

A few cool things for BOMB STYLE (these should work for STRONG STYLE too) I learned from the subtitles in the DFK BL DVD:

1)If you press Bomb + Hyper at the same time, it uses up two hyper/bomb slots, but also gives you a full red gauge without a bomb coming out. Why would you want to do this? The red gauge fills up very slowly in Bomb style, so this technique can be very helpful in certain parts for optimal scoring. For example, ISO uses this on the spinning laser turret at the start of stage 4 to jack the red gauge back up to full red before the next section of the stage. Make sure you press and hold both buttons until the hyper comes out, I've found that if you just tap them together, you'll have a bomb come out.

2) On Golden Disaster, use a bomb when your red gauge is full on the attack with all the small round, gray drones. If you time it right, you'll get 3.8 hyper slots refilled. If you don't have a full red gauge, you'll get 1 to 1.5 hyper slots refilled.

This game has a really tremendous amount of depth with all the different attack combinations!