Which Cave ports are as good (or better) than the original?

[Erik_Twice]

I don't know much about their ports other than they often feature higher quality sound and graphics than the arcade versions and many people don't think Ibara is a good port for some reason. Thoughts?

[dunpeal2064]

Damn, you posted this right as I am leaving work.

Post incoming, give me about 45 minutes. Its gonna be a doozy.

[dunpeal2064]

Okay, home now. Lets do this!

There are quite a few reasons people might find Cave ports better than the original arcade board.

Music: Ports pretty much always have better music. The format offers higher quality music, and most ports allow you to adjust BGM, effects, and voices separately. The one case I can think of where this isn't true is Donpachi on the Saturn, which has pretty poor audio quality.

Arranged modes: This one is obvious. Ports offer a wider variety of game modes than their arcade counterpart (and Mame) do. These vary pretty widely in quality, but are definitely a huge bonus when done well.

Leaderboards/Replays: This pertains more to the 360 ports, but thats where most of Cave's catalog is anyways. The ability to download any replay on the leaderboards is a pretty big bonus. Of course, you can find replays online, but the leaderboards give you more options, which never hurts.

Practice modes: Ports usually allow a Stage Select, and most (all?) of the 360 ports allow you to start at the beginning, midboss, or boss of any stage, and allow you to tweak things like lives, bombs, combo/hit counter, etc, so that you can practice in ideal situations. Mame offers save states, which is another great way to practice, but since the 360 Cave ports are not supported in Mame and are very inaccurate, the ports are the best way to get good at these games.

Bug fixes: This can be good or bad. Good: There is a bug that crashes a certain version of Ketsui if a coin is inserted during the Demonstration. They fixed this in the port. Bad: Pink Sweets has an infinite lives glitch, and it was removed with no option to add it back in, in the otherwise very accurate MMP/PS port.


Okay, I'll touch on the ps2 ports real quick. I can go into specifics as to the accuracy of each 360 port as well, just let me know, I don't mind. They pretty much go into two groups

Arika ports (DDP DOJ and Espgaluda) - These are very, very good ports. Their accuracy is excellent, and they both offer great arranged modes, superplays on disc (as well as more superplays on a bonus dvd), and 240p output (The only Cave ports to offer this on either the ps2 or 360). The one random thing these ports are lacking is the ability to adjust BGM, effects, and voices separately. Other than that, they are top-notch

Cave ports (Ibara, Mushihimesama) - These are basically the polar opposite. Where DOJ and Galuda could be considered the most accurate Cave ports, these are considered the least accurate. Mushi is missing about half its slowdown, and Ibara is missing practically all slowdown. Both ports also have a forced filter that cannot be turned off (although there is a 240p patch that helps these games to look nicer). The arranged modes are still good though, and these ports actually do offer separate BGM, effects, and voice sliders. It has been proven that very high scores can still be achieved on the ps2 port of Ibara, so I do think it gets more hate than it deserves. People seem to be more bothered by the muddy graphics than the actual game inaccuracies. Plus, its the only Ibara port, and having CD-quality music in this game is great. If you have a j360 (or jtagged), go for the 360 port of Mushi over the ps2 port.

Alright, hope that helped. Hopefully I didn't miss too much! Oh, and in case it wasn't obvious, I definitely prefer ports over the real deal. I would never dream of trying to learn Dodonpachi chaining on the actual PCB. I do really enjoy any opportunity I have to play the original boards though.

[pierrot]

Cave ports (Ibara, Mushihimesama)

Weren't these two ports handled by Taito?

[Chempop]

Most of the 360 ports are extremely good. DOJblex needed a patch (which it eventually got), and Ketsui runs a tad fast. Muchi Pork doesn't have nearly the slowdown compared to the pcb (and some enemies is misplaced), slowdown also reduced in DFK and Akai Katana (makes those ports a bit more difficult).

Donpachi and Dodonpachi on PS1 and Saturn are both pretty screwed due to some of the chaining and hit meter not working the way it should. Probably only noticeable if you are capable of full stage chains.

I like how Dunpeal has outlined why the ports are great, for me they are nearly 100% satisfactory. That said, there is also something you can't quite compare - authenticity of arcade hardware. Not trying to sound elitists, but there is something to be said about turning on a pcb and not having to deal with menus and loading.

[MrPopo]

One thing to be aware of is that Deathsmiles US plays very different from Deathsmiles JP; they removed a lot of slowdown that exists in the JP release (and the JP release more closely matches the PCB as a result). I think there might have been a patch to fix it at least partway, but if you're going for the most authentic experience you should get the JP version.

[ninjainspandex]

its funny when ports are considered worse because there is LESS slowdown than the arcade, welcome to bullet hell shooters

[dunpeal2064]

One thing to be aware of is that Deathsmiles US plays very different from Deathsmiles JP; they removed a lot of slowdown that exists in the JP release (and the JP release more closely matches the PCB as a result). I think there might have been a patch to fix it at least partway, but if you're going for the most authentic experience you should get the JP version.

The patch fixed it, they are pretty much identical now.

Cave ports (Ibara, Mushihimesama)

Weren't these two ports handled by Taito?

I am pretty sure Taito published the release, but that the actual porting was done in house. I could be wrong on that though.

I like how Dunpeal has outlined why the ports are great, for me they are nearly 100% satisfactory. That said, there is also something you can't quite compare - authenticity of arcade hardware. Not trying to sound elitists, but there is something to be said about turning on a pcb and not having to deal with menus and loading.

Yeah man, agreed. Even when a port gets everything right, there is something special about playing on the original hardware.

[Erik_Twice]

Great post Dunpeal, guess you are taking revenge for my Bemani info dump

I simply kind of want to know which options I have as far as CAVE is concerned. Right now second-hand 360 units are still expensive but they will drop fast now that the new console has been released.

Which games are Japan-only? Can I play them on a modded euro console or is it a better idea to import one from Japan?

Donpachi and Dodonpachi on PS1 and Saturn are both pretty screwed due to some of the chaining and hit meter not working the way it should. Probably only noticeable if you are capable of full stage chains.

Yeah, it's a real shame there's no accurate port of it. Love scoring on DoDonPachi, it's amazing how the same enemies and patterns work so differently from how they work with survival.

[MrPopo]

Which games are Japan-only? Can I play them on a modded euro console or is it a better idea to import one from Japan?

DDP:DOJ
Ketsui
Akai Katana
DDP:DFK
Deathsmiles 1 & 2

All of those are region locked to JP.