Haven't picked this up yet, but probably will eventually. I just checked the shmups board and it looks like I still have the record for A-Power:
Thinking back on it, that was a strenuous, but amazing road. Much easier with B and C-power, but the game is so all or nothing that people with less focus probably can't make it that far. The 360 release also had poor slowdown emulation on Stage 5, which resulted in A-Power being mostly nonviable because you wouldn't be able to position the hit box correctly during bullet cancelling, and get clipped by ultra-quick bullets.
Just looking at the mess of modes included in this release, I still stand by claim that the only one worth bothering with is 1.5. Black Label has a great soundtrack and is fun for a clear challenge. Ketsupachi has (unless it's been fixed) broken scoring on the TLB that renders the rest of the game meaningless. Arrange B is just a hot mess, and Arrange A I just didn't enjoy. A programmer friend of mine who did some part-time work at CAVE once mentioned to me that he thought that 1.5's gameplay system itself was rock-solid, however it was the failure to communicate it to the player that made it so obscure. For instance, the fact that your chain multiplier goes up from x1000 to x2000 hits etc., and that this multiplier is only viable when you're not hypering is completely lost on most first-timers. Simple UI work could have made this so much more obvious, but part of the arcade business model is of course to make rules like this somewhat obscure, isn't it?
And you know I have to say, I hate the presentation of the console port of this game hardcore. Daifukkatsu 1.5 was the third-to-last real arcade shooter (Deathsmiles MBL and Crimzon Clover being the other two), and the excitement I experienced playing the game, watching other players figure out the tricks and secret routes through the levels, and the sheer quality of the arcade version is betrayed with this ugly menu UI and the messy preponderance of modes. With Muchi Pork and Pink Sweets, those were really minor/broken games, so the sketchy UI was by all means forgivable (plus their Arrange modes rocked!) however DFK's Arrange modes are mostly bad IMO, and the bare-bones UI are just unforgivable for me personally.
In any regards, putting aside its messy presentation, for me the only mode in this entire release is 1.5. It's the best balanced, it received the most attention, and it's playable up to an extremely high level. I never touch my 360 any more, and there aren't any arcade boards near me, so I'll fire up the Steam version this weekend and give it a try.
