Daioh

Daioh

Title screen

Developer:	Athena
Publisher:	Athena
Producer:	Sakae Nakamura Noriyuki Takasaki
Music:	Shoutaro Sasaki
Program:	Tsutomu Tabata
Art:	Hironobu Tamai Kata Chumuri Numa
Release date:	Arcade: July 1993 PlayStation 4: November 2, 2023

Daioh (JP: 大王, lit. "Great King") is a vertical scrolling shoot em' up released by Athena in 1993.

For several years Daioh was never rereleased, though pseudo-sequels existed in Athena's Dezaemon releases, such as Daioh Gale.

In November 2, 2023, the game was rereleased as part of HAMSTER Corporation's Arcade Archives series.

Gameplay Overview

Daioh is a 2-buttons shooter. There are 7 stages with a second loop that is accessed right afterwards. It features a checkpoint system after the player loses a life, while instant respawns are used during boss fights, with the exception of the stage 7/14 boss.

Extends are granted at 500,000 points then every 1,000,000 points. They can also be found in the form of 1UP and 2UP items.

Controls

• A button (Press/Hold): Fires the player's main weapon.
• B button (Press): Activates the player's bomb.

Weapons

Daioh has 3 weapons the player can use by collecting their respective item, each weapon has its own unique bomb.

• Red: Basic wide shot, it gets increasingly wider with each power-up collected. A set of two fireballs fired forward will appear at Level 6.
  • Bomb: Large fireballs travel in a circular motion. It deals low damage but has the longest duration out of the 3 bombs.

• Blue: Lightning shot with homing capabilities. Two lightning shots will be fired at Level 2, three at Level 4 and four at Level 7.
  • Bomb: 3 large lasers fired forward.

• Yellow: Missiles fired forward. Homing missiles will be added at Level 4.
  • Bomb: An AOE sphere that heavily damages enemies.

Note that none of the bombs grant invincibility frames to the player's ship itself.

Power-ups

It takes 9 power-ups for the player to reach full power. Specific power-up levels have "spare" power-ups, represented by red P letters in the HUD below the lives count, if the player dies with these spare power-ups in stock they will respawn with their weapon at Level 2 instead of 1. The power-up levels where this happens is listed in this table:

Power-up level	Start with
2	Level 1
3	Level 2
4	Level 1
5	Level 2
6	Level 2
7	Level 1
8	Level 2
9	Level 2
10	Level 2

Items

• Power-up
• Speed-up
• Bomb
• Red weapon
• Blue weapon
• Yellow weapon
• Shield
• 1UP
• 2UP

Rank

Rank seems to exist in this game, and it increases depending on shot power, speed level, and bomber stock. It`s not well understood how it exactly works.

Loops

The game has 7 stages in 2 loops. 2nd loop is known as "Special Stage", and the difference is that some bullets are faster and enemies might have more HP.

Scoring

End of Stage Bonus

The total bonus for finishing stages is based on two factors: Clear Bonus + Bomb Bonus.

Clear Bonus

With the exception of stages 1-7 and 2-7, each stage has a clear bonus.

Stage	Bonus
1-1	10,000 points
1-2	20,000 points
1-3	30,000 points
1-4	40,000 points
1-5	50,000 points
1-6	60,000 points
1-7	No bonus
2-1	80,000 points
2-2	90,000 points
2-3	100,000 points
2-4	110,000 points
2-5	120,000 points
2-6	130,000 points
2-7	No bonus

Furthermore, while stage 2-7 doesn't have a clear bonus, each life in stock is worth 800,000 points. Seeing as the last life is still counted by the game and the last boss always grants an extend upon being defeated, this bonus is never lower than 1,600,000 points.

Bomb Bonus

Each bomb in stock is worth 5,000 points.

Tick Points

Due to its low damage and piercing properties, playing with the blue weapon earns more points than the red and yellow weapons, even when it comes to zako enemies that are destroyed in a single hit. Therefore, using blue as often as possible will yield slightly higher results from enemy destruction.

Strategy

See (Template Page)/Strategy for stage maps, enemy and boss descriptions, walkthroughs, and advanced play strategies.

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This section details some particular strategic information about the game and its gameplay, such as hidden 1UPs and some basic scoring tricks. For anything particularly deep or highly complex, you can probably leave it in the Strategy page.

(Currently evaluating whether or not this specific section should even include information outside of the separated Strategy pages. Worth thinking about as a community.)

Version Differences

• There`s a US version of Daioh in which the 3 weapon variants and 3 bomber types are assigned to each button.

• A: Wide vulcan
• B: Lighting chaser
• C: Missile
• D: Flaming circle bomb
• E: Light barrage bomb
• F: Atomic explosion bomb

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Trivia

• The game would later recieve a remake known as Shienryu, which was released by Warashi in 1997. During that time, most former Athena employees worked there on Warashi.

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Gallery

See (Template Page)/Gallery for our collection of images and scans for the game.

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References & Contributors

• Page creation by Andrew98.