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[1] 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.
Contents
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 affects enemy bullet speed and the fire rate of certain enemies.
To celebrate the release of Daioh as part of the Arcade Archives lineup, HAMSTER Corporation did a livestream on YouTube with former Athena programmer Tsutomu Tabata where he explained the intricacies of the rank and the so-called Oyaji System. Prior to this, rank was only known to be influenced by collecting surplus items, using the shield item and "Movement pattern #1" as described below.
Initial rank values
As determined by the DIP switch (0-320 range).
- Easy: +0.
- Normal: +32.
- Hard: +52.
- Super Hard: +82.
- Special: Fixed 320.
Actions that affect rank
- Collecting power-ups: +32 (powered up 8 times).
- Collecting 5,000 points items: +4.
- Using a bomb: -32 (can't go below 0).
- Clearing a stage: +56 (+8 for stages 1 through 7).
- Movement pattern #1: when 3 or more enemy bullets are on screen, repeatedly moving in the same direction will add +1 per tap.
- Movement pattern #2: if a direction is held for 1 second then the opposite direction for 1 second while 3 or more enemy bullets are on screen, rank -1.
- Repeated detection of movement pattern #2: If movement pattern #2 is detected 4 times in a row, a +48 rank penalty will be applied; the penalty can be reset by tapping left/right three times, then up/down.
Bomb retention timer
This handles the rank for having bombs in stock.
- Having 3 or more bombs in stock causes the bomb retention timer to tick up from 0 to 256; using a bomb will -32 the timer, but it can't go below 0.
- The bomb retention timer ticks up once a second, based on "(number of bombs stocked + 3) ÷4"; once the timer reaches 256, it resets to 0 and +64 rank is added.
- The retention timer rounds down to the nearest decimal, for example: having 3 bombs in stock would increase the timer by "(3+3)÷4=1.5", rounded down to 1 per second.[2].
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.
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
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.
Gallery
See (Template Page)/Gallery for our collection of images and scans for the game.
References & Contributors
- Page creation by Andrew98.
