DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu Black Label Arrange

DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu Black Label Arrange (short DDP DFK BL Arrange; often nicknamed Ketsuipachi) is an arranged mode of DoDonpachi DaiFukkatsu Black Label that borrows from Ketsui the chip system and the Tiger Schwert ship.

Gameplay Overview
DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu Black Label Arrange is a four-button game with five levels and an extra last boss stage in the end. Completing these levels under certain conditions will trigger a fight with the True Last Boss, HIVAC. The scoring system involves destroying enemies up close with the wide shot to start a chip chain, and then by destroying enemies with the laser to collect chips and increase the hit combo.




 * 1) Red gauge: rank meter which can be increase & decreased through various actions.
 * 2) Maximum hit chain
 * 3) GP Value
 * 4) Hyper/bomb charge: when this meter fills, the player will receive a hyper/bomb; or, will get put into Maximum mode if their stock is full.
 * 5) Life stock
 * 6) Chain timer
 * 7) Hit counter
 * 8) Bomb/hyper stock
 * 9) Chip cache; each slot tells how many of each chip size you have picked up on a stage.
 * 10) Remaining hyper duration
 * 11) "Status"; when this circle is red you cannot bomb/hyper - you must wait until it turns green to do so. It can also turn red when you have exhausted your bomb/hyper stock.
 * 12) Countdown chip timer: the number of frames remaining wherein all enemies killed with Shot will drop a specific chip size regardless of proximity.
 * 13) Countdown chip size: the size of chips that can be dropped in the current span of chip time; can be increased during said span. Resets to and stays at a 1-chip (unless a new chain begins) when the timer hits 0, on death, or using a bomb.
 * 14) Countdown chip timer

Controls

 * A (Press): Fires the standard wide shot weapon.
 * A (Hold): Fires the laser weapon, with your options locking to targets in front of you. Note that your laser comes out far later than other DFK modes.
 * B: Uses a bomb. If you are locked on, the bomb's explosions will target that enemy and focus the damage.
 * C: Auto-fire for the standard wide shot.
 * D: Activate a hyper.

Additionally, holding shot+auto increases your damage output.

Ship and Resources
There is only one ship available to the player, the Tiger Schwert. This ship has 6 options, and its firepower is similar to bomb style from the standard Black Label mode. However, this firepower achieved differently. The laser deals less damage than in bomb style, but your options dealing a total of twice as much damage as your laser when all 6 are locked on.

Bombs and hypers are a shared resource. Filling up the hyper gauge adds an additional bomb, if there is a spare bomb slot available.

Like Black Label’s strong style, your laser can push back large enemy lasers. There are, however, some important differences in Black Label Arrange. The number of bomb slots cannot be increased from the starting 3. Using a bomb will not temporarily max out the RED gauge. Autobombs cannot be enabled.

RED Gauge System
DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu Black Label Arrange has a dynamic rank system, with the current rank denoted by the RED gauge. There are jumps in difficulty that occur when the RED gauge reaches 33%, 66%, and 100% full, for a total of 4 distinct difficulty levels. Shot+auto does slightly more damage with a full RED gauge. RED gauge also influences the chip system, hyper system, and hit combo system (detailed further below).

Actions that increase RED gauge:
 * Collecting 10 and 5-chips (sharply increased with 10-chips).
 * Holding shot+auto.
 * Collecting a bee medal (flashing bees give twice as much RED gauge increase).
 * All options locking on to a single point (sharp increase, depending on ship's proximity to lock-on point and whether a hyper is active; this is most relevant during midboss and boss fights).

Actions that decrease RED gauge:
 * Collecting chips of size 3 or lower.
 * Only pressing shot, only pressing auto, or not shooting at all.
 * Dying or using a bomb (sets RED gauge to 0).
 * Collecting small or large stars (sharply decreased with large stars).

Chip System
Chip chaining works very similarly to Ketsui. When an enemy is destroyed with wide shot, chips are created. Chips can have a value of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10. The value of the chips created depends primarily on your vertical distance from the enemy, as well as current RED gauge and whether a hyper is active. Higher than 66% RED gauge increases minimum distance needed for a given value chip, while an active hyper lowers the minimum distance. Destroying an enemy with wide shot also starts a chip timer, starting at 55, that decreases as time progresses. Destroying enemies with laser will generate chips based on the chip value attached to that timer, regardless of distance to the enemy ship. This timer increases whenever an enemy is destroyed. Using wide shot increases the timer greatly, but less chips are generated. Using laser generates more chips, but the timer increases less. If too much time passes without shooting, the chip chain timer will decrease rapidly. Chips add to the hit combo, get point value, and a small amount to your hyper gauge and score. Note, chip chains can be started with laser, but they have a value of 1 and a very short timer.

If you destroy the source of a laser with your wide shot, the enemy's laser will be cancelled into chips based on the current chip chain. If that enemy is instead destroyed with laser, the enemy's laser will instead be cancelled into stars (small stars for small laser, large stars for large laser).

Chip chains can be started by using wide shot when destroying boss phases as well. The remaining bullets onscreen between phases will converted into chips. This is can be useful for increasing the hyper gauge.

Hyper System
Hyper gauge is increased by damaging enemies (especially with laser aura), collecting flashing bees, and collecting chips. The amount of hyper gained from damaging enemies is increased with a high RED gauge (>8000 hits provides the maximum amount). Outside of boss and midboss fights, the amount of hyper gauge gained from chips is not influenced by the chip value. During boss and midboss fights, 10-chips give triple the usual amount of hyper gauge, 5-chips give double the usual amount of hyper gauge, and 4-chips and give the usual amount of hyper gauge. While a hyper is active, the only way to increase hyper gauge is by damaging enemies with your laser aura or by collecting flashing bees.

When activating a hyper, all bullets onscreen are canceled and your hit combo is increased by the bullet count. If a chip chain is active, all bullets onscreen are cancelled into chips. If there is no chip chain active, bullets are cancelled into stars instead. Large stars are created when the RED gauge is 66% or greater (when the RED gauge is "red"), and small stars are created when the RED gauge is less than 66% (when the RED gauge is "blue"). Additionally, when a hyper expires naturally, bullets are cancelled into stars based on the same RED gauge rules above. Cancelling a hyper results in the removal of all bullets onscreen, but no chips or stars are generated.

While a hyper is active, your ship outputs more damage. However, if enemy bullets contact your shot, your shot damage will be reduced. This has some notable effects. When there are bullets onscreen and a hyper is active, wide shot is your most damaging attack, especially at mid-range and far away. Laser+hyper will often be weaker than standard laser, unless you are close enough to an enemy for laser aura damage to contribute. When close up, hyper+laser has slightly less damage output than hyper+wide shot. Additionally, when using laser, only the lock-on options contribute to erasing bullets. As a result, without a lock-on, your ship can be quite vulnerable to stray bullets. A higher RED gauge makes bullets more difficult to erase. However, RED gauge's effect on erasing bullets becomes insignificant as hyper rank increases, detailed below.

There is a hyper rank system as well. Using a hyper increases hyper rank by 1, and hyper rank can reach a maximum of 5. Dying decreases hyper rank by 1. Hyper rank is reset to 0 at the start of each stage. While in a hyper, hyper rank slightly increases bullet speed and the amount of slowdown that occurs. Unique to this mode, higher hyper rank results in more effective erasing of bullets. Activating a hyper, cancelling a hyper, or letting a hyper wear off grants a short period of invincibility. For hyper activation, the duration of invincibility you are granted is dependent on your hyper rank: the higher your hyper rank, the shorter your period of invincibility (from 60 frames at rank 0, decreasing to 35 frames at rank 5). Cancelling a hyper or letting a hyper expire grants 120 invincibility frames, unaffected by hyper rank.

Items
item                   GP gain            score increase - 1-chip                 1            1 * hit combo +  101 2-chip                 2            2 * hit combo +  204 3-chip                 4            3 * hit combo +  409 4-chip                 8            4 * hit combo +  816 5-chip                16            5 * hit combo + 1625 10-chip               64           10 * hit combo + 6400 large airborne star   10                              GP small airborne star     5                         GP / 10 large ground star      0                 200 * hit combo small ground star      0                 500 * hit combo

Chips

Come in sizes of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10. Chips add to your hit combo based on their number value, increase your hyper gauge (if your RED gauge is high), increase or decrease the RED gauge, and give a minor increase to GP and score.

Airborne Star

Come in two varieties, large and small. Large stars are important for scoring. Large stars give score equivalent to your current GP, and increases your GP value by 10. Small stars give score equivalent to your current GP/10, and increases your GP value by 5.

Ground Star

Come in two varieties, large and small. Large stars give score equivalent to 500 * hit combo, and small stars give score equivalent to 200 * hit combo.

Bee Medals

All stages contain 7 hidden bee items, with 2 extra in the Ura route. Bee medals are revealed by hitting their location with the tip of your laser. Bees periodically flash white. Revealed bees start out flashed white, but turn yellow quickly. Collecting a bee when it is flashing white will cancel all bullets onscreen into large stars and increase your hyper gauge by an amount dependent on your current RED gauge. Higher RED gauge yields more hyper gauge increase. Collecting a yellow bee turns all bullets onscreen into small stars.

Bomb

Gives an extra bomb if there is any room left in the stock. If the stock if full after that, makes you enter the Maximum mode. Being in the Maximum mode gives a continuous (but negligible) score bonus.

1up

Gives an extra life and turns all bullets onscreen into small stars. Found by destroying the big generator tower in stage 3 after the midboss. You will get the item unless you destroy the tower with a bomb.

Routes
There is no second loop, but there are Ura midbosses. Stage 1 Ura route requirements:
 * 1) no-miss
 * 2) destroy 3 silos; the first one must be destroyed while the RED gauge is high
 * 3) collect 300 10-chips

Golden Disaster requirements:
 * 1) 1 credit
 * 2) at least one of the following:
 * 3) * maximum of 2 bombs used
 * 4) * destroy 3 bosses with a full RED gauge
 * 5) * lose no more than 1 life

TLB requirements:
 * 1) meet the extra stage requirements
 * 2) collect all 45 bees (therefore, Ura midboss route is required)
 * 3) do not use a continue during the Golden Disaster fight

Scoring
Hit Combo System

Despite the addition of Ketsui's chip system, the base of the scoring in this game is the hit combo system of DoDonpachi DaiFukkatsu (refer to that page for a more detailed description). There are, however, some notable differences. The only way to drop a chain is to use a bomb (and even then, the chain can be saved if a hyper is used immediately following the bomb). The multiplier gets applied at different hit values: 0 - 999 hits:     1x 1000 - 1999 hits:    2x 2000 - 3999 hits:    3x 4000 - 5999 hits:    4x 6000 - 7999 hits:    5x 8000 - 99,999 hits:  6x 100,000 - 199,999 hits: 7x 200,000 - 299,999 hits: 8x 300,000+ hits: 9x When the RED gauge is greater than 66% full, this multiplier is applied and your hit combo increases more rapidly. This multiplier is also applied when a hyper is active.

Main Game
Bombs are generally seldom used. Hyper+wide shot does more damage and doesn't risk dropping your hit combo. Reaching 8000 hits is an important milestone for stage, to fully take advantage of hyper gauge gained from damaging enemies. Keeping a high RED gauge is useful for quickly gaining hyper gauge (especially from chips), which provides improves survivability and usually outweighs the higher difficulty incurred by the high RED gauge. A hyper can be cancelled shortly after activation, which means any chips that were generated from cancelled bullets will count towards increasing the hyper gauge.

Scoring

Scoring for any given stage will follow the same general pattern. Hypers are used at the start of the stage to cancel bullets into high value chips, to reach at least 8,000 hits for the x6 GP multiplier. On stages 4 and 5, it's possible to reach 100k and 200k hit combo threshold with good routing. Keep the RED gauge greater than 66% or have an active hyper throughout the majority of the stage to keep the multiplier active and build up your GP. After you reach the threshold for the multiplier, hypers are used to cancel bullets into large stars. Since large stars drastically lower the RED gauge, you risk losing the multiplier when the hyper wears off. Therefore, going for gold stars late in the stage is less risky and will still yield good score.

Midbosses give a substantial amount of GP, so it's important to finish them off with an active multiplier. Some midbosses are followed by popcorn enemies, so a bomb followed immediately by a hyper (to avoid dropping the chain) can be used to finish the midboss early. A boss will drop large gold stars when finished off with maximum RED gauge, which can be a substantial portion of your stage score.

Unfortunately, the score potential from the extra stage far outweighs the score possible from the main game.

Extra Stage
It's important to note, when fighting Golden Disaster and HIVAC's final pattern, hypers become less effective at canceling bullets with higher hyper rank. Additionally, for the HIVAC fight, there is only one jump in difficulty, and this occurs when the RED gauge is greater than 66%.

Scoring

Scoring the extra stage consists of building up GP until HIVAC's final phase, then milking the last phase for large stars. Golden Disaster has a base GP of 6 million, and each phase of HIVAC has a base GP of 100 million.

Since Golden Disaster contributes a relatively small amount to GP, it is more important to focus on increasing your hit combo to 8000 before HIVAC's 2nd phase. A very consistent way to do so is to intentionally die at the start Golden Disaster's laser maze attack, and then use the short invincibility period to kill it point-blank and collect 10-chips from the cancelled lasers. If you wish to apply the hit combo multiplier to the Golden Disaster, it is possible to do so alongside the 10-chip laser cancel if the kill is properly timed for when Golden Disaster is "low" in its hover cycle. Be warned, this cancel is very inconsistent with a hyper active and puts the x6 multiplier on finishing off HIVAC's first phase at risk.

For the HIVAC fight, focus on finishing off the first and second phases with an active hit combo multiplier. For the third phase, milk large stars by letting hypers expire with a 66% or greater RED gauge. If properly set up, each large star gives ~1.2 billion points.

Story
This game is a training simulation, based on the events of DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu, for the pilots in Ketsui.

Development History
Two promotional videos were released for the Xbox 360 disc release of Black Label, linked below in the video references section. Footage of Black Label Arrange appears in both. The first video shows gameplay with many differences from the release version of Black Label Arrange: The second video shows gameplay that is identical to the final release.
 * Extends occur at 5 billion and 50 billion points.
 * The Tiger Schwert uses the green laser from Black Label's Type B ship. Shots from the lock-on options are still yellow like final release.
 * Shots from the lock-on options do not turn orange at maximum RED gauge.
 * The chip timer decreases far faster (by 1 per frame, instead of 1 per 3 frames).
 * It is more difficult to increase the chip timer once a chip chain is started.
 * Hidden bees can be green, and behave the same as their Black Label counterparts.
 * The Tiger Schwert's laser does not repel large enemy lasers.
 * There is far less slowdown.
 * When a hyper is active, the Tiger Schwert's shot turns a bright pink color, similar to Arrange A's boosted hyper.

Version Differences

 * The Steam version allows for HIVAC practice, while the Xbox 360 version does not.
 * The Xbox 360 version has a glitch which allows for the player's ship to deal increased damage when the options are locked on to a single point.

Trivia

 * The GP value in training mode is capped at 100 million.
 * It is possible to lock on to HIVAC's counter-bombs.
 * On the Steam port, in training mode, if you attempt to start at the stage 1 boss fight after having selected route B, the game will crash.
 * It is not possible to start a chip chain off some of the small tank enemies in stage 3. This is most apparent with the small tanks immediately following the midboss.
 * For the laser wheels in stage 5:
 * The density of the laser wheels increases with max hit combo. From 15,000 hits, density increases every 3,000 hits and peak density is reached at 33,000 hits.
 * The laser wheels can be damaged by the ship's laser aura. Though it is possible to destroy them, it's not practical. Even with an active hyper and close up, they have so much hp that it still takes more than 5 seconds to destroy them.
 * If both a hyper and chip combo is active, the wheels will continuously spawn chips while they are being damaged by your ship's laser aura.
 * When the RED gauge is greater than 66%, the Tiger Schwert has an extended laser aura.

Video References
Video index for Black Label Arrange

Sample survival play of the extra stage

Sample scoring setup for the extra stage

PV1 footage

PV2 footage

References & Contributors

 * 1) Raadgiver: initial author, original research; additional info gained from:
 * 2) trap15: suggested that RED gauge affected the type of chip created when starting a chain
 * 3) NoutA RiN: provided hit combo multiplier table
 * 4) SpinoSTG: provided info about standard Black Label, used for highlighting contrasts between it and Black Label Arrange; HIVAC bomb trivia
 * 5) SMayfield: provided UI screencap and explanation; provided cheat engine tables, useful for confirming what the RED gauge influences
 * 6) Softdrink: provided scan of the instruction manual, which gave information about RED gauge affecting bullet erasing