Great Mahou Daisakusen

Great Mahou Daisakusen

Title screen

Developer:	Raizing
Music:	Atsuhiro Motoyama, Kenichi Koyano, Manabu Namiki
Program:	Yuichi Toyama
Art:	Kazuyuki Nakashima
Release date:	2000
Next game:	Brave Blade

Great Mahou Daisakusen, also known as Dimahoo, is a vertical scrolling shooting game released by Raizing for the CPS2. It's the last game in the Mahou Daisakusen trilogy, being the sequel to Shippu Mahou Daisakusen. It features a scoring system based around hidden items, with 108 items to collect from destroyed enemies across the entire game. It never received any home console ports.

Gameplay overview

Controls

A button: fires the player's main shot.

A button (hold): changes the player's magic polarity and starts filling up the magic meter (see scoring section).

B button: activates the player's bomb.

C button: autofire for the player's main shot.

Note: when both the A and C buttons are held together at the same time, the C button's autofire will take priority over the A button.

Powerups

Shot: P coins, collecting several of them increases the player's shot level. Large P coins are occasionally dropped by flying fairies or after the player has lost a life and will increase the shot level instantly.

Magic: Magic book, increases the player's magic level. This adds two options that act as a subshot and allows the player to charge the magic meter.

Bomb: Destroyed ground enemies will leave yellow diamonds fragments on the ground that fill up the player's bomb gauge. Once the gauge has been filled, a treasure chest will drop the bomb. The bomb always drops at the center of the screen. Therefore, it is important to try filling the bomb meter when enemy bullets aren't being fired near the bomb's path, or when the player is able to misdirect those shots.

Characters

Default characters

Solo-Bang the Warrior

Speed: slow.

Shot: wide shot.

Subshot: lasers fired directly forward.

Charged shot: Sword attack fired directly forward, has piercing properties and can be manipulated by the player's movement.

Bomb: Magic bomb. It has the unique property of sticking to whatever it hits. While the bomb is active, movement speed is reduced.

Karte the Sorceress

Speed: medium-fast.

Shot: narrow shot.

Subshot: bullets aimed at enemies.

Charged shot: two knights that home-in on enemies.

Bomb: Giant thunder fired directly forward. While the bomb is active, movement speed is reduced.

Miyamoto the Dragon

Speed: fastest.

Shot: narrow shot.

Subshot: grenades fired at a 45° angle.

Charged shot: ninjas throwing shurikens. Depending on the player's magic power, there will be either 2 ninjas or 4 ninjas.

Bomb: sword slashes that travel across the screen. Extremely high damage at close range. While the bomb is active, movement speed is reduced.

Grimlen The Necromancers

Speed: slowest.

Shot: narrow shot with two side shots.

Subshot: skulls fired directly forward. The options' angle can be changed by moving vertically.

Charged shot: giant scythe with piercing properties, travels to the top of the screen and returns like a boomerang.

Bomb: ghosts that travel across the screen. Extremely high damage at close range.

Secret characters

After a credit has been inserted, the player can unlock 4 secret characters by inputting a code while the title screen is up (Up, Up, Left, Down, Down, Right, A, B, A, B, A, Start). The secret characters play very similar to the default characters, with their own unique quirks.

Gain The Battler

Speed: fast

Shot: wide shot.

Subshot: axes fired at a 45° angle.

Charged shot: Sword attack fired directly forward, has piercing properties and can be manipulated by the player's movement.

Bomb: Magic bomb. It has the unique property of sticking to whatever it hits. While the bomb is active, movement speed is reduced.

Chitta The Magic user

Speed: medium-fast.

Shot: narrow shot.

Subshot: thunders fired directly forward.

Charged shot: two genies that home-in on enemies.

Bomb: Magic bomb. It has the unique property of sticking to whatever it hits. While the bomb is active, movement speed is reduced.

Birthday The Criminal

Speed: slowest.

Shot: narrow shot with two side shots.

Subshot: bullets aimed at enemies.

Charged shot: saw that homes-in on enemies

Bomb: saws that travel across the screen. Extremely high damage at close range.

Golden The Prince

Speed: very fast.

Shot: narrow shot.

Subshot: hearts fired directly forward. The options' angle can be changed by moving vertically.

Charged shot: Golden clones that fire directly forward. Depending on the player's magic power, there will be either 2 clones or 4 clones.

Bomb: Giant laser fired directly forward. While the bomb is active, movement speed is increased.

Scoring

Item collecting

Assuming the player has gotten at least one magic powerup, holding down the A button will gradually increase the magic meter before releasing the charged shot, going from level 1 to 8 (alternatively, the player can shoot down enemies and this will also increase the magic meter). Releasing the A button will summon the player's charged shot and every enemy destroyed while it's active will drop an item. Each item has its own levels from 1 to 8, with which one appears depending on where the magic meter was at the moment of killing an enemy. Collecting every level of the same item will complete a "set" and add a multiplier to every item collected afterwards. With one exception (red dragon in stage 3), enemies always drop the same items, making it possible to develop a route where several item sets are completed in a single stage, and cash in on the latter stages with up to a x12 multiplier from finishing all the sets.

The game also has secret items dropped by bosses and specific enemies. These items have the highest score value at 100,000, making it very important to try and get them if the player is aiming for a high score. While the secret items are considered their own set, they won't increase the player's multiplier, and only add up to the 108 item completion. Collecting all 108 items is a 1 million point bonus.

Polarities

Great Mahou Daisakusen features a red and blue polarity system. The player starts at a specific polarity (this depends on what character was selected), and can cycle through them by holding the A button once a magic powerup has been obtained. Likewise, many enemies will feature their own polarity and bullets imbued in it. The player's option bullets can destroy bullets of the same polarity, and being hit by said bullets won't result in a death, instead the player's shot and magic drops by one level. Shooting an enemies with their opposite polarity will quickly dispose of them, while doing the same with their own polarity will take longer to defeat, and prove severely ineffective against bosses. Destroying polarity enemies also has a slight influence in scoring: -Defeating an enemy with its opposite polarity is x2 of its base value.

-Defeating an enemy with its opposite polarity is x2 of its base value.

-Defeating an enemy with its own polarity is 1/2 of its base value.

-Defeating an enemy with a bomb is 1/10 of its base value. This applies even for non-polarity enemies.

The polarity bonus rules only count if the player has gotten a magic powerup, otherwise score from polarity enemies won't be doubled (nor halved).

End of stage bonus

Once a stage has been finished, the player will be rewarded with the following score bonuses:

Bomb Bonus: 10,000 for each bomb in stock at the moment the stage ended.

Great Bonus: no idea how this works.

Rank

Great Mahou Daisakusen features a basic rank system that increases by collecting items. Rank affects bullet speed and enemy fire rate.

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.

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Story

The earth was really hollow.

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