Difference between revisions of "Shippu Mahou Daisakusen"

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== Story ==
 
== Story ==
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: ''T'was an age ruled by magic and machine... Still reeling from the Great Gobligan War but a year prior, a certain kingdom struggled to crush the remnants of the invading Gobligans. Skirmishes were rampant, and fear gripped the hearts of the kingdom's people like a terrible curse... Then, the king had an idea to break this curse. He would lift his people's spirits with a great competition to celebrate the one-year anniversary of their victory; a grand race through the very sky itself.''
 
: ''T'was an age ruled by magic and machine... Still reeling from the Great Gobligan War but a year prior, a certain kingdom struggled to crush the remnants of the invading Gobligans. Skirmishes were rampant, and fear gripped the hearts of the kingdom's people like a terrible curse... Then, the king had an idea to break this curse. He would lift his people's spirits with a great competition to celebrate the one-year anniversary of their victory; a grand race through the very sky itself.''
  

Revision as of 07:31, 9 November 2024

Shippu-Mahou-Daisakusen-Logo.png

Shippu Mahou Daisakusen
Shippu-Mahou-Daisakusen-title.png

Title screen

Developer: Raizing / Eighting
Official site: 8ing Museum
Music: Hitoshi Sakimoto
Masaharu Iwata
Program: Yasunari Watanabe
Yuichi Toyama
Art: Akihiro_Yamada
Kazuyuki Nakashima
Kenichi Yokoo
Release date: JP: September 1994
EU: 1994
Previous game: Mahou Daisakusen
Next game: Battle Garegga

Shippu Mahou Daisakusen (疾風魔法大作戦, "Kingdom Grandprix") is a game developed by Raizing and published by Eighting in 1994. It is the second game in the Mahou trilogy, the first game being Mahou Daisakusen (Sorcer Striker) and later being followed up by Great Mahou Daisakusen (Dimahoo). It is notable for being an arcade shmup with racing elements mixed into its gameplay. It is unique among shmups for its speed change mechanics which can be used to manipulate the positions of enemies and bosses, a source of both exotic strategies and numerous bugs. Thematically and mechanically, it is much closer to Mahou Daisakusen than it is to later Raizing games such as Dimahoo or Battle Garegga.

In 1996, the game received a port to the Sega Saturn.

For replay videos, visit the Video Index.


Story

World version
T'was an age ruled by magic and machine... Still reeling from the Great Gobligan War but a year prior, a certain kingdom struggled to crush the remnants of the invading Gobligans. Skirmishes were rampant, and fear gripped the hearts of the kingdom's people like a terrible curse... Then, the king had an idea to break this curse. He would lift his people's spirits with a great competition to celebrate the one-year anniversary of their victory; a grand race through the very sky itself.
  1. REACH THE GOAL BY ANY MEANS
  2. DESTROY ANYONE WHO INTERRUPTS THE RACE
  3. THE WINNER SHALL RECEIVE A GREAT SUM AND HAVE A SINGLE WISH GRANTED


Gameplay Overview

The game mixes racing and shmup elements together for its core gameplay. Rival racers can be knocked into or bumped out of the way or sent flying backwards with bombs, although normal player shots will not affect them at all. The player can move faster by staying high up the screen, indicated by a trail activating behind the ship/character. Holding down the Fire button also increases your speed, but you can't fire during this mode.

Screen scroll speed affects rank. When moving at minimum speed, the game becomes slightly more difficult, with usually more numerous and faster bullets, as well as possible extra enemy spawns.

At the end of every level, the player can choose between two different stages (three stages are given as an option for the final stage).

The game has two loops. To gain entry into the second loop, the player must win the race in the first loop. In the second loop, the player has to go through all the stages they originally didn't pick in the first loop. In the case of the final stage, they get the option between the two that hadn't been chosen.

Controls


KGP-Screen-Diagram.png
  • A (Press): Fires standard shots from the ship.
  • A (Hold): Activates a speed booster, speeding up the rate of screen scrolling to the maximum. You won't slow down no matter what while in this state.
  • B: Activates a bomb. Bombs are unique to every character.
  • Spin: Fly horizontally in one direction for some time (do not touch the edge of the screen) and quickly change to the opposite direction. When a character does a spin animation, they deal 3x extra impact damage, and kills from that impact damage receive potentially many bonus points.

Racing controls

  • Accelerate: Fly into the acceleration zone to accelerate.
  • Down (Bottom of the screen): Brake / "back brake".
  • Grind (Wall): Brake / "wall brake".
  • Bump (Enemy or other racer): A usually weaker version of the wall brake.

Characters / Ships

Gain

Gain Homingshot-s.png Frontalshot-s.png Speed Accel. Booster Bomb Weight Back brake Wall brake Control -
Gain-160px.png D C B B C A B B D B -
Ship: VALLHALLYZER -- "Wandering soldier of unrivaled expertise, in search of the ultimate weapon"
Class: Fighter
  • Regular Shot: Narrow wide shot
  • Frontal Shot: Shoots two swords upwards, but only two can be on screen at the same time
  • Homing Shot: Releases small daggers with homing properties
  • Bomb: Throws a big destructive sphere ahead of Gain

Strengths:

  • Frontal shot has the highest piercing ability of any weapon, even able to pierce walls. It's also good for hitting masses of vertically-clumped up enemies.
  • Gain excels slightly in general racing ability and maneuverability owing to his slightly above average racing stats across the board.
  • Gain's bomb is quite long lasting and powerful, although it does not pierce when aimed. It has the unique property of sticking to whatever it hits, which can be a help or a hindrance depending on the situation.
  • Homing can hit behind Gain and to the sides with decent damage.
  • His weak weapons do not hinder him terribly during score runs where control stats are more important and bumping is heavily relied upon.

Weaknesses:

  • The most important attribute, weapon damage, is precisely where Gain suffers. Both of his weapons are quite poor overall. Homing absolutely does not cut it against second loop enemies, and Frontal is extremely narrow, and not very powerful, especially against horizontally thin enemies.
  • He is quite weak in survival play because of his weapons. He must survive the longest against very dangerous bosses and enemy rushes.
  • Very weak wall braking makes it just a little harder for him to control enemy spawns and the flow of the level.
  • Good weight and speed would make him one of the best bump attackers if not for awful wall brakes which force him to accelerate too much while up the screen.
  • He doesn't excel noticeably in any area, and there are other characters who simply outclass him, especially in important stats like damage.

Legacy Top Score

Ship Score Player Date / Source Comment Replay

Chitta

Chitta Homingshot-s.png Frontalshot-s.png Speed Accel. Booster Bomb Weight Back brake Wall brake Control -
Chitta-160px.png C A D A C C D F D F -
Ship: GUN-DALF -- "Local magician capable strong magical spells in contrary to appearance"
Class: Witch
  • Regular Shot: Narrow wide shot
  • Frontal Shot: Shoots large electrical waves forward
  • Homing Shot: Shoots flames that fly towards enemies
  • Bomb: Two large genies merge and deal heavy damage to nearby enemies

Strengths:

  • Frontal shot is one of the stronger weapons in the game, is wider than it looks, and has infinite range and instant shot speed. Great for speedkilling anything from extreme range, its only downside is that it cannot pierce walls.
  • Homing shot has the easiest time tracking a target when Chitta is far away and located directly beneath the intended target.
  • Very high acceleration.

Weaknesses:

  • Homing shot does not pierce whatsoever, and its wide angles make it useless in tight levels. Like most homing weapons, it doesn't really cut it against loop 2 enemies either.
  • Chitta's bomb has a very specific range it must be aimed at or it will do minimal or no damage.
  • Chitta's control and racing stats are possibly the worst of all the characters. Low weight means she is knocked around constantly by everything, often into bullets, and her score runs are also severely hampered by being unable to perform good ram attacks. Low movement means it's extremely hard to recover from being bumped, and it's generally difficult to get to where you need to be. Terrible brakes that take several seconds to kick in feel extremely lopsided against her extreme acceleration. Overall a bit of a nightmare to do anything with other than snipe with lasers from far away.
  • Chitta's back brakes are hilariously bad, taking 5+ seconds of pressure at the bottom of the screen to fully slow down, compared to Bornnam who can fully brake in less than 1 second.
  • Her most unique asset, extreme acceleration, generally isn't useful, and seems to only make things harder to control.

Legacy Top Score

Ship Score Player Date / Source Comment Replay

Bornnam

Bornnam Homingshot-s.png Frontalshot-s.png Speed Accel. Booster Bomb Weight Back brake Wall brake Control -
Bornham-160px.png D A F D S B D S A C -
Ship: GOLGODIAN -- "Sorcerer of black magic emphasizes need for money to refine sorcery techniques."
Class: Necromancer
  • Regular Shot: Forward shot, gets increasingly wider per level
  • Frontal Shot: Shoots balls with skull faces forward
  • Homing Shot: Shoots waves forward that can take a straight turn left/right if there are any enemies in that direction
  • Bomb: Drops a big bomb ahead of the player with a skull face inside it

Strengths:

  • Frontal weapon is quite powerful, wide, and pierces enemies, although unfortunately does not pierce walls. The fat wave shots appear at Bornnam's sides, often where one wants them to be.
  • The quickest booster charge in the game.
  • Bornnam is the king of braking. He has the best back brake in the game and the 3rd best wall brake. This gives him a bit of much needed control to make up for his other weaknesses.
  • The combination of awful acceleration and good braking means he can get the most points out of the enemy rush after the Weather Satellite boss. He's the only ship that can remain at minimum speed while at the top of the screen occasionally bumping into enemies.

Weaknesses:

  • The lowest speed of any ship. Occasionally, this can be a positive, as it's quite easy to do manual spin attacks with a slow ship. However...
  • ... Bornnam's extremely low weight makes his spin attacks less effective. He's also one of the most likely ships to get knocked around into either bullets or walls.
  • Despite having amazing braking power, movement speed and weight are more useful and more important factors in ship control.
  • Paradoxically, despite the fastest booster activation time and a double-power booster, Bornnam's abysmal acceleration means that even the booster's double acceleration value (4) is still slower than the non-boosted acceleration of other ships. Even Kickle & Laycle's non-boosted acceleration (5) is faster than Borhnam's boost (4).

Legacy Top Score

Ship Score Player Date / Source Comment Replay

Miyamoto

Miyamoto Homingshot-s.png Frontalshot-s.png Speed Accel. Booster Bomb Weight Back brake Wall brake Control -
Miyamoto-160px.png S B A B B S C C A A -
Ship: none -- "Samurai Doragon from the north searches for potion for mentor's daughter"
Class: Samurai
  • Regular Shot: Straight shot
  • Frontal Shot: Shoots balls to the side (top left and top right)
  • Homing Shot: Shoots spinning blades with strong homing properties
  • Bomb: Covers everything on top of the player with waves that clear all approaching bullets

Strengths:

  • The most important metric, damage, is something Miyamoto has in spades between either of his weapons and bomb. Homing shot pierces some things and does massive damage. Its damage can be further increased by moving away from the target mid shot, increasing the length of the trail of shurikens and causing extra ticks of damage. Furthermore, the shurikens are highly controllable and deal damage steadily, so shuriken volleys can be counted and damage can be discontinued when boss health is low enough for a spin kill.
  • Miyamoto's bomb is extremely lengthy and deals massive damage. It can instantly destroy dangerous boss parts like Gigandes's ice turrets. It's also the perfect bomb for scoring, being able to instantly destroy respawning enemies in Strato Sphere.
  • Frontal shot has a massive spread but still deals great damage. It's useful for scoring in certain sections.
  • One of the few characters with two viable weapons.
  • Great stats all around with no real weaknesses. He can easily control the screen scroll and be wherever he needs to be at any time.
  • Wall braking / collision slowdown was probably intended as a negative stat, but in practice it behaves more like a positive one, allowing the player to control scroll speed more easily.

Weaknesses:

  • Bombs can sometimes deal too much damage, killing things that you ideally would have wanted to spin kill, such as Skull Howard's arms which die with 1 bomb.
  • Weight / bump power is slightly sub par, yet high speed easily makes up for it.
  • High speed can make slight movements more difficult. Doing a spin from the center of the screen is impossible.

Legacy Top Score

Ship Score Player Date / Source Comment Replay

Nirvana

Nirvana Homingshot-s.png Frontalshot-s.png Speed Accel. Booster Bomb Weight Back brake Wall brake Control -
Nirvana-160px.png A F S S A F F D S D -
Ship: none -- "Leader of huge fairies driven out of homeland is in search of a new mystical forest."
Class: Huge Fairy
  • Regular Shot: Straight shot
  • Frontal Shot: Shoots large rings around her that go across the screen and after that go upwards
  • Homing Shot: Spawns smaller fairies that search for enemies and then hit them, which can reach enemies behind walls
  • Bomb: Fairies fly from the bottom of the screen to the top, blowing up everything in their way

Strengths:

  • Has one of the best homing weapons. Especially good for survival and beginner play where one may not know which direction dangers will appear from.
  • Nirvana technically has some of the best stats in the game with the fastest movement speed, fastest acceleration, and fastest wall brake in the game.
  • Second best booster in the game.

Weaknesses:

  • Actually playing Nirvana can be something of a nightmare as her strengths can easily double as weaknesses. The best speed, worst weight, and strongest wall brake often make a Nirvana run feel like a pinball machine with sudden unexpected position and speed disruptions. However, unlike Chitta who is in a similar situation, Nirvana's great movement speed will normally allow her to recover more easily.
  • The homing weapon can be extremely hard to use. Fairies may refuse to lock on to the target you want, and their seemingly random trajectory may cause them to do greatly reduced damage. For score runs, it's also terrible at doing controlled damage, leading to accidental kills.
  • Nirvana's bomb is abysmal. It usually does 1/3rd of the damage of Gain's bomb, has low duration, and has worse coverage than it appears to have.
  • The Frontal weapon basically doesn't exist.
  • Her extreme speed can make slight dodges difficult. It's impossible to do spins in many positions.
  • Only has good brakes if there is a wall or bumpable enemy nearby.

Legacy Top Score

Ship Score Player Date / Source Comment Replay

Kickle & Laycle

Kickle & Laycle Homingshot-s.png Frontalshot-s.png Speed Accel. Booster Bomb Weight Back brake Wall brake Control -
Kickleandlaycle-160px.png C B B C D D B B B A -
Ship: SORCER STRIKER -- "Boy that traveled thru time & girl partner is in search of hex to travel thru time."
Class: none
  • Regular Shot: Forward shot, gets increasingly much wider per level
  • Frontal Shot: Shoots a constant stream of bullets forward
  • Homing Shot: Launches large missiles that target enemies
  • Bomb: Releases an airstrike that targets enemies

Strengths:

  • The combination of great weight and speed arguably makes them the best in the game at bump damage / spin attacks.
  • Difficult to knock around and quick to recover.
  • Frontal weapon does passable damage, although it does not pierce.
  • Normal shots are a very wide fan.
  • Poor racing stats are tolerable during score runs where accelerating and booster charging are of minimal importance.

Weaknesses:

  • Awful bomb that deals little damage. It's particularly bad at hitting other racers as well.
  • Slightly more difficult to win races / reach the 2nd loop due to poor racing stats and bad bomb that's ineffective at slowing other racers.
  • It's extremely tricky to do good damage with the homing shot.
  • Damage is very important, but their forward weapon is the definition of average and does not pierce, while the homing weapon is extremely fickle and hard to deal consistent damage with.

Legacy Top Score

Ship Score Player Date / Source Comment Replay

Honest John

Honest John Homingshot-s.png Frontalshot-s.png Speed Accel. Booster Bomb Weight Back brake Wall brake Control -
Honestjohn-160px.png D B D D D A A A C B -
Ship: none -- "Magical robot of blacksmith with foul intentions for lifetime gold to live an easy life."
Class: AUTOMATIC ARMOR
  • Regular Shot: Straight shot
  • Frontal Shot: Shoots nuts across the top of the screen
  • Homing Shot: Shoots slow beams with strong homing properties
  • Bomb: Hits his hammer multiple times and releases high damage waves within the area

Strengths:

  • Frontal Weapon deals more damage than it would seem to. One of the strongest "wide area" sub weapons.
  • The best bump attacker in the game, since Bul-Gin (who has better weight) is unable to activate the spin glitch.
  • Good bomb damage, great bomb spread, and the lengthiest bomb animation.
  • Sub-par speed can sometimes be a blessing (easier manual spin attacks, more precise movements), especially with Honest John's extreme weight behind it.
  • Mostly excels in score runs due to his strong bump attacks and good bomb.

Weaknesses:

  • Homing isn't very useful, even in the first loop, although it does well attacking things behind the ship.
  • Very bad acceleration and boosting means tighter racing is required to reach the second loop.
  • Frontal weapon needs the right angles to deal more than minimal damage.
  • Normal shot is extremely thin.

Legacy Top Score

Ship Score Player Date / Source Comment Replay

Bul-Gin

Bul-Gin Homingshot-s.png Frontalshot-s.png Speed Accel. Booster Bomb Weight Back brake Wall brake Control -
Bul-gin-160px.png A F D F F A S D F C -
Ship: GREAT GOBLIGANS -- "Survivor of the Goburigan empire with the goal to revive the fallen empire."
Class: Captain Goblin
  • Regular Shot: Narrow wide shot
  • Frontal Shot: Shoots blue shots straight from the cannon on his ship, which can be aimed by moving left or right (difficult to use)
  • Homing Shot: Shoots explosives that are automatically targeted to enemies from all sides
  • Bomb: Throws a Gobligan forward who creates a large amount of big explosives around it for several seconds

Strengths:

  • Perhaps the most powerful weapon in the game in the homing shot. The only problem is actually using it.
  • Highest weight in the game means he's impossible to push around. Best ability to push other races off the screen, a much-needed boost to his racing ability.
  • One of the most powerful and longest lasting bombs. A decent ability to knock out a large group of rival racers as well. The only problem is aiming it.
  • Cannot activate the spin glitch, but low speed still allows him to do spins from short distances.

Weaknesses:

  • Horrendous racing stats and mobility. Horrible acceleration and the worst booster in the game means a lot of extra work speeding up after slowing down. Chance of getting to the second loop is somewhat less than other characters.
  • Unreliable homing weapon that often doesn't aim where one wants it to. Homing weapon sometimes misseswhen enemies were already damaged by Bul-Gin's normal shots.
  • Frontal weapon is buggy and usually doesn't do any damage.
  • Cannot spin glitch, severely limiting scoring potential in general.

Legacy Top Score

Ship Score Player Date / Source Comment Replay


Raw data
Ship Bomb Dmg. Accel. per frame Boost Accel. Frames until boost Back brake speed Wall brake speed Movement speed Fragility
Gain 21 4 6 90 -5 -2 18 8
Chitta 18 7 8 100 -1 -3 16 11
Miyamoto 18 6 6 80 -4 -7 20 9
Bornnam 18 2 4 60 -8 -6 14 10
Nirvana 6 8 8 70 -2 -8 21 12
K & L 9 5 6 120 -6 -5 19 7
Honest John 18 3 5 110 -7 -4 17 6
Bul-Gin 21 1 4 151 -3 -1 15 5
  • Note: Fragility is the opposite measure of weight and is how the game calculates bump displacement.

Mechanics

Items


Collectable items include:

Coin-s.png
Bomb-s.png
Frontalshot-s.png
Homingshot-s.png
KGP-Gems.png

Coins
These coins increase your Regular Shot power after collecting some. Flying sacks will drop 4 coins when hit or being hovered over.

Bomber Item
You start with 3 bomber items with each extend. These clear the screen of bullets in areas the bomb hits and give invincibility frames when the player uses it.

Frontal Shot
Power-up that adds another shot to the character, but can be replaced by the Homing Shot. Usually gives a shot type with high forward damage.

Homing Shot
Power-up that adds another shot to the character, but can be replaced by the Frontal Shot. Gives a shot type that tracks and chases enemies.

Jewels
Appearing rarely in treasures chests in a few select stages, they are worth 200, 500, or 1000 points each when collected.

Rank


There are two factors which form the final rank value in the game: temp rank and base rank.

Base rank

  • Base rank is firstly decided by the DIP switch setting and the version of the game.
  • If the base rank would be 0 or less, it is increased to a minimum of 1 (not true for JP version, which has rank 0 on easy dip stage 1).
  • Normally after each stage the base rank increases by 3 in the JP version and by 2 in overseas versions.
  • Base rank increases by an extra amount at the start of loop 2.
  • Yashiki of Ninja has a higher rank base increase than other stages. However, on loop 2 the base rank will not change based on whether you chose Yashiki of Ninja or not; the starting base rank of loop 2 is decided entirely by DIP setting and game version.

Temp rank

  • Temp rank is also heavily based on the DIP switch setting, but changes based on the situation mid-stage.
  • Dropping to minimum speed raises temp rank, while accelerating to the maximum non-boosted speed lowers it (boost speeds do not lower it further).
  • The temp rank raises during some bosses.
  • After a boss, the temp rank is minimized until the goal, and speed changes will not affect it further.
  • Powering up to max shot power has a very small effect on temp rank (sometimes less than one whole integer).
  • Powering up to max subweapon power has a very small effect on temp rank (sometimes less than one whole integer).
  • Different parts of a track may have a minor temp rank difference.
  • Losing lives doesn't have any effect on either factor of rank other than the slight decrease from weapon power loss.?

Raw data

"Normal" DIP setting base rank data
Version Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 ... Stage 1 (loop2) Stage 2 (loop2) Stage 3 (loop2)
Kingdom Grandprix 4 6 8 ... 20 22 24
Shippu Mahou Daisakusen 8 11 14 ... 32 35 38

Effects of rank

Noticeably higher bullet speed, slightly more enemy health (the main source of increased enemy health is the loop 2 bonus), and sometimes more bullets added to certain patterns.

Yashiki of Ninjas has a higher rank than other levels, but all of its enemies are unique to that stage, so the increased rank isn't noticeable or any different than just having a different base difficulty for the enemies. It may increase the racing difficulty however.?

Rank overflow

There are obvious instances of rank overflowing 8-bit or 16-bit values, causing enemies to either immediately lose health or fire rate.

  • In the default JP version, loop 2 crossfire turrets fire much slower if the player increases the temp rank by flying at the minimum speed.
  • In the default JP version, perhaps because of the extra rank in Yashiki of Ninja, the large statue enemies before the boss will spawn in a "flashing" state, meaning they are almost dead already.

Racing


Rival racer causes an enemy to lose its hit detection and cancel the player's damage.

In order to reach the 2nd loop, one must win the 1st loop's tournament by having the most points after stage 6. There are different endings for placing 2nd, 3rd, or lower. At the end of the 2nd loop, tournament points don't have any effect other than again on which ending scene is selected.

Tournament points and score from placements
Place Score bonus Tournament points
1st 10000 9
2nd 5000 6
3rd 3000 3
4th 1000 1
5th 500 -
6th 300 -
7th 100 -
8th 1 -

Rival racers can be bumped off the screen in either direction, somewhat affecting their race placement. Weightier ships have an have an easier time with this. Bombs can also affect rival racers, sending them hurtling backwards.

Outcast Castle and Yashiki of Ninja have stage hazards that will permanently slow rivals for the remainder of the race if they are caught behind them.

In general, having rival racers on the screen is extremely dangerous. They will very often bump the player into enemy shots or bump them behind a crushing obstacle, or otherwise just bump them into an unfavorable position which may eventually lead to a death. There is also the phenomenon where rival racers will somehow make nearby enemies lose their hit detection, effectively making the enemy invincible, which is another extremely dangerous situation. Usually one wants to be way ahead of or way behind the rival racers.

Scoring


Item collection

Collecting gems and collecting power up items while at full power awards points.

Item Score Item Score (full power)
KGP-Gem-200.png 200 Coin-s.png 100
KGP-Gem-500.png 500 Frontalshot-s.png 1000
KGP-Gem-1000.png 1000 Homingshot-s.png 1000

Extends

Players earn an extend every 300,000 points on default DIP settings on the first loop only, so survival is somewhat tied to scoring. It is possible to gain two extends before the second loop with normal play. By using spin kills to gain extra points, it is possible to gain four extends before the second loop. It's likely that at least one suicide will be needed to restock bombs, so in practice, only three net extends can be gained.

Spin bonus


Bump into enemies while doing this to gain lots of extra score.

When a spin bump deals the fatal blow to an enemy, extra bonus points are awarded. Fatal blows from shots, bombs, or non-spinning bumps will not increase score even if the player was spinning while dealing that damage. Analysis of the game's code reveals that spin kills were likely supposed to double the score from defeating enemies, yet due to the peculiarities of converting between decimal, hexadecimal (hex), and binary-coded decimal (or BCD), only sometimes is the bonus score actually doubled.

The problem likely arose during data entry when designers began entering point values for enemies as decimal values. These would end up converted and stored in the game as BCD. When adding enemy score to the player's total score, the game is programmed to convert the BCD to display as decimal digits in the score counter. There's no immediate issue with this pipeline of conversions and everything ends up as it should. The issue arises with the attempted "doubling" of the values which are stored as BCD, then doubled through hexadecimal math, and then ultimately displayed as BCD.

Original score Hexadecimal BCD Double Hexadecimal to BCD Score counter value
300pt 0x300 --> 0x600 --> 600
400pt 0x400 --> 0x800 --> 800
500pt 0x500 --> 0xA00 --> 1000
600pt 0x600 --> 0xC00 --> 1200
700pt 0x700 --> 0xE00 --> 1400
800pt 0x800 --> 0x1000 --> 1000
900pt 0x900 --> 0x1200 --> 1200
950pt 0x950 --> 0x12A0 --> 1300
1000pt 0x1000 --> 0x2000 --> 2000

Common values greater than 700 immediately run into the problem of not being doubled because of the BCD conversion. This leads to the situation where an 800pt doubled enemy is only worth as much as a 500pt doubled enemy, and a 950pt doubled enemy is worth less than a 700pt doubled enemy. Considering the difficulty of actually performing spin kills, one can conclude that it is simply too dangerous to be worth it for enemies with certain point values.

Enemy point values

Main article: Shippu Mahou Daisakusen/Enemy list

Death


First loop

  • The player drops their subweapon powers all over the screen. Only the the faster characters (anyone as fast or faster than Honest John) can catch all 3 power items as they fall, and only if they die at a certain position on the screen (see techniques ).
  • The player loses a bit of shot power.
  • The player's bomb stock goes to 3.

Second loop

  • Everything is the same as the first loop except the player's subweapon powers disappear completely. Of course, this means recovery is very difficult if dying in the wrong spot.

Stages

At the end of each level, the player can choose the following levels;

S2A - Air Circus.png
S2B - Velmatic Ocean.png
S3A - Outcast Castle.png
S3B - Cross Fire.png
S4A - Deeply Dungeon.png
S4B - Cold Corridor.png
S5A - Strato Storm.png
S5B - Forest of Dead.png
S6A - Kingdom Grandprix.png
S6B - Yashiki of Ninja.png
S6C - Kobolds Tower.png

Stage 2A - Air Circus

This stage is full of close corners and turrets that sit on the side and can be tricky to hit.
Boss: Big Wheel Crab

Stage 2B - Velmatic Ocean


Water themed stage with almost no walls. Enemies come from all sides of the screen in this level, so be careful.
Boss: Little Brother Gillman

Stage 3A - Outcast Castle

Undead themed stage, notable for its varied types of enemies. It has mirrors that bump the player into other enemies, ghosts that can go through walls and giant worms that try to eat the player.
Boss: Vampire Earl McGee-McGee

Stage 3B - Cross Fire

You race inbetween an airship raid, similar to stage 2 from Mahou Daisakusen.
Boss: Skull Howard the 4th

Stage 4A - Deeply Dungeon

The dungeon has been set under water after the events of Sorcer Striker. Be careful for the enemies that can pop out of the sewer pipes.
Boss: Prime Slime

Stage 4B - Cold Corridor


Frozen palace stage with speed sections. You can get stuck behind the walls during these parts, so you have to balance between not staying behind the screen without running into enemies.
Boss: Big Brother Gillman

Stage 5A - Strato Storm

This stage contains no walls. The challenge is keeping up with killing the enemies in time before they swarm the player.
Boss: Gigandes

Stage 5B - Forest of Dead

Much like Outcast Castle, it's another undead themed stage. Even the boss from Outcast Castle can show up in the stage if the player attacks the big coffin.
Boss: Demon Apocalypse

Stage 6A - Kingdom Grandprix

Fast-paced final stage. Often a wall will sit in the middle of the screen and the player had to pick sides where to go to. Later in the stage are electrical walls that the player must avoid touching.
Boss: Bashinet-R

Stage 6B - Yashiki of Ninja

You enter a mansion full of ninjas and other types of enemies, which usually appear from the sides of the screen rather than the top. Often considered the hardest one out of the final stages.

Boss: Hayatemaru

Stage 6C - Kobolds Tower

Throughout the stage boulder fall from the top of the tower. Be careful not to get hit by the missle launchers that sit on the sides of the screen.
Boss: Weather Satellite Stimpy

Strategy

Strategy articles for Shippu Mahou Daisakusen

Trivia

  • Carpet made her debut as a minor enemy in this game before becoming a playable character in Armed Police Batrider.
  • In more than half of the game's stages, all bullets (which can only be destroyed by suiciding into them) are worth 10 points (20 while spinning!), but for some reason, they are all worth 0 points in the remaining stages.
  • The battleship in Crossfire suddenly loses all of its collision detection when the boss spawns.
  • Prime Slime, the boss of Deeply Dungeon, doesn't give extra points for a spin kill due to a programming error. The function which checks for the player's state of spinning checks Prime Slime's "spin" value instead. Since Prime Slime can never have a spin value, the extra points can never be acquired.
  • When a rival racer destroys an enemy, no points are awarded. However, when they kill a boss, the normal amount of points is awarded.


Rejected game names

Many Japanese names were considered for the game during development. Some of the rejected names were:

  • 魔法大革命 (Magic Great Revolution)
  • 魔法十番勝負 (Magic 10 Places Showdown)
  • 魔法大作戦2~疾風の大陸~ (Mahou Daisakusen 2 - A World of Gale Winds) was too long.
  • 魔法一直線 (Magic Straight Line) wouldn't make sense with curvy races.
  • 魔法超光速 (Magic Ultra Lightspeed) was rejected because it was basically the same name as the anime Chou Kousoku Galvion.
  • 魔法大合唱 (Magic Grand Chorus) was rejected for some reason the developers don't remember.
  • 大陸間弾道魔法大作戦 (Intercontinental Ballistic Mahou Daisakusen) was just too awful.


Bugs

Shippu Mahou Daisakusen is an extremely buggy game. Many of the bugs seem to stem from the game's implementation of variable scroll speed mechanics.

  • Sometimes Prime Jelly just disappears offscreen and never returns. He continues blocking enemy spawns until the race ends.
  • Rarely, Skull Howard dive attack can wrap him off the bottom of the screen, causing him to reappear at the top of the screen with his next movement pattern.
  • Starting a co-op game on the player 2 side and pressing 1P start on the character select screen doesn't refresh the display properly, thinking it still has a credit.

Gallery

References

  1. Kingdom Grandprix intro sequence
  2. Official website https://www.8ing.co.jp/museum/prd/sipu/