DonPachi (首領蜂) - CAVE Arcade PCB - 2-ALL Clear 19.8 Million

My first 2 loop clear (using Type A) of DonPachi (首領蜂) by CAVE. This was played on the original arcade PCB.

Stage Listing:
00:00 - Intro / Area 1
03:00 - Area 2
06:22 - Area 3
10:45 - Area 4
17:22 - Area 5
22:21 - "Final Boss" + Intermission
23:58 - Area 6 / Loop 2 Start
26:59 - Area 7
30:24 - Area 8
34:28 - Area 9
41:12 - Area 10
47:59 - True Last Boss + Ending

DonPachi is the first game developed by CAVE and basically marks the official start of the "Bullet Hell" subgenre of shooting games. Some might argue that Batsugun or even Recca are the start but I think it's just easier to define it as beginning with the birth of CAVE since their games are so closely associated with it.

Way back in 2017 I posted my first video of DonPachi (   • DonPachi (Arcade) - Type-A 1-ALL Clear  ), which was a very crude and desperate attempt (I died 4 times on stage 4 FFS) to simply clear the first loop. I was never really satisfied with that somewhat pathetic run but there were just too many other games that I wanted to play at the time.

Flash forward a few years later and at the end of 2020, I decided to set some goals up for the next year and clearing both loops of DonPachi was one of them. Now as we come to the end of 2021 I'm realizing that time is running out so basically for the last month or so I've been attempting runs, and I finally pulled out a clear a few days ago.

The increase in difficulty of the second loop mostly comes from the not so welcomed addition of giant clouds of revenge bullets on all enemy deaths. You must rely on strict routing and on your ample supply of bombs to make it through as you have very few lives in this game (only 2 starting lives + 2 extends total for the entire game).

There is a true final boss in this game but thankfully he's not very hard compared to the insane stuff that the later games throw at you.