There is an awful lot to discuss about this exceedingly-rare mobile-only game. This modified version of DoDonPachi: DaiOuJou DX was released in 2007 and essentially forgotten by most until this autumn. While mobile versions were common in that era, we never had any specific information about DOJ DX. All of that changed when G-Mode ported the game to Steam in 2021, and later to the Nintendo Switch.
The game itself is a surprisingly-good translation that retains almost every part of the core DOJ experience: hidden bees, a full chaining system and well-animated bosses. Unsurprisingly, the game’s audio is the weakest part of the package, well, alongside original phone controls. On modern systems, the latter is a clear improvement, but audio is 2007-era music and effects.
All of this is standard, but even more obscure was G-Mode’s other release, a caravan-style alternative titled 弾幕検定死験-大往生編-. There’s very little information in English about this, so let’s break it all down. That name translates to Danmaku Kentei Shiken – DaiOuJou-Hen. Danmaku is the blanket term for the genre Bullet Hell. Now, the next two words are the same, in some ways. Kentei is a proficiency ‘test’ or ‘examination’. Shiken appears to be a play on words: both as a test itself but also containing the word ‘shi’, which means ‘death’. The Hen suffix just means ‘edition’, more or less. So, while translations exist out there, none of them really gave me any comprehension of what it precisely was. A bullet-hell test version of DOJ. It sounds much better in its native Japanese.
This rendition of the game was a boss-only gauntlet, pitting you against DOJ’s iconic bosses over and over with increasing difficulty. It’s quite repetitive and shallow, but let’s not forget it was a mobile game from nearly two decades ago. The game’s interest lies in the bullet patterns progressively increasing in difficulty and you can start at later levels on future runs.
OK, language and history aside, what exactly is the story behind DoDonPachi: DaiOuJou DX Reco.Ver?
This high-score variant of DOJ DX was curiously issued for one day only, back on the 30th of December, 2007. Why it was so limited is unknown, but it only features minor changes from the base game. In September of 2025, Yuuku! managed to preserve this 18-year-old mobile game and make it available for the world to enjoy via Keitai World Launcher. Considering fewer and fewer devices exist out there in the wild with this software installed, this preservation is even more remarkable.
The title itself is a double set of double entendres. While DoDonPachi’s name alone is a fun play on words, the Reco.ver suffix honors Cave’s other flagship shmup of the era: Mushihimesama. Its heroine, Reco (which I’ve always preferred to spell with a K), is the protagonist of this rendition of DOJ. The title’s full name, DoDonPachi: DaiOuJou Reco.ver pays homage to who is probably Cave’s most-identifiable character. Reco appears here with both her shot and laser and with her M, W and S modes representing green, red and blue. Each has the same laser, but the shots differ, and the latter of the two the only ones that can reveal bees, in laser form only.
The alterations found in this alternate take on DOJ are all relatively minor. The obvious difference is that Reco replaces DDP’s ships, using her sprites from Mushihimesama DX. There are several other visual changes: lives now are represented by Kiniro’s curled horn instead of ships and the GP meter is gone, moving the hyper meter upwards. Bombs have the explosions from Reco’s main game and both they and hypers have a great aquamarine hue. Level-ending screens now feature the long-haired heroine and her voice appears when appropriate, but the sound is otherwise untouched. In terms of gameplay, while the stages remain identical, combos, and thus scoring, differ greatly. The combo counter adds up much faster and is far-more forgiving. Failing to maintain the invisible GP meter results in a dwindling hit combo (à la Daifukkatsu) and dying just reduces your combo by about a third. Even after bombing, your combos continue, something the base DOJ DX allowed, unlike its arcade original. And while there was a level select in DX, one isn’t present here as this was a high-score competition.
In the end, though this alternate-reality DOJ DX may just be a ship-replacement substitute, and truly a mere novelty, its preservation is simply a miracle. It’s worth noting that Keitai World Launcher also has dumps of Guwange DX, three Mushihimesama games: the original under its own DX moniker, Futari and Gaiden, as well as demo renditions of ESP Galuda II and, curiously, the original DoDonPachi – though this last one isn’t DoDonPuchi Zero and is way better than it has any right to be. The fact that this exists at all inspires optimism about preservation and it simplifies and incentivizes others to dump titles locked to this archaic hardware. Personally, I’d love to see some of Capcom’s efforts, as a number of unique games were made in the early ’00s and effectively lost to the sands of time. Though DoDonPachi: DaiOuJou Reco.Ver is a curious bookmark in Cave’s catalogue of games, the ability to play it in 2025 is nothing short of remarkable.
