The
shooter genre parodies itself. To do this, CAVE surprisingly did
not follow the treaded path of cute characters and skyblue-pinky
candy environments. No, the programmers of Dangun Feveron created
serious shooter graphics of the same high-end quality like they
did for DoDonpachi i.e. and mixed them with a funky 70ies disco-music
score ! The weaponary and some weird animations support that glitter
age as well.
The player chooses between 3 spaceships, which are different in
shape and in the spread level of their main weapons. It goes from
close up to a very wide. After this selection you choose beween
3 different charge shots. These are A: The 'Lock-On Type' tracking
ray, B: 'The 'Bomb Type' Rockets, or C: The 'Roll', a spiral expanding
ring of energy balls, similar to a weapon in Toaplan's 'Vimana'.
Depending on which charging weapon you choose, you will automatically
change your gameplay later. So, finding your prefered weapon means
finding you prefered way to beat the game ! The 3rd selection
screen sets the movement speed of your spaceship. A useful option
as well.
Ingame weaponry:
To enhance your main weapon in the game, you can collect two different
power-up items. They upgrade the center and the wide shots seperately.
Hold the [A] Button to use the earlier selected charge shot.
Button [B] releases a mighty smartbomb in shape of colorful disco
dancers. This weapon differs in style depending on the type of
spaceship you fly.
Like in newer pinball games, the score numbers you receive in
today's shooters are sometimes quite absurd. Maybe on the top
of that list: Takumi's 'GigaWing 2' where you get average scores
of 16 digits! Obviously CAVE avoided to follow this path as well:
In Dangun Feveron you start with a reward of only 1 point per
ship. By collecting the red "Cyborg" medals you can
increase it by one by one. But you will have a hard time to catch
all of them, since they bounce off exactly one time before they
leave the screen.
Dangun Feveron is a great experience I can highly recommend. Especially
after getting tired from all those serious alien encounters, you
might find it refreshing to play this nice parody with it's unusual
music score. - [the sheep] in 2002
