Dogyuun arcade 1cc

A 1-credit clear of the arcade game Dogyuun, played with WolfMAME 0.261. Score: 3,134,880. Score submission for the 2024 Winter Yolympics!

Dogyuun is big, bombastic game with a big, bombastic soundtrack - a solid Toaplan game from the same era as FixEight and Tatsujin Ou. It feels great to play. As with some other Toaplan games like the Tatsujin series, levels feel a little too long and repetitive (especially when you're grinding 1cc attempts), but it's still a terrific game. Below are some notes on how to clear it:

Hitting the A button fires your weapon. If you're using the orange or blue weapon, tapping it (or using autofire, which is allowed) does more damage than holding it down.
The ORANGE weapon (seeker lasers that turn at right angles) is the best overall, followed by the BLUE laser, the PINK curvy lasers (awesome for certain boss battles but unreliable because they often miss smaller targets), and lastly the GREEN weapon (the worst of the bunch, swap to something else ASAP).
You can carry either a bomb, or a blue speed module, not both. If you have a bomb, hitting the B button detonates it (and uses it up). If you have the speed module, holding B makes you ZIP very fast. You also get side options if you have the speed module, which can block bullets, and if you have the blue weapon they also fire.
Hitting C will drop your current power-up and holding C fires a tractor beam for grabbing enemies or powerup-holders. You can use this for tricks like carrying a power-up with you for later. I do this once on stage 6 when I drop my bomb, pick up a capsule with a speedup, then pick the bomb back up. (Then I failed to re-collect the speedup anyway!)

The game has rank: If you haven't died recently, the enemies fire more and faster shots and just generally hate you more. The silver lining of dying is that your next life will have less aggressive enemies to deal with. I'm playing the US version; in the Japan version rank can rise even higher and the game is harder.

There's an extend at 200K (which comes pretty early, typically in stage 2). You also get a 1up/100K item after killing the stage 4 boss. There's a secret to getting one more extend: Pick up the power-up box with the extend after boss #4, carry it all the way to the next boss, then after blowing up the boss, blow up old and new boxes to get two extends. I didn't bother with trying that trick.

Quick boss notes:
Stage 1: Use orange. Hug the right side (so that his left guns are too far off screen to shoot) and shoot at him from high up on the screen. When he extends his arm, ZIP down to dodge the bullets it fires, then ZIP back up to the top right.
Stage 2: Use blue. When he starts charging his chest laser, try to to end up on his left if he's toward the right of the screen (or vice versa). Your beam can SORT OF counter his chest beams, but you want to be hitting his shoulder.
Stage 3: Get the PINK weapon just before the boss and shoot from his side. Watch for him to fire a laser, throw a boomerang to the right, throw a boomerang to the left, repeat.
Stage 4: Use orange. Mash nearby to blow off the claw on his left then hide out in the top left corner.
Stage 5: Get the PINK weapon just before the boss . Hang out at the bottom right, fire about 10 pulses, then stop firing and sit under an "umbrella" enemy. Repeat.
Stage 6: Use blue. Bomb him as he emerges, then hustle to the corner. Head L and R to kill helpers so you don't get swarmed. Don't let his grabby claws get you after a jump.
Stage 7: Use orange. Hang out at the top left corner, peeking down just enough to let your shots lock on to him when he gives you space. IMPORTANT!!! The game loves to softlock after you blow this boss up. Once there are three sets of blue damage markers on him, tap to fire just one shot at a time, and wait to make sure that shot didn't kill him before firing the next one. His hurtbox stays active when he starts blowing up, so don't zoom around and die after killing him.
Stage 8: You want blue speedup AND blue weapon. Each time he stops moving he'll pause, then fire some beams - you want to zip to the side just as that happens. You need to keep moving left and right to take out the spinny orange shots he fills the screen with.
Stage 9: Use orange. Hang out to the left and after he fires 4 times head right. Then bomb the arm. Once it's blown up, hang out at the bottom of the screen directly below his chest and keep firing.
Stage 10: Seems impossible, becomes much easier after seeing the route and practicing from a savestate. When the vertical line of shots start to materialize, you want to be next to them moving DOWN. Then zip up through the gap and zip back down.

Other solid Dogyuun gameplay videos:
Jaimers:    • [AC] ドギューン!! / Dogyuun - 1-ALL Clear  
STG Weekly:    • STG Weekly #113: Dogyuun  
Baron Rojo:    • Dogyuun - Arcade - 1 Loop Clear - 1CC