DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou
Image: Cave

Cave's DoDonPachi series really pushed the 'bullet hell' shmup style back in the '90s, and the company has kept the franchise going over the years with sequels and ports – including the 2002 arcade release DoDonPachi Blissful Death, known as DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou in Japan.

The good news is that the Switch is about to get its first helping of DoDonPachi – the bad news is that it's DoDonPachi Blissful Death DX, a 'feature phone' port of the game that was available on the G-Mode service in Japan.

For those who don't know, 'feature phones' are basically what we had before smartphones came along, and that should give you enough information to sufficiently recalibrate your expectations for this particular release. While western consumers quickly ditched feature phones (or 'dumb phones' if you prefer) the moment Android and iOS-based devices became available, in Japan, the quirky nature of feature phones kept the market alive for longer, and there's a lot of nostalgia for such devices.

The game is being released on the Japanese Switch eShop as part of the ongoing G-Mode Archives series, which PlatinumGames' Hideki Kamiya has praised in the past. DoDonPachi Blissful Death DX launches on May 20th and will cost 500 yen.

The G-Mode Archives series has seen other 'feature phone' titles come to Switch, including Flyhight Cloudia, Sorcerian, ZANAC, Glory of Heracles III Silence of the Gods and Hero Must Die., the latter of which was resurrected on Switch as Hero Must Die. Again in 2020.

[source twitter.com]