Akai Katana [Cave, ARCADE, August 19, 2010]

Started by EOJ, July 01, 2010, 03:35:21 AM

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SuperPang

Quote from: brentsg on August 23, 2010, 06:50:32 PM
I'm not sure how Cave handles their Japan-based customers 1.5 upgrades, but I will say that it gives me pause.
1.5 upgrades are free when they're released. Cave don't want a v1.5 any more than the operator.

Sycada

Is that right?
Out of interest I just asked Fujita about this very subject and they told me that if cave do an Akai Katana v1.5 then it would likely cost around 105000Y for the upgrade to be done because they consider it a seperate product.

Tesuman

Akai Katana Black Label...

Am I the only one who would find this...funny? :laugh:

necpmf

Quote from: Sycada on August 24, 2010, 07:36:35 PM
Is that right?
Out of interest I just asked Fujita about this very subject and they told me that if cave do an Akai Katana v1.5 then it would likely cost around 105000Y for the upgrade to be done because they consider it a seperate product.
Nah they just upgrade the existing PCB, which is why there are so few futari and dfk 1.0s floating around.

EOJ

Protip: believe nothing that Fujita tells you. They lie 99% of the time.
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brentsg

Quote from: EOJ on August 25, 2010, 12:07:29 AM
Protip: believe nothing that Fujita tells you. They lie 99% of the time.

That's only a problem if they bother to reply to you.  Last couple times I e-mailed them it took like 2 weeks to get a response.

SuperPang

Both Futari and Fukkatsu had a free recall. 1.5's are only produced for severe balancing or bug issues that are putting players off. Minor bugs are fixed on unshipped PCBs with a "." added after MASTER VER to distinguish them. As other people are discovered it's not easy to send a PCB back for those fixes.

Although the flexibility of the scoring system certainly leaves the potential for something missed, AK was in development for a long time so I would hope its bug free.

Fu-ZAN

Quote from: MrMonkeyMan on August 24, 2010, 12:36:45 AMJudging by the video the hits just tells you how many pieces of gold are floating around your ship. 250 gold at full value (10,000 points) would be 2.5 million.

256 hits actually looks like the limit, probably to keep you from killing the game with massive amounts of sprites. I see the player hits exactly 256 all the time. The only times he exceeds 256 is when he finishes off a boss. Suiciding for a longer energy bar may not matter all that much if you can't get more than 256 hits.

Taking damage from lasers also seems to charge your energy meter, that's kind of neat.
I thought the hits represent more the value of the ennemies killed than the gold. On this video from the loke test the player gets 460 hits on a single life (meaning he has a full energy gauge to full in).
It's one of the best score videos I've seen so far as the ones that poped up these days on nicovideo just show what's approximately the best score you can get without killing yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReXMV4WWCvQ#t=1m40s

MrMonkeyMan

He does get a hit count over 256, but he cashes in his first set of gold and then quickly switches back to ninja mode and starts a new chain, so maybe he just glitched the hit counter?

His score increases by about 2 million points from the first 240 hits and he gets another 2 million points when he cashes in the second time with the counter at 460. This would be the same as two separate 200+ chains with most of the gold worth 10,000 points. There doesn't seem to be any benefit to getting a higher hit count.

There's also a new run up on nicovideo. Final score is 292 million.

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11874834 Stage 1+2
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11875054 Stage 3
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11875336 Stage 4
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11875646 Stage 5
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11882773 Stage 5 Boss + Final Boss

At the end of stage 5, before the boss he gets the hit counter over 256, but he also exits ninja mode and then quickly enters it again. Doesn't seem to affect the value of the gold.

I don't think dying affects your stage bonus either. He dies a lot in stage 5 and still gets a healthy bonus at the end. He also causes some glitchy sprite flicker during the stage 5 boss.

emphatic

I think this looks kinda like ESPGALUDA II Omake! but with added deaths. I'm really looking forward to the port.

Fu-ZAN

I don't understand how someone got 612 million... Almost the day the game has been released on top of that.

EOJ

Probably due to some broken scoring areas (which were fixed in the final version) that allowed them to milk bosses for a long time, or something like that. The location test version only had the first 3 stages, remember.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised to see scores well over 600mil in the coming months, if people are getting ~300mil right now.
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EOJ

Stage 1: 22mil:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11930402

Stage 2: 64.5mil
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11930714

Guy suicides down to one life soon after the start of Stage 2, to max out his ninja gauge. Bleh. Crazy 20mil end of stage bonus in Stage 2 (almost equal to the amount he scores in the stage). Double bleh.

He says he'll put up stage 3 tomorrow, and 4-5 soon after.
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LRussolo

Quote from: EOJ on August 30, 2010, 03:12:27 AM
Stage 1: 22mil:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11930402

Stage 2: 64.5mil
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11930714

Guy suicides down to one life soon after the start of Stage 2, to max out his ninja gauge. Bleh. Crazy 20mil end of stage bonus in Stage 2 (almost equal to the amount he scores in the stage). Double bleh.

He says he'll put up stage 3 tomorrow, and 4-5 soon after.

Looks like suiciding will be an integral part to scoring high in Akai Katana? At least as of yet it's only linked to expanding the Ninja Gauge, and not diminishing rank like in other games. Interested to see more, thanks for the post EOJ!

rtw

@SuperPang, could you please take a picture of the version/region warning screen on your PCB ?
The future of ST-V rests upon our work and your work

Tesuman

Finally had my go at it today (and it actually was at Seven Islands - oops!)

As far as the aesthetics, the videos don't exactly do it justice. Aside from the wacky perspective, it's absolutely beautiful.  It's kind of like that feeling I got when I saw DFK (looks "familiar" but polished at the same time)

The scoring seems a bit intimidating at first, if even I can pick up on it, most should be able get the gist of things by time they hit the first mid-boss.  Maybe it's just me, but I did see what could be a couple of bugs still around.  In one other play, someone managed to rack up some 300+ hits, but have a gravely inconsistent bonus (like 1/3 of what is likely to be "normal") One thing's for sure...you'll be on your toes right after you scale in.

The music...I actually like it. It seems to fit the mood of every battle.  Not bad for pseudo "retro-metal synth guitar stuff".

i hope another game center near me has it.  As stated before, it kinda grows on you.

SuperPang

Quote from: rtw on August 31, 2010, 09:10:22 AM
@SuperPang, could you please take a picture of the version/region warning screen on your PCB ?


rtw

@SuperPang, thanks for the lovely picture!
The future of ST-V rests upon our work and your work

MrMonkeyMan

That player put up a new set of videos, stages 1-3. Ends stage 3 with 145 million.

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11954839
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11954950
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11955077

By the way, the stage bonus is exactly equal to the value of all the gold gained during the stage. So, assuming you beat the stage, you're actually getting 20,000 points per large gold piece.

Fu-ZAN



EOJ

Those high scoring replays put me to sleep. The entire stage is played in slow motion.
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Tesuman

#232
Not sure if this was noted anywhere, but the option control in attack mode is way different for Botan than the other two.  With her the the option is moved in "reverse mode" (ie. push the stick left, option goes right).


With Shion and Tsubaki, the option is locked in its relative position when you are in attack mode.

Kaneda

#233
YOS.K tears it up with one of the other characters:

Stages 1 and 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Stage 5 and 6 boss

BTW, where is this fabled stage 5 1up?

moozooh

Quote from: Kaneda on September 07, 2010, 08:50:02 AMStage 5 and 6 boss

The quality is so inexplicably bad on this video I didn't get what the end score was. 357 million, was it?

Stage 5 is also quite awesomely played. Lots of laser recharging and extended hit counts, nice!
<dan76> As it is I'll have to endure high res - life's hard.

Tesuman

Not so much about the score, but the fact that both survived.

(EOJ might go into comatose after seeing all this slowdown...)

Stage 1&2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Last Boss+Ending


HVL

No matter how many vids I watch, I can't seem to warm up for this. The awful music and the dingy reflecting system isn't doing it for me. Bring on the DFK BL music crew and hypers! Oh wait.


EOJ

Quote from: HVL on September 07, 2010, 03:44:04 PM
No matter how many vids I watch, I can't seem to warm up for this.

+1.

The more I see it, the more it looks like DSII X360-Mode, but with worse music, worse graphics, and not as fun. I never thought I'd type such a bizarre sentence!  :o
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TonK

The more I watch, the less excited I am...

I dunno... I still would like to play it - I'll wait till it hits Ibara cheap.

Monouchi

Quote from: EOJ on September 07, 2010, 10:10:33 PM
The more I see it, the more it looks like DSII X360-Mode, but with worse graphics.

Errr...what?  Worse graphics than DSII???

Ok, I have to counter here. The music and the slowmo makes me all lovey dovey, I love it.  :-*
This is just the kind of game for me, cant wait for a port.

And imho the graphics just squashes the uninteresting low-quality 3D graphics of DSII.