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

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

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Jockel

Is it just me or does the perspective make no sense? :3
You see the background from the top, but the players ship from the side?
If that's intentional, than that's some mad flying skills on display.  :righton:

Lunchbox

No arcades in Spain.

emphatic

Let's hope for an arrange soundtrack should this be ported to 360. Guitar masturbation is meh. :whyioughtta:

bcass

Yeah, can't stand all that self-indulgent guitar crap either.  Let's have some proper VGM Cave.

Part of me hopes this flops badly so we can see an end to this tedius PCB > Home Systems cycle.  It might mean an end to low-res from Cave, but at least it would put to bed all this slowdown bullshit we get when it comes to port time.

HVL

I have to agree too, not very good music.

Lusche

doesnt anybody think besides me that its strange that if you bomb you're losing all your bomb stock ?
it doesnt matter if you have 1,3 or 4 bombs in stock ... once you bomb all of them are lost ? bug or intended since this wasnt in the loc test ...

Kaneda

I played it this afternoon and cleared it after four tries. Not especially difficult. I beat both the stg 5 boss and theTLB my first try :/

Better than the loke test but it doesnt feel deep enough to warrant much play time. Its fun killing bosses and big enemies with the laser while in human form but there needs to be more stages or something.

@Lusche - Thats the autobomb that kicks in when youre on your last life.

Tesuman

Are the endings at all decent, or just one or two screen crops?

Kaneda

A few still images, like the rest of their games. I honestly wasnt paying attention and skipped to the high score screen so I could go home..

inp

Not very impressed with it at all. Looks like it should have gone "straight to console".

zlk

If I had the money, I would buy this game.  I think it looks like a lot of fun.  The first "complete" run is already on nico.  It is a 1-loop video, not sure if the game has some second loop or not.   :righton:

Dale

I think the stage 4 music is awesome. I also like the enemy placement throughout.

EOJ

Game was directed by Tsuneki Ikeda, not Asada. Asada is only listed in the "Special Thanks" section at the end of the credits.

There are 6 programmers in this game, including YAGAWA:

Tsuneki Ikeda
S. Yagawa
Daisuke Koizumi
Toshihiko Sera
Takashi Ichimura
Yuji Inoue


Sera has previously done their in-house ports, and I've not heard of Koizumi before.

Music is by Ryu Uemoto, not Namiki.
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EOJ

Quote from: Kaneda on August 19, 2010, 09:27:34 AM

Better than the loke test but it doesnt feel deep enough to warrant much play time.

I'd bet there will be code-unlockable extra modes or other elements that will start popping up in a month or so. Every (non-BL) release in the past few years has had some code-unlockable elements.
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inp

Quote from: EOJ on August 19, 2010, 03:53:38 PM
Music is by Ryu Uemoto, not Namiki.

Yeah, it didn't sound like Namiki to me. He would have made a much better soundtrack too.

moozooh

Had Namiki handled it himself, it would have been another batch of remixes on his 1996?2002 works, including another six variations on DonPachi 1st stage theme and assorted unimaginative loli-detroit-techno. Thanks, but I'd take something original any day.
<dan76> As it is I'll have to endure high res - life's hard.

Lusche

Quote from: Kaneda on August 19, 2010, 09:27:34 AM
@Lusche - Thats the autobomb that kicks in when youre on your last life.

ah didnt know that ... its more like a 'this is your last chance' than being helpfull ...
but if the game had the autobomb feature from dfk 1.5 it would be too easy

but the game is pretty short ? 25min for a full run :(

dan76

Call me shallow, but I'd probably play this game for graphics alone - I think it looks gorgeous. Also, good news that the auto bomb is only on the last life etc. On the youtube vid there seems to be a fair amount of slowdown, which I also like... The only thing I'm not sure about is the transforming/reflecting bullets thang.

XBL gamertag: durango76uk
www.1ccgames.com

MX7


SuperPang


emphatic


moozooh

Damn nice art without underage girls or melon breasts for once! :righton:
<dan76> As it is I'll have to endure high res - life's hard.

markedkiller78

CV1000-D. Is that the same revision as DFK BL?

Quote from: moozooh on August 20, 2010, 10:59:52 AM
Damn nice art without underage girls or melon breasts for once! :righton:

I like big pig / young boobs.

SuperPang

So I played a few credits. It hasn't blown me away yet but I am enjoying it more with each game as I figure stuff out, although I'm still a long way from understanding the scoring fully so forgive me if I get anything wrong. ;)

The system seems to be that you shoot enemies for energy, tap shot to absorb Progear style, hold shot to have it circle your option. You can then manoeuvre the energy orbs over bullets to increase them in size (feels a bit like Deathsmiles suicide bullets). If you leave them too long they shrink.

D button turns you into your character. The energy can be used offensively as a laser by holding the fire button (no shield), or defensively by tapping it. This repels the bullets and destroying enemies here gives you gold.

Thats as much as I've figured out. :rolleyes:

It's one of Caves easier games to play through and much like DFK, is all about the scoring rather than the survival. Its as generous with the energy shield as DFK is with hypers. I think autobomb on your last life is a good compromise too.

Presentation is lovely, graphics are some of the best seen on the hardware. Music is a step back to dodgy rawk.

EOJ

Thanks for the impressions. The PCB looks like a regular CV1000-D configuration, so I was quite wrong about it being upgraded hardware. I am very impressed with what they pulled out of the board (graphically) in this game.
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moozooh

Agreed, the game looks gorgeous and actually well-directed in terms of design (at least if you don't mind playing with perspective).

Also, since there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of bullets unlike most other recent titles, it doesn't slow down too much either!
<dan76> As it is I'll have to endure high res - life's hard.

brentsg

Seems terribly short from the videos.  There have to be at least 1-2 locked stages.  I don't think Cave would have something new like this in development for a year only to deliver a 25 minute game.

Tesuman


Icarus

That poster looks amazing, best art since Ibara's I reckon.
Now to wait until one becomes available somewhere. :P

SuperPang

Really enjoying it now.

There are a couple of things I either forgot to mention or didn't notice (although someone probably beat me to it anyway.)

Every life lost extends the ninja gauge a bit. The red lasers slowly deplete a life rather than killing you.

You can hold gold around your ship and increase it by touching bullets or enemies, just as with the energy. Here lies the danmaku, and the fun factor. It's pretty satisfying negotiating a load of bullets for insane gold increase. Your score soon shoots up when you find the sweet spots.

Ships are rather twitchy when you're tapping fire or pressing C. The significant speed reduction when lasering ties in with when you're defenceless and going for gold which works really well.

Holding your option over bosses/midbosses releases extra energy. Bloody risky though.