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

[emphatic]

The red lasers slowly deplete a life rather than killing you.

Is this all the time, or only when in Ninja Mode?

[Eyedol]

Akai Katana, stage 5 using Kobayakawa Shion.

Code Select Expand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s29Z0YRijUA&feature=related

Final score : 71,323,915

[Hive]

Akai Katana, stage 5 using Kobayakawa Shion.

Code Select Expand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s29Z0YRijUA&feature=related

Final score : 71,323,915

awesome!! Thanks!! 

[Tesuman]

How's the Kinsenka team (Tsubaki+Sumire)?

Haven't seen much...yet, other than the one loke vid.

[Monouchi]

Akai Katana, stage 5 using Kobayakawa Shion.

Code Select Expand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s29Z0YRijUA&feature=related

Final score : 71,323,915

Thanks for the vid.

Wow, the music in this game is absolutely awesome, I could play it for the music alone.
Wheres the 360 port!?! 

[EOJ]

Wheres the 360 port!?!  

Fall 2011 at the earliest. Lots of stuff coming out to enjoy in the meantime.

[Monouchi]

Wheres the 360 port!?!  

Fall 2011 at the earliest. Lots of stuff coming out to enjoy in the meantime.

You are so right about that! And with my soon finished Egret 2 1-player 24Khz Xbox360 setup, well, I will be busy. 

Love the laser cannons in stage 5.
Maybe Akai Katana will be the first CAVE OST I will buy.

[Hive]

Wheres the 360 port!?!  

Fall 2011 at the earliest. Lots of stuff coming out to enjoy in the meantime.

oh man, I was thinking Cave would stop porting their arcade stuff to 360.
This is great news~

[Tesuman]

The red lasers slowly deplete a life rather than killing you.

Is this all the time, or only when in Ninja Mode?

It looks like in Fighter mode only.  You see this during the TLB fight in the Yaezakura vid 2/2.

[emphatic]

oh man, I was thinking Cave would stop porting their arcade stuff to 360.

Only the old stuff. But as Dangun Feveron is now getting an M2 port, who knows what happens to Mushihimesama, Mushihimetama etc.

[charlienash87]

final pattern of the TLB looked damn easy. seemed like it was progressing into something harder, but still looked like a cake walk imo

[Kewing]

I don't see why all the Rock hate. It's a top notch and very well produced soundtrack from I've heard. I like it more than Galuda 2 BL. It was a surprise to see Ryu Umemoto there; I didn't know he was able to compose such Rock-ish music.

I had a deja-vu at the end of the video... The Stone-Like?

[Icarus]

Only the old stuff. But as Dangun Feveron is now getting an M2 port, who knows what happens to Mushihimesama, Mushihimetama etc.

Hmmm...

- Donpachi and Dodonpachi doublepack?
- Esprade on XBLA? (As Guwange and Feveron are coming, and Progear is tied up with Capcom.)
- Ibara and Ibara Kuro doublepack?

... nah, probably just pipedreams.

I think Akai Katana looks pretty fun. The running-on-your-last-life-to-score-big thing looks like my kind of game.

[njiska]

I don't see why all the Rock hate. It's a top notch and very well produced soundtrack from I've heard. I like it more than Galuda 2 BL.

Many things are better than Galuda's Euro-trash soundtrack, but i think the issue here is that the guitar is too prevalent. To me it makes the tracks feel like they're missing something.

[Monouchi]

Bah...
The pumping beats form Esp to Akais guitars to DFK BL techno is all utterly fantastic.
All hail CAVE.

[antares]

Imo the only really bad soundtrack in a Cave game is the one from Deathsmiles II.

[EOJ]

The DSIIX arrange soundtrack is quite bad. But the original DSII arcade soundtrack is great - much better than DS, and one of my favorites from any Cave game.

[EOJ]

SIN seems to like this. After his first day playing, he came away with a 260mil ALL clear:

http://sinmoon.blog.shinobi.jp/Entry/196/



He says the game is very difficult when playing for score. He also says many arcades around him didn't buy the game, so it can be hard to find it.

In other news, a 20mil stage 1 vid [not by SIN]:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR-H3oukKk4

[Monouchi]

SIN seems to like this. After his first day playing, he came away with a 260mil ALL clear:

He says the game is very difficult when playing for score. He also says many arcades around him didn't buy the game, so it can be hard to find it.

Personally, this sounds very interesting to me, a game that is easy in survival. (Appeal more to beginners.)
..but hard in score play, perfekt for scorers thats looking for a challenge.

On a side note, I am in love with the sound effect when you change from fighter to human. Oh, and the music.

[Tesuman]

Not @ Seven Islands...feh.

They're usually good about getting all the Cave shmups (BLs too!).

[SuperPang]

He says the game is very difficult when playing for score.

He's not kidding, there's a lot to concentrate on. Expect a lot of frustrating deaths. It has that "oh just one more go" factor though.

Why has this not pre-sold well I wonder? Are operators that sick of Black Labels killing off interest in the vanilla versions? If so we may have seen the last. I can't think of another good reason, the price is reasonable, it took good money in the loke tests.

I must admit I was a little concerned after the lukewarm early impressions. After seeing IKD listed at the top of those credits posted online I was afraid he'd made his first stinker. Thankfully, he hasn't, I think Akai is superb. The system takes a lot of getting used to but when it clicks and you're flying by the seat of your pants on your last life its pure Cave excitement. People have called it a hotchpotch of other games but I think it feels rather unique. And lets not forget the visuals, it's the loli-free military shooter we've all been crying out for and it's a joy to play through, if you can tear your eye away from the hitbox, option, ninja gauge and almost random bullet combinations.

[EOJ]

A pretty good scoring run (209mil at the end of stage 5, no TLB):

Stages 1-2
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11860875
Stage 3:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11861114
Stage 4:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11861191
Stage 5:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11861654

[brentsg]

Why has this not pre-sold well I wonder? Are operators that sick of Black Labels killing off interest in the vanilla versions? If so we may have seen the last. I can't think of another good reason, the price is reasonable, it took good money in the loke tests.

I have to think it's got a lot to do with the Black Labels, 1.5's, and also the DeathSmiles II thing.  I mean how many touch-ups that that one undergo?

I'm not sure how Cave handles their Japan-based customers 1.5 upgrades, but I will say that it gives me pause.  Now obviously it's a bit different for an overseas collector/player than a local operator, but still.

SuperPang, thanks for providing your thoughts on the game.

[croikle]

A pretty good scoring run (209mil at the end of stage 5, no TLB)

Ooh, this is how it should be played. One thing I notice: the gold spins in a larger circle the larger it is, so when you have one big circle of gold it's ready to be absorbed. This may be true with energy too, but the circles are smaller.

[Fu-ZAN]

He could have got a much higher score if he killed himself twice on the 1st boss. I have the impression that the hits work as a multiplier and that the player doesn't understand it.

He never get more than 2,5m pts on a chain through the first 3 stages, it's always stuck at 250~ hits...

[EOJ]

You can see the connection to and evolution from Deathsmiles II X-Mode scoring in this game. I don't like DSIIX's scoring, but this looks like a somewhat improved version of that.

If you have to suicide all your lives down to 1 in the beginning to get a high score, I won't like this game at all.

[EOJ]

He could have got a much higher score if he killed himself twice on the 1st boss.

But then he would have lost all his accumulated gold for the stage, which would have ruined his score. If anything, you'd need to suicide at the start of a stage.

[Hive]

the music is so fantastic!!

Did we find out who the composer is? Namiki?

[EOJ]

The answer you seek was posted 2 pages back.

[MrMonkeyMan]

He could have got a much higher score if he killed himself twice on the 1st boss. I have the impression that the hits work as a multiplier and that the player doesn't understand it.

He never get more than 2,5m pts on a chain through the first 3 stages, it's always stuck at 250~ hits...

Judging 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.