Review

The story of Cave’s latest entry into the bullet-hell genre of shoot’em-ups, talks of the discovery of powerful blood swords and the needs for human sacrifice. It’s steeped in Japanese history and folklore. Quite what it has to do with piloting WWII-like aircraft and blasting your way through hoards of enemy planes, tanks, boats and helicopters is beyond me. As soon as you start trying to make sense of the plot, you’ve essentially lost all chance you had of “getting” Akai Katana. It’s definitely a case of “never mind the story, feel the gameplay”.

The gameplay is instantly familiar for anyone who has played an arcade shoot’em-up before. You fly from left to right and shoot everything in your path while avoiding the (many) bullets that fill up the screen. At the end of each stage you’ll be confronted with a boss that requires you to memorise attack patterns. The bosses in Akai Katana are a little disappointing and on many occasions their health bar didn’t deplete no matter how many bullets I fired into them.

Thanks to an infinite supply of credits, you can play through all the levels in about 15 minutes, but the real challenge comes from trying to complete it with just the three lives you start with. Cave doesn’t make easy games and they don’t apologise for it. If you do complain about the hardcore difficulty, their games simply smack you in the face and call you a wuss.

Like previous Cave offerings such as DeathSmiles and DoDonPachi Resurrection, there are no power-ups to speak of, just different ways of firing. Holding down the fire button will concentrate your fire in a powerful stream but slow down your movement, whereas quick presses will allow for quicker navigation. New to the equation here is the inclusion of Phantom mode, which, when enabled, acts as a shield against all bullets.

If anything, Akai Katana is a little more hardcore than usual from Cave. It’s not as accessible as their previous games but memorising bullet patterns is just as addictive as ever for the fans.

About the Review

Platform

Microsoft Xbox 360

Developer

Cave

Publisher

Rising Star Games

Released

15th May 2012