Akai Katana - Xbox 360

Akai Katana is a side scrolling shmup, with planes, tanks, ships, and massive amounts of bullets. There are a number of planes and pilots to choose from, offering a variety of shot types and subweapons, and three game modes with different game play and scoring mechanics.There is a bit of a learning curve to grasp the game mechanics, however they are worth learning. The difference between a new player and an advanced player is astronomical: a new player may shoot stuff and use bombs when in trouble, while an advanced player manipulates enemies to quickly charge up their gauges and spends most of the challenging sections as an INVINCIBLE NINJA, all while collecting huge amounts of point items and looking stylish in the process.There are many subtle strategies to learn. For example, collecting bomb items clears the screen of bullets (not just using them). Thus, you can hold off on collecting bomb items until a tough section for an easy screen wipe.Akai Katana has three game modes. While they may look the same from the first 10 seconds, they offer different game mechanics and scoring systems (one of which is drastically different), so it's a good idea to give them all a try and see which one you like.The scoring systems are all really fun, and make the game vastly more interesting than simply shooting and dodging. These involve creating large numbers of gold items, which you cash in for huge point spikes. It takes a while to learn, but looks awesome when correctly executed.Boss fights are definitely the highlight of the game. At first you face a human enemy who is sort of floating there. They fire a few volleys and get you warmed up, and then things hit the fan as they summon giant battleships, planes, and cannons to fly all over the screen shooting massive waves of bullets. The in-game scale gets a little weird looking (I'm not sure why a summoned bomber is ten times the scale of a regular one) but whatever, it's seriously cool looking.The HD sprites are fantastic, with a high level of detail and animation in them. Optionally, you can choose origin mode if you want to see how the game originally looked in arcades.I also have the Japanese release of this game. Interestingly enough, the North American version has some additional on-disc patching that makes formatting the screen on 4:3 arcade monitors easier. This may not be important to those playing on HDTVs, but for those looking for an authentic arcade experience it's really handy. Thanks to whoever got that into the game.

This is a cave shooter so of course it's "bullet hell" like all of their shooters (that I've played). It's actually horizontal which is somewhat strange for the genre, I actually thought it was vertical prior to purchasing because I wasn't paying attention.You get 3 characters. There is lots of stuff flying at you at all times. It would be frustrating if there weren't infinite continues. Control is fantastic (thank God!). Graphics are pretty good (but it feels like an emulation because of the jaggies). Effects are also good. Length of game (compared to other bullet hell shooters) is fairly long. Play mechanics are fairly interesting and the "hit box" is apparent (green circle on the ship) which is very important for a bullet hell shooter.This game feels a lot like progear to me which was a very popular japanese shooter in the same vein. Probably about the same difficulty as well. I don't really play or enjoy these types of shooters at all (my "threshold" is the raiden series which has some bullet hell game play but not all) but this is a decent game for what it is. For under 15 bucks new it's a decent deal if you can stand the gameplay type and like playing shooters. I have both of cave's US releases (deathsmiles and akai katana) and I don't really regret the purchase. There really isn't a whole lot in this genre that has been released in the US let alone of the traditional "shooter" genre; there are raiden fighter aces and raiden iv which are pretty good ports whereas otomedius "excellent" is awful (but really cheap). I guess there are no more "strategic" arcade shooters on modern systems, but these bullet hell type shooters are still pretty playable once you get over the learning curve (which is pretty steep).Back to this game...if they boffed the control it would be unplayable (because it would be required to dodge the thousands of bullets and ships flying at you) but they didn't, the control is excellent so it's playable. Looks and plays good enough to be worth the money they're charging if you play shooters. End of story.