I recently got the switch version of Akai katana and liked the presentation a lot. Once I started to learn what the skills did, everything changed. I came to this channel awhile back for ninja gaiden 2 content. all the shmup content got me interested in games I hadn't heard of. Watching Danmaku U 3 really grabbed me, I've had more enjoyment gaming in the last month than I've had in years. Playing with a goal that's not trophies is so much more gratifying. I seriously can't thank this channel enough!
That's funny because it was a Ninja Gaiden vid that brought me to his channel too. I had no idea that this was a shmup channel but I'm thankful because I've learned about and become a huge shmup fan thanks to this guy.
A modern port (Switch/PS4/XBO) titled 赤い刀 真 Akai Katana Shin was just announced this week, for a release on December 15 (in Japan). It seems to be based on the Xbox 360 version.
Agreed on all points, AK is my favourite Cave shmup by a long way. Slash mode looks amazing through component cables into my OSSC with scan-lines output to my 55" OLED. Black-frame insertion makes it SILKY smooth. My favourite part of the soundtrack is stage 4 - where the operatic voices kick in. Brilliant. Magical stuff. Cave really hitting their stride IMO, there's been nothing like this before or since.
Ah you finally played it. I love this game and it's soundtrack. Wish they'd do a greatest hits collection for cave games, I'd buy it instantly the swines 😁
Just bought the PS4 version, so this video is really helpful. The game is not really that intuitive so on my first runs yesterday I was really not getting it. I wasn't even aware of which version I was playing, because even though the game has an english version, the text where it actually says which version you're playing is in japanese. Now I understand the basic mechanics and score system and actually know what version I'm playing, lol. Thanks!
Regarding Akai Katana Consumer Edition (White and Red Label), Cave flatly stated that they will never port it. Releasing these PCBs directly to their fanbase was a way to circumvent how agitated arcade operators had become with Cave's habit of releasing Black Label variants several months after the initial version (the boards only support Free Play and can't be set to accept coins).
i bought the xbox 360 port last month...really a very underappreciated gem with deep mechanics and a very original theme...after playing it i almost suddenly thought of pro gear arashi...yes...a spiritual successor indeed
Crazy game indeed. Glad you finally got a grip on it and enjoyed it that much :-). Two things important to know about slash (shin) mode if there are new players of the game watching the video : there is actually a very thin red line on the left border of the screen that is pretty easy to miss that represents the time limit not to drop your combo. And gold medals are magnetic but the closer you get them from their spawning position the more valuable they are, so this means you need to follow your katanas when you throw them while they just destroy every bullet and enemy on their way.
great timing, I recently watched your cave stg ranking video and thought about asking about a review for AK. Next time I will not shy away :) Anyway, I ordered it after watching your video. great opportunity to test my freshly installed Brook UFB. Thanks for always delivering interesting content
No way is Progear better than Akai Katana. It may be a spiritual successor of sorts but it overshadows Progear in my opinion. Everyone should play this amazing gem.
10:48 could be an interesting topic for a future video: How important is slowdown in shmup game design, in general? It's obviously important for ports to be accurate, but what about the original? Are the game designers balancing the games with slowdown in mind, or is slowdown a happy little accident for the player that makes the game easier than intended by the designers? Do classic arcade games become unplayable or merely harder if one was to eliminate all slowdown, and if a developer was to create a brand new shmup, should they add in artificial slowdown?
Oh yeah great topic! I would say that the days of hardware based slowdown are over, now devs should do the crimzon clover and just program the slowdown into the code and have the game run at 60 fps (or possibly higher) great idea though!!
Slowdown has one pretty interesting benefit from a game design POV : it allows developers to make slower patterns that feel natural. Patterns need some time to be "set up" where they fill the screen and so on. Slower patterns can demand lengthy set up which is hard to balance without bloating the boss' health. What slowdown does is - it lets devs make fast patterns that organically slow down, cutting down the set up time, and it provides an intuitive feeling reason for why a boss phase lasts longer compared to increasing a boss' HP. It's nothing crazy, but can go overlooked.
In caves case it was simply cheap hardware and lazy programmers, there's absolutely no reason for it when with good design and hardware parameters you could simply program in variable bullet speeds rather than have the whole game + input lag + sprites disappearing chug along. So artificial slowdown is necessary per se just simply program in different bullet speeds depending on how you've designed it.
As you said this is an incredibly underrated game, specially considering it's a Cave game of all things. The Exa Arcadia situation also saddens me since that lowers the chance of the game getting a console/PC port any time soon
@@TheElectricUnderground CAVE can always have their 360 games or arcade originals be ported over to sell for home consumers. but not the Exa Arcadia version since Exa Arcadia put in the time and monetary investment to keep their Exa Label versions exclusive. Want all of CAVE-created games to be available for home users, write emails to CAVE to create such demand. More CAVE games are being released to sell on home store fronts, such as Deathsmiles, Mushihimesama, Esp-Ra-De, Ketsui, and more. Create email campaigns to CAVE to make such demand, especially with SDOJ and Akai Katana 360 or arcade original.
Thankfully City Connection has a new port containing both the original and the 360 version on the way. While the company has had some swings and misses, their cave ports have actually done well in my book (obviously not the switch versions)
I bought this game years ago and always enjoyed it. Unfortunately, my xbox 360 is in another state and this game isn't backward compatible with xbox one. I'd really appreciate this released on PC or Switch. Thanks for the review! Just recently subscribed to your channel and I've been enjoying it!
Oh damnnn I didn’t know that it’s not backwards compatible . I have the Xbox One and the new X . Maybe I’ll hunt down a used Xbox 360 in good condition … I hear 360 has lots of good Shmups out there and prices are on the low end compared to other systems
@@TheElectricUnderground cool! then there's that new exa version, I'm sure someone will test the lag at some point...did any one check for EXA SDOJ? (if so, it's probably similar(?))
I bought Akai Katana completely in the dark when it came out just because it was Cave and I also went straight to slash mode. I didn't know the arcade mode was so inaccurate but it felt weird so I didn't play it much past the first week I had it.
NB in the 360 port you can save any gameplay *including training* as a replay. Then in the replay you can hit the ‘select’ button whenever you want and keep playing from that point. It’s almost like save states but not quite. That system was designed and implemented by Yagawa, I feel like it’s sort of an apology for the insane difficulty of his rank management games...
@The Electric Underground, I went on the Japanese game store on xbox s and this game is available. But not in the Eu or US store. Do you know if this will be released in EU and US? and if not why, we miss all the good shooters. Still waiting on Gunvein to come xbox Eu.
I think it will be a good while before we see it on other e shops. I do think it will likely come on them, but it will probably take same unfortunately.
Boards for the home market is an interesting topic. The pinball industry now sells as many (maybe more?) tables to home users than it does to locations/arcades/bars. It's something that the game devs like Cave just didn't seem to take seriously. It would be interesting to see how many board sales it would take to cover the manufacturing costs, dev salaries and overheads to turn a profit. If hardware could be standardised, made reliable. and built to meet JAMMA for fitting into cabinets or into those Pandora boxes or Superguns then that would help reduce the manufacturing costs. If pinball can do it, and making a table would cost far more than an arcade game PCB, then why not? It's always going to be niche - much easier to release on Steam, but if there are enough people prepared to drop $7000-$12000 on a pin, then I'd imagine there are enough cabinet owners out there to buy shmups or versus fighters for $500-$1000. Depends on just how many there are as you need to sell more PCBs than tables to break even and turn a profit.
This is a fascinating topic, I was thinking about this the other day actually, where you could have this cart reader that s USB and then you plug it into your computer and it plays carts of indie games :-)
As someone who doesn't have the space for a cabinet, I really do not want a situation involving games being exclusive to closed platforms. Non-digital pinball machines have that physical element, but shmups?
I bought this from a pawn shop 10 years ago it’s still sealed because I just randomly bought it then put it away. Didn’t know it was a shooter. It’s a black label.
I wonder if the issues you mentioned is why the 360 copy is so affordable? I've never played this, so I guess I gotta download an older version of MAME. Great review 👍
I d say it s probably because rising star the publisher did a better job getting it out to the market. Pink sweets isn t accurate either and still Uber expensive, doj plus as well
It’s easier to use retroarch for pc. It has a vast array of mame cores. Use the current one and it plays just fine. I wonder how it plays on a mister since people have commented that pc mame doesn’t do pcb slow downs.
I bought it for switch. Have it on 360 too. I'll be honest I don't notice the input lag on either. Feels as responsive as the death smiles switch ports they did.
It's a bit harder to tell in this one because of the slowdown from the bullets and everything, but the additional lag on switch is definitely there, sadly. The switch death smiles port is also somewhat laggy so that's not the best point of comparison. Try Mushi on switch (a livewire port), you def notice the difference.
@@TheElectricUnderground Dec 14th release, contains the original AK along with Shin and Zetsu. Steam store page is up already. Only question is whether City Connection will deliver... esp. in the lag department, added features, extras, etc. It will require a thorough testing me thinks!
The boss music was stuck in my head for several days, so I came back to watch this video XD I like the soundtrack too, but unfortunately the composer (Ryu Umemoto) passed away after Akai Katana's console release. He also did arranged soundtracks for Mushihimesama and Espgaluda II Black Label. Definitely agree with you that Exa's C&D is a scumbag move. I despise Nintendo for doing the same thing, so my impression of Exa plummeted to rock bottom when I first heard about this back then. In fact, maybe this is terrible of me, but I hope Exa fails as a business. Because, the fewer games they get their hands on, the more games we get to play.
Yeah I have this game I think I might only played it once on Xbox 360 which is a shame but I'll get around to it I have so many games I haven't even check them all out yet🎮🕹😀👍🏾
Fantastic review as always! I wanted to ask you Mark, what shmup made you fall in love with this genre of games? For me it was esp rade and watching your videos introduced me to so many unique shooters I never heard of.
From what I understand, you're not going to get accurate slowdown through MAME ever, some patterns will always be slower or faster than they should be because throttling the entire CPU doesn't really compare to the specific PCB slowdowns.
So I finally dl mame on my pc and loaded it up with roms. But I can’t figure out how to use my Xbox 1 controller with it. I also ordered an atgames legends mini Bluetooth joystick, I hope I can use it w mame.
@@TheElectricUnderground It is more of Cave's decision to not allow the existing ROM dumps of the Akai Katana PCB version to be publicly available since they are the primary IP holders. I spoke with Arcade Hero on the discord server and the conversation leans too heavy towards the "underground preservationists" that want to commit unauthorized public ROM release, the same thing happened with SDOJ. Having the arcade games be suddenly available to the public through unauthorized means will also badly ruin sales for arcade operators. All license holders, including Exa Arcadia with their Exa Label, must comply with Cave's IP ownership to not have them in jeopardy.
About this *cease and desist* thing, and conversed with Arcade Hero, CAVE is the IP holder of such titles and have every legal authority to request such takedowns, especially requesting their business partners with authorized licenses, like Exa Arcadia, to share such orders to unauthorized distributors. Also, several arcade game creators like Incredible Technologies have requested their Golden Tee games to not be part of MAME. What all of them have in common is that their primary target customers are arcade operators to make return of investment. When those games get pirated and shared through unauthorized distribution channels such as public internet, then arcade operators lose their source of income along with developers wanting to recoup their investment. A better way to request those games like Akai Katana and others to home console is to send an email request to CAVE and / or publishers putting out CAVE games to request the games to be ported to modern consoles and PC for legal sale, excluding the Exa Arcadia version.
Yeah the conversation isn't so much about having the legal right to do so, but if the marketing decision is a good one, which I think in this case it was not. A company can claim the legal right to do all kinds of things (like copyright strike streams and so forth) but if your company is creating an ugly gap in accessibility in the market, like cave and exa are in this case, it will not only not work but also create ill will in the customer base. Also I m not convinced exa even has much legal right to copyright strike mame, as mame is an emulator not a rom distribution.
@@TheElectricUnderground It's true that MAMEDev, the makers of Mame, do not ever distribute the ROMS, but I will elaborate. MameDev maintains the list of games that are operable under the software that execute the games under its database of other game systems and game titles (ROMS). MameDev does not distribute the ROMS, they only store the database of games workable under the emulator from dumps. They can enable or disable the games at will from request of the copyright owners or the individual owners if company no longer exists. The games are enabled by default until cease and desist or IP owner request comes in. From those cease and desist orders, Mame Dev does not want to resort to counter-lawsuit so they play themselves safe to not be potentially charged as liable by officially removing the games that are operable. The big factor of unofficial / "pirated" ROM distribution are the "Download Game ROMs & ISOs" sites, which MameDev does not ever provide on their website. The abundance of once dumped and then widely distributed game files across the internet is what makes many of us believe that the games, as in their final product form, are preserved and accessible for the future. However, the problem is that many casual emulator and ROM gamers often associate with the emulator that provides all ROMS, while not true, correlates with, but not directly cause, MameDev as the unofficial enabler of the ROMS. When we take that for granted on the fact without being aware of copyright owners who control distribution, then some of us hobbyists who play rom downloads put up a fuss that produces nothing. Back to the subject on Exa and Cave: Those entities can have as little or large of a market audience as they desire. If Cave decides that they want only their games to be sold at arcades and not offer them to home consumers to buy at affordable price, that is their call, but Cave will likely miss out on getting a wider reach of their games, until very recently with some of their Xbox 360 ports being brought over to modern platforms like Steam, Switch, PS4, and the likes. Cave's library of games are increasingly becoming more accessible with legal selling avenues, but there are still more games to request Cave to sell to home consumers. The only really effective way to do so is to write emails to CAVE or reach out to friends that have the inside connection. Afterwards, the fate of games being officially sold to home consumer falls into CAVE themselves. We cannot really do much else than to wait or do what we feel like doing.
I feel like eXa Arcadia only caters to a small market that can even afford to buy their systems and games. They are a lot worse at pricing than what the snk neo geo was. Even if arcade owners buy an eXa system they are not going to make that much money. There are hardly any arcades anymore. And I am sure there are some arcade owners running rom based arcade setups. If Exa Arcadia ever went bankrupt in the future I wouldn’t be surprised. Even M2 needs to expand their market reach. If they bring all their games to the current console market and steam with PC they would make a ton of money doing so.
You have to run it in mame 2016 or Final Burn Alpha for the raspberry pi. But it runs too slow on a raspberry pi. It’s better to run it on a computer using retro arch and the current mame core.
I just beat this game in like 30 minutes. Very disappointing. Also, unlimited continues? I was killing myself on purpose so I could bomb the bosses and kill them in 10 seconds. This game is laughably easy....
@@TheElectricUndergroundcan’t tell if the op comment is a troll or not. You’re never going to have fun with games like this if you just credit feed lol
I recently got the switch version of Akai katana and liked the presentation a lot. Once I started to learn what the skills did, everything changed. I came to this channel awhile back for ninja gaiden 2 content. all the shmup content got me interested in games I hadn't heard of. Watching Danmaku U 3 really grabbed me, I've had more enjoyment gaming in the last month than I've had in years. Playing with a goal that's not trophies is so much more gratifying. I seriously can't thank this channel enough!
That's funny because it was a Ninja Gaiden vid that brought me to his channel too. I had no idea that this was a shmup channel but I'm thankful because I've learned about and become a huge shmup fan thanks to this guy.
A modern port (Switch/PS4/XBO) titled 赤い刀 真 Akai Katana Shin was just announced this week, for a release on December 15 (in Japan). It seems to be based on the Xbox 360 version.
Agreed on all points, AK is my favourite Cave shmup by a long way. Slash mode looks amazing through component cables into my OSSC with scan-lines output to my 55" OLED. Black-frame insertion makes it SILKY smooth.
My favourite part of the soundtrack is stage 4 - where the operatic voices kick in. Brilliant. Magical stuff. Cave really hitting their stride IMO, there's been nothing like this before or since.
Yeah that ost slaps to hard, I love the hard rock style, reminds me of gg accent core
Mine too, extremely under appreciated cave game
Ah you finally played it. I love this game and it's soundtrack. Wish they'd do a greatest hits collection for cave games, I'd buy it instantly the swines 😁
That seems like a fantastic idea, I wonder why they haven't honestly
Just bought the PS4 version, so this video is really helpful. The game is not really that intuitive so on my first runs yesterday I was really not getting it. I wasn't even aware of which version I was playing, because even though the game has an english version, the text where it actually says which version you're playing is in japanese. Now I understand the basic mechanics and score system and actually know what version I'm playing, lol. Thanks!
Regarding Akai Katana Consumer Edition (White and Red Label), Cave flatly stated that they will never port it. Releasing these PCBs directly to their fanbase was a way to circumvent how agitated arcade operators had become with Cave's habit of releasing Black Label variants several months after the initial version (the boards only support Free Play and can't be set to accept coins).
Interesting, forever is a long time, I think these days they could port them over and no one would care about an old promise like that ha
i bought the xbox 360 port last month...really a very underappreciated gem with deep mechanics and a very original theme...after playing it i almost suddenly thought of pro gear arashi...yes...a spiritual successor indeed
Yeah it s a shame progear overshadows it so much, that Capcom boost really helps bring more attention to it
Akai Katana is my favorite Cave hori and probably in my top 3 of Cave games, along with Mushi Futari and Espgaluda II.
Crazy game indeed. Glad you finally got a grip on it and enjoyed it that much :-).
Two things important to know about slash (shin) mode if there are new players of the game watching the video : there is actually a very thin red line on the left border of the screen that is pretty easy to miss that represents the time limit not to drop your combo.
And gold medals are magnetic but the closer you get them from their spawning position the more valuable they are, so this means you need to follow your katanas when you throw them while they just destroy every bullet and enemy on their way.
Oh great tips! I did wonder what that red line was
great timing, I recently watched your cave stg ranking video and thought about asking about a review for AK. Next time I will not shy away :)
Anyway, I ordered it after watching your video. great opportunity to test my freshly installed Brook UFB. Thanks for always delivering interesting content
Oh awesome!!! I used my brooks ufb in the review :-)
No way is Progear better than Akai Katana. It may be a spiritual successor of sorts but it overshadows Progear in my opinion. Everyone should play this amazing gem.
Thanks for speaking about Akai Katana, the most underrated cave game for me. I love the "ninja mode" gimmick!
Absolutely!! Invul hyper is awesome
A stunning game with original gameplay, great graphics and superb music. At the price it goes for its a steal.
For sure, and i d get a move on before word gets out and prices get jacked up ha
10:48 could be an interesting topic for a future video: How important is slowdown in shmup game design, in general? It's obviously important for ports to be accurate, but what about the original? Are the game designers balancing the games with slowdown in mind, or is slowdown a happy little accident for the player that makes the game easier than intended by the designers? Do classic arcade games become unplayable or merely harder if one was to eliminate all slowdown, and if a developer was to create a brand new shmup, should they add in artificial slowdown?
Oh yeah great topic! I would say that the days of hardware based slowdown are over, now devs should do the crimzon clover and just program the slowdown into the code and have the game run at 60 fps (or possibly higher) great idea though!!
Slowdown has one pretty interesting benefit from a game design POV : it allows developers to make slower patterns that feel natural. Patterns need some time to be "set up" where they fill the screen and so on. Slower patterns can demand lengthy set up which is hard to balance without bloating the boss' health. What slowdown does is - it lets devs make fast patterns that organically slow down, cutting down the set up time, and it provides an intuitive feeling reason for why a boss phase lasts longer compared to increasing a boss' HP. It's nothing crazy, but can go overlooked.
In caves case it was simply cheap hardware and lazy programmers, there's absolutely no reason for it when with good design and hardware parameters you could simply program in variable bullet speeds rather than have the whole game + input lag + sprites disappearing chug along. So artificial slowdown is necessary per se just simply program in different bullet speeds depending on how you've designed it.
As you said this is an incredibly underrated game, specially considering it's a Cave game of all things.
The Exa Arcadia situation also saddens me since that lowers the chance of the game getting a console/PC port any time soon
Yeah it s a big bummer
@@TheElectricUnderground CAVE can always have their 360 games or arcade originals be ported over to sell for home consumers. but not the Exa Arcadia version since Exa Arcadia put in the time and monetary investment to keep their Exa Label versions exclusive.
Want all of CAVE-created games to be available for home users, write emails to CAVE to create such demand. More CAVE games are being released to sell on home store fronts, such as Deathsmiles, Mushihimesama, Esp-Ra-De, Ketsui, and more. Create email campaigns to CAVE to make such demand, especially with SDOJ and Akai Katana 360 or arcade original.
i didn't even believe Akai already has Mame rom. that one of the game that im waiting to play on Mame besides SDOJ way long ago since 2013
Thankfully City Connection has a new port containing both the original and the 360 version on the way. While the company has had some swings and misses, their cave ports have actually done well in my book (obviously not the switch versions)
So the PS4 version is the one to get ?
@@camilo05191 pretty much, unless you just have a PC, that one’s acceptable as well (as far as I know)
I bought this game years ago and always enjoyed it. Unfortunately, my xbox 360 is in another state and this game isn't backward compatible with xbox one. I'd really appreciate this released on PC or Switch. Thanks for the review! Just recently subscribed to your channel and I've been enjoying it!
Oh that s awesome!! Thanks for subscribing ❤️ gotta track down your 360 and bring it home ha
Oh damnnn I didn’t know that it’s not backwards compatible . I have the Xbox One and the new X . Maybe I’ll hunt down a used Xbox 360 in good condition … I hear 360 has lots of good Shmups out there and prices are on the low end compared to other systems
nice vid!m, congrats!
any idea of the inputlag in the nesica version on pc (akai katana shin) (vs 360? or xenia)
gonna try it out soon!
@@TheElectricUnderground cool!
then there's that new exa version, I'm sure someone will test the lag at some point...did any one check for EXA SDOJ? (if so, it's probably similar(?))
I bought Akai Katana completely in the dark when it came out just because it was Cave and I also went straight to slash mode. I didn't know the arcade mode was so inaccurate but it felt weird so I didn't play it much past the first week I had it.
yeah it's a shame they did such a poor job on original arcade mode
I need it on Switch!
Live wire needs to make it happen!
NB in the 360 port you can save any gameplay *including training* as a replay. Then in the replay you can hit the ‘select’ button whenever you want and keep playing from that point. It’s almost like save states but not quite. That system was designed and implemented by Yagawa, I feel like it’s sort of an apology for the insane difficulty of his rank management games...
Oh yeah that is a cool trick! Still wish they had a boss select though :-)
@@TheElectricUnderground Agree, because the bosses are extra mean in Akai Katana
Wish this was on the Xbox store for download
Yeah surprised it's not!
Sadly most CAVE games except Guwange are not on the backwards compatible list 😔 someone needs to nudge Mr Spencer to get the feature going again.
@@Helghast73 Akai katana is BC though isn't it? Just not on the store?
@@crispybits6737 It’s not on the list.
Deathsmiles 1 & 2 collection was added to the store late last year published by city connection.
City Connection are releasing Akai Katana Shin on PS4, Xbox and Switch, confirmed physical for Japan, on 15th December
let us hope the ports are good!
12:47 those katana shots make me wanna get this game. I just want this game on a platform that I actually have....without using emulation i mean.
Yeah gotta get that jailbroken 360 ha
@The Electric Underground, I went on the Japanese game store on xbox s and this game is available. But not in the Eu or US store. Do you know if this will be released in EU and US? and if not why, we miss all the good shooters. Still waiting on Gunvein to come xbox Eu.
I think it will be a good while before we see it on other e shops. I do think it will likely come on them, but it will probably take same unfortunately.
@@TheElectricUnderground thx for reply, yes the dreaded waiting game lol.
Toujours à 25 euros en neuf sur Xbox 360,quel plaisir ce titre !
Such a fun little game. Glad you enjoyed it Mark.
Absolutely! Slash mode especially!
Yes Mark! My favourite Cave game! Slash mode on 360 is just the BEST Cave experience I've had. Gets nowhere near enough love.
Slash mode is super cool, that katana animation is beautiful and satisfying
I’m excited to grab this game for the switch! You know anything on the performance of the switch/ps4/pc versions?
Boards for the home market is an interesting topic. The pinball industry now sells as many (maybe more?) tables to home users than it does to locations/arcades/bars. It's something that the game devs like Cave just didn't seem to take seriously. It would be interesting to see how many board sales it would take to cover the manufacturing costs, dev salaries and overheads to turn a profit. If hardware could be standardised, made reliable. and built to meet JAMMA for fitting into cabinets or into those Pandora boxes or Superguns then that would help reduce the manufacturing costs. If pinball can do it, and making a table would cost far more than an arcade game PCB, then why not? It's always going to be niche - much easier to release on Steam, but if there are enough people prepared to drop $7000-$12000 on a pin, then I'd imagine there are enough cabinet owners out there to buy shmups or versus fighters for $500-$1000. Depends on just how many there are as you need to sell more PCBs than tables to break even and turn a profit.
This is a fascinating topic, I was thinking about this the other day actually, where you could have this cart reader that s USB and then you plug it into your computer and it plays carts of indie games :-)
As someone who doesn't have the space for a cabinet, I really do not want a situation involving games being exclusive to closed platforms. Non-digital pinball machines have that physical element, but shmups?
I bought this from a pawn shop 10 years ago it’s still sealed because I just randomly bought it then put it away. Didn’t know it was a shooter. It’s a black label.
That s really cool! Give it a try!
What a beautiful shmup !!! Wow !!! What a ridiculous price !!!
I wonder if the issues you mentioned is why the 360 copy is so affordable? I've never played this, so I guess I gotta download an older version of MAME. Great review 👍
I d say it s probably because rising star the publisher did a better job getting it out to the market. Pink sweets isn t accurate either and still Uber expensive, doj plus as well
It’s easier to use retroarch for pc. It has a vast array of mame cores. Use the current one and it plays just fine. I wonder how it plays on a mister since people have commented that pc mame doesn’t do pcb slow downs.
I bought it for switch. Have it on 360 too. I'll be honest I don't notice the input lag on either. Feels as responsive as the death smiles switch ports they did.
It's a bit harder to tell in this one because of the slowdown from the bullets and everything, but the additional lag on switch is definitely there, sadly. The switch death smiles port is also somewhat laggy so that's not the best point of comparison. Try Mushi on switch (a livewire port), you def notice the difference.
@@TheElectricUnderground Could you also test the input lag of the Nindendo Switch version?
Hi there, have you tried emulating it with Demul? I wonder if it’s any better or worse than MAME?
I have and the version I used was funky ha, def go with groovymame I would say
@@TheElectricUnderground Awesome thank you! I have the 360 version but never put the time in understanding wtf was going on 😂
Just heard this is coming to Steam in December as well as consoles.
Yeah it will be interesting!
@@TheElectricUnderground Dec 14th release, contains the original AK along with Shin and Zetsu. Steam store page is up already. Only question is whether City Connection will deliver... esp. in the lag department, added features, extras, etc. It will require a thorough testing me thinks!
Very informative, picked it up a while ago so I'm glad you covered the whole game comprehensively
Thanks so much! Yeah the review took a while to put together :-)
Have you tried the Nesica version? It's a little jank running those but I reckon that'll have the lowest input lag
Oh that sounds cool!! Can you emulate it?
@@TheElectricUnderground that's the thing it's not really emulation, it's an exe file :3 I'll DM on discord
Thank u so much. Really helped me to enjoy this game, and know which mode to avoid.
You can play it also on teknoparrot then two days ago Was announced for switch by city connection
Coming up today on steam / tomorrow on switch xbox and ps
Hell yeah! Gonna test the new port too!
@@TheElectricUnderground Great, keep us updated, please
The boss music was stuck in my head for several days, so I came back to watch this video XD
I like the soundtrack too, but unfortunately the composer (Ryu Umemoto) passed away after Akai Katana's console release. He also did arranged soundtracks for Mushihimesama and Espgaluda II Black Label.
Definitely agree with you that Exa's C&D is a scumbag move. I despise Nintendo for doing the same thing, so my impression of Exa plummeted to rock bottom when I first heard about this back then. In fact, maybe this is terrible of me, but I hope Exa fails as a business. Because, the fewer games they get their hands on, the more games we get to play.
Akai Katana is on TeknoParrot too 👀👀👀👀
Yeah I have this game I think I might only played it once on Xbox 360 which is a shame but I'll get around to it I have so many games I haven't even check them all out yet🎮🕹😀👍🏾
This IS so interessant man . Loving bout New shmups . ....for me at Last new haha
Oh yeah definitely check it out!
Is Akai Katana Shin (Japanese 360 port) any better than regular edition?
No I believe it is completely the same outside of language localization :-)
Rolling Thunder and Battle Traverse
Those games.. have Akai Katana to thank
You have to try those games, btw
For sure! I do have a battle traverse ep actually ua-cam.com/video/5nvhGCEYGBU/v-deo.html
I hope we get a "deathtiny" version from M2 in about 5 years or so.
Yeah maybe ps4 emulation will come first ha
Fantastic extensive review! Akai Katana is one of my Cave faves, especially Shin/Slash mode.
Thanks so much my dude!!!! Yes slash mode is one of cave s best arranges I would say
Yeah I bought this game years ago for Xbox 360 I didn't know it was that good I just picked it up from GameStop🎮🕹😀👍🏾
This was a fantastic video!
Thanks so much my dude!!! Put a good amount of time to put together :-)
Fantastic review as always! I wanted to ask you Mark, what shmup made you fall in love with this genre of games? For me it was esp rade and watching your videos introduced me to so many unique shooters I never heard of.
Dodonpachi :-) also I really liked axelay a lot when I was getting into the genre, I need to make a vid on it soon!
From what I understand, you're not going to get accurate slowdown through MAME ever, some patterns will always be slower or faster than they should be because throttling the entire CPU doesn't really compare to the specific PCB slowdowns.
Yeah sadly so, they gotta improve the emulation accuracy overall
So I finally dl mame on my pc and loaded it up with roms. But I can’t figure out how to use my Xbox 1 controller with it. I also ordered an atgames legends mini Bluetooth joystick, I hope I can use it w mame.
yes it should work, press the tab button and then go to "general inputs" and you should be able to bind it there :-)
@@TheElectricUnderground thank you!
I love this one..🔫❤️🔫❤️🔫
Hell yeah!
The copyright decision seems pretty wack here
Yeah bad look for sure
@@TheElectricUnderground It is more of Cave's decision to not allow the existing ROM dumps of the Akai Katana PCB version to be publicly available since they are the primary IP holders. I spoke with Arcade Hero on the discord server and the conversation leans too heavy towards the "underground preservationists" that want to commit unauthorized public ROM release, the same thing happened with SDOJ. Having the arcade games be suddenly available to the public through unauthorized means will also badly ruin sales for arcade operators. All license holders, including Exa Arcadia with their Exa Label, must comply with Cave's IP ownership to not have them in jeopardy.
Okay so when I played on the Xbox 360 what other mode do I play it on on the Xbox 360🎮🕹😀👍🏾
Free all the 360 shmups
Yes ha!
OMG you dared use the "hidden gem" word. You aim to go mainstream !
I did! Well it really is a hidden gem 💎
About this *cease and desist* thing, and conversed with Arcade Hero, CAVE is the IP holder of such titles and have every legal authority to request such takedowns, especially requesting their business partners with authorized licenses, like Exa Arcadia, to share such orders to unauthorized distributors.
Also, several arcade game creators like Incredible Technologies have requested their Golden Tee games to not be part of MAME.
What all of them have in common is that their primary target customers are arcade operators to make return of investment. When those games get pirated and shared through unauthorized distribution channels such as public internet, then arcade operators lose their source of income along with developers wanting to recoup their investment.
A better way to request those games like Akai Katana and others to home console is to send an email request to CAVE and / or publishers putting out CAVE games to request the games to be ported to modern consoles and PC for legal sale, excluding the Exa Arcadia version.
Yeah the conversation isn't so much about having the legal right to do so, but if the marketing decision is a good one, which I think in this case it was not. A company can claim the legal right to do all kinds of things (like copyright strike streams and so forth) but if your company is creating an ugly gap in accessibility in the market, like cave and exa are in this case, it will not only not work but also create ill will in the customer base. Also I m not convinced exa even has much legal right to copyright strike mame, as mame is an emulator not a rom distribution.
@@TheElectricUnderground
It's true that MAMEDev, the makers of Mame, do not ever distribute the ROMS, but I will elaborate.
MameDev maintains the list of games that are operable under the software that execute the games under its database of other game systems and game titles (ROMS). MameDev does not distribute the ROMS, they only store the database of games workable under the emulator from dumps. They can enable or disable the games at will from request of the copyright owners or the individual owners if company no longer exists. The games are enabled by default until cease and desist or IP owner request comes in. From those cease and desist orders, Mame Dev does not want to resort to counter-lawsuit so they play themselves safe to not be potentially charged as liable by officially removing the games that are operable.
The big factor of unofficial / "pirated" ROM distribution are the "Download Game ROMs & ISOs" sites, which MameDev does not ever provide on their website. The abundance of once dumped and then widely distributed game files across the internet is what makes many of us believe that the games, as in their final product form, are preserved and accessible for the future. However, the problem is that many casual emulator and ROM gamers often associate with the emulator that provides all ROMS, while not true, correlates with, but not directly cause, MameDev as the unofficial enabler of the ROMS. When we take that for granted on the fact without being aware of copyright owners who control distribution, then some of us hobbyists who play rom downloads put up a fuss that produces nothing.
Back to the subject on Exa and Cave: Those entities can have as little or large of a market audience as they desire. If Cave decides that they want only their games to be sold at arcades and not offer them to home consumers to buy at affordable price, that is their call, but Cave will likely miss out on getting a wider reach of their games, until very recently with some of their Xbox 360 ports being brought over to modern platforms like Steam, Switch, PS4, and the likes. Cave's library of games are increasingly becoming more accessible with legal selling avenues, but there are still more games to request Cave to sell to home consumers.
The only really effective way to do so is to write emails to CAVE or reach out to friends that have the inside connection. Afterwards, the fate of games being officially sold to home consumer falls into CAVE themselves. We cannot really do much else than to wait or do what we feel like doing.
I feel like eXa Arcadia only caters to a small market that can even afford to buy their systems and games. They are a lot worse at pricing than what the snk neo geo was. Even if arcade owners buy an eXa system they are not going to make that much money. There are hardly any arcades anymore. And I am sure there are some arcade owners running rom based arcade setups. If Exa Arcadia ever went bankrupt in the future I wouldn’t be surprised. Even M2 needs to expand their market reach. If they bring all their games to the current console market and steam with PC they would make a ton of money doing so.
Akai katana coming to switch and PS4
fingers crossed
... woah!!
I have MAME on a Raspberry Pie and neither Akai Katana nor Pink Sweets are on it :(
Dang, though pi mame might be those really old mame versions
You have to run it in mame 2016 or Final Burn Alpha for the raspberry pi. But it runs too slow on a raspberry pi. It’s better to run it on a computer using retro arch and the current mame core.
N👾CE review.
Thanks my dude!!!
Do you Play Elden Ring ???. Am i the only one Not willing to pay that much for a Game man ITS 3xoensive ashell
I have an Elden ring review coming out soon, yeah I ve been playing it a lot :-)
Cute girls with weapons, nice
Heres ur .01 % right here
Very cool!
1. Get Energy
2. Become a ninja
3. Get the gold
Words to live by
WHO ARE YOU LOOKIN AT
Slightly off camera, I don't like the straight on angle :-)
Welp this game is gonna be $200 now. Glad I got it back in 2011 for $10 at Gamestop... 😂
Ha I don't think I have that much influence yet, hope people get it while they can though
This game is not a hidden gem. Very common amongst those that follow the shooter genre
I just beat this game in like 30 minutes. Very disappointing. Also, unlimited continues? I was killing myself on purpose so I could bomb the bosses and kill them in 10 seconds. This game is laughably easy....
Yeah the unlimited continues is an outdated arcade port quirk, it s meant to be beaten without continues
@@TheElectricUndergroundcan’t tell if the op comment is a troll or not. You’re never going to have fun with games like this if you just credit feed lol
on steam akai katana shin looks the same