Cave shmup Akai Katana coming to 360 in region-locked Japan release

@Adhesive

speaking of exposure, have you seen the display image (or whatever it's called) for the youtube video?

@maveric101 Yeah, it's right there in the post.

@thisredengine

that's what i was referring to, i just meant it as a figure of speech.

@ch3burashka
more like "Red large curved piece of forged steel with sharp edges to cut your enemy's flesh with japanese stylish combat arts"

@The Blank Mage Returns
Triggerheart isn't a Cave shooter. Speaking of Cave, I'm hoping that Aksys Games localizes Deathsmiles II and soon, seeing how the first one surpassed their sales expectations.

@Dhexodus

I'll also recommend Mushihimesama Futari (region-free), DeathSmiles (released basically everywhere now), Raiden IV, and Raiden Fighters Aces.

And Eschaos releases at the end of March, which looks similar to Raiden. It contains 3 games and a soundtrack, and it's also region-free.

@Pure Black World Tendency I think they've got a special Vic Viper that can only fly and doesn't need to land.

@MyAbsolution Deathsmiles is awesome. Trouble Witches should be good if it's an XBLA title that's going to all regions.

@kaioshade: Deathsmiles sold more in America than it did in Japan, dude. The sales were more than satisfactory for everyone involved (which is why a European publisher decided to pick it up almost a year later -- do you really think that would have happened if the American sales weren't satisfactory?). And haven't you seen the region locking pattern after Deathsmiles' Western release? Games that probably have a chance of doing pretty well in the West (Deathsmiles IIX, Daifukkatsu) have been region-locked, while games that are too obscure and weird to possibly justify localizations (Pink Sweets, Muchi Muchi Pork!) have been region free. Trust me, if they didn't plan on localizing any of their games, they would have made all of them region free. Or at least the ones most likely to appeal to Westerners -- certainly not the way around.

In short: you are deluding yourself if you don't think more Cave shoot 'em ups will be localized, and Akai Katana Shin is looking to be the most Western-friendly one since Deathsmiles (full HD graphics, widescreen support, and it's one of Cave's easiest games).

@Icemael

One random show of publisher generosity does not mean anything else will be localized. If companies were serious about localizing Cave games, they would have done than just Deathsmiles. Daioujou, Ketsui still havent gotten releases.

Daifukkatsu and Daifukkatsu Black Label would make excellent double pack to localize. I dont see any plans to bring those over. Aksys was pretty fast to announce Deathsmiles, but not a peep about Cave's other games.

They are not coming, as much as i would love to be proven wrong. Cave should have just made them all region free and stop screwing over people who actually enjoy their games.

@kaioshade Generosity has nothing to do with it. Aksys localized Deathsmiles to make money. It exceeded their expectations, i.e. made them more money than they expected -- enough, in fact, that a European publisher decided to follow suit. Hell, Deathsmiles is approaching 100000 copies sold (and that's without the upcoming European sales). Compare that to the 20000-35000 of the games released only in Japan (even the region-free ones didn't sell more than that). Also, Aksys released a patch for the game just a couple of days ago, clearly demonstrating that they care about the game and its audience even now.

Neither Daioujou nor Ketsui have HD graphics, so they're not especially good localization candidates (not at this stage, at least). They were also published by 5pb (unlike the other 360 ports, which Cave published themselves), so who knows, there may be some legal hoops there. As for the two Daifukkatsu ports, they were just released. Give it some time. It's not uncommon for more obscure Japanese games to take over a year to get brought over.

Cave have been gradually going more international, starting with the region free Mushihime-sama Futari and Espgaluda II Black Label releases, and continuing with iPhone ports, the Deathsmiles localization, and most recently Guwange's XBLA release and the announcement of Nin2-Jump. It's working out really well for them. There's no way they're going to stop now, dude.

@Icemael

As for Daifukkatsu releases, i will concede they are new and time may be all that is needed. Deathsmiles took about a year from Japanese release to reach localization.

Ketsui and Daioujou are most likely lost causes, as you said due to not being HD. Maybe an XBLA release could be feasible. I did forget about 5pb doing the ports for those. So that could be a problem.

We will just have to sit and hope.