After the break, you'll find four videos of Akai Katana Shin, the (unfortunately region-locked) Xbox 360 version of Cave's latest arcade shmup, including one clip of the console-exclusive "Zetsu" ("Absolute") mode, one "expert mode" clip, one "beginner mode," and finally a new trailer. This may prove to be too much sensory input for your brain. Just a warning.
After watching this, it's kind of a bummer to think that it's stuck in Japan, but the good news is that it's possible to justify the purchase of a Japanese Xbox 360 and this game by comparing the cost to that of an arcade board. Right? Sure. Or you could wait for someone to localize it.
So, what's the story on these Japanese Shmups that are always being released on the 360 in Japan?
Is it simply a case of being faster/cheaper to develop them on the 360, therefore they can still turn a decent profit while selling less than they probably would on the PS3 or Wii?
Now, I'm just being curious. I have little interest in Shmups, so it doesn't matter all that much to me where they get released or what they get released on. I'm just wondering. :)
@Ezio Auditore da Firenze That is my best guess. Cave has never made a game outside of the 360 that I know of. They have been doing it foryears now and seem to be releasing more so it must be profitable for them to do so.
Maybe MS made a deal where they give them cheaper licenscing fees or something to promote japanese hardware sales. that could have gone down but who is to know. that is much more common than the bullshit "blank check" theories peoplke throw out on blogs comments.
@Ezio Auditore da Firenze: There's a number of reasons. Firstly, porting from arcade to Xbox 360 is supposedly easy. Second, Sony are and have always been strict with what games are released on their console. More specifically, the graphics of the games. It's a known fact that they blocked many 2D games back in the Playstation and Playstation 2 days, and that they still have a similar attitudes. I imagine 2D games that don't even fill the entire screen are not popular with them. Thirdly, Microsoft have supported Japanese developers to boost Xbox popularity in the country (god knows they need it). A last but not least, when all other shoot 'em up developers release their games on Xbox 360, why start releasing yours for Playstation 3? It doesn't make sense -- at this point the Xbox 360 is THE shoot 'em up console, and everyone interested in the genre has one.
@Ezio Auditore da Firenze The reason *now* that they are released only on the XBox 360 in Japan is that the target audience is right there. Cave's fanbase went with the XBox 360 years ago, and so that's where Cave will continue to release their games' consumer versions. They appear to have no interest in attracting a new audience by going multiplatform; it seems like they're happy just sticking with the XBox, confident that if anyone new wants to play their games, they will just buy the system to do so.
As for how the XBox 360 came to be shoot'em-up central in the first place, I'm not really sure. I doubt Microsoft specifically went offering deals or money to developers of such niche games. It doesn't make sense. These games, while distinctly Japanese, do *not* appeal to the majority of Japanese gamers and would not be a priority for Microsoft in their pursuit of increasing Japanese market share. My guess is that early in the genre's life this generation, a few developers happened to find that they did pretty well with XBox 360 shoot'em-ups, and then it just snowballed to where it is now.
I disagree with Icemael's second point, that Sony actively discourage the release of this type of game. Firstly because he's talking specifically about SCEA's old policy, not SCEJ's (so it doesn't explain why these games don't even appear for the PS3 in Japan), and secondly because today's Sony, including SCEA, clearly has no problem having niche and unique games on PSN.
Localization of this type of genre wouldn't fly in the sates. I still would love Xbox to be more like Sony in terms of no region locks. I'm an old school game player and would love to import this niche title. Looks hard as hell, just my style.
@darkhellmutt region locking is one thing that Sony does so much better than MS and I give them much credit for it. I frankly dont get the point of region locking and find it incredibly frustrating.
If it has to do with pirating the loser chinese are going to pirate anyway so region coding wont stop that.
MS doesn't actually play a part in the region locking.
I mean yeah Sony made a great choice by making the PS3 use a format of bluray with doesn't do region locking, but it's the publishers who enforce region locks on 360 games, not MS.
Hope you like waiting for a long time -- 7+ years perhaps?
Then again, there's a certain group that's been working on Cave SH3 emulation for quite some time. Seems to be in a playable state (more like you won't be complaining about frame drops or anything. Picture quality looks spot-on). Only problem is that it's in private beta. Then again, the average "gamer" wouldn't make it far, so it's all good :)
Times like this make me feel good about owning a JP 360. Should get one if you, y'know, like CAVE shmups :)
Is anybody else sick to death of bullet hell shooters? I thought they were interesting originally, but they seem to be the only shmups that even exist anymore.
I hope you are being sarcastic. I prefer them to 'we're pretending we're in the military' FPS. No, I don't have a clue what's going on in a bullet-hell shooter, but I don't need to know.
UNLESS, you're talking about R-Type/Gradius/Thunder Force types of shooters, then yeah....
Hell no. Bullet hell shooters are one of the most satisfying genres - especially now that the gaming landscape is full of commercially friendly garbagio!
Akai Katana comes as a stunning HD addition to the shmup (shoot 'em up) arena, set in a parallel world resembling Japan's Taisho period. Discovering the powerful blood katana, the world's empire has resorted to human sacrifices in order to unleash the swords' immense destructive power against neighboring countries. However, when the bloodshed turns towards the families of a small group of swordsmen, a rebel uprising begins. With new fighter planes and the powered up swords at their disposal, this small band now fights back against the tyrannical empire.
