There's something about KETSUI

[XoPachi]

Literally the greatest game I've ever played. I never in my wildest dreams thought anything would top Super Metroid and Ocarina of Time for me and then I found Ketsui in high school.
Addiction.
I feel like this was the first game where I really began to see a developer's thoughts when making a level. The meticulous enemy placement is breath taking.
Also, there's something so...chill about the game. It's got a deathly serious plot, is very hard, and is probably one of the strictest games I've ever played. But the tone feels quite relaxed? The music kicks ass, but it's all oddly calming. The announcer is peppy but subdued, she's not some screeching anime girl going off CONSTANTLY at an absurd volume difference.

I dunno, I just find the game to be 100% flawless. Like imo could not be improved beyond upping the resolution or adding modern features like replays and all that. But as far as the base design goes? Perfect. I can't even nitpick no matter how hard I try.

[To Far Away Times]

I feel like this was the first game where I really began to see a developer's thoughts when making a level.

I get this feeling in Mushi Futari with all the aimed shots and the "tap tap" dodging and it is great. Especially in Stage 5. The enemy placement is pretty brilliant there. It doesn't feel like routing, it feels like you are naturally guided to where you need to go.

Ketsui is awesome. I love the aesthetic, love the music, love the scoring system. Really great stuff. I wish the ships had a tiny bit more firepower and the difficulty was toned down just a bit, but for those who want one of the hardest shmup challenges Ketsui is tops.

[man9child]

A few years ago before all the 360 ports happened I went through a phase where I was bouncing from shooter to shooter. Not just Cave games, but running the gamut of TG-16 games, genesis shmups, irem games, Psikyo, Raizing, etc.

I got really got into cave through Espgaluda on PS2 and started importing the 360 games when they came out.

Then Ketsui was ported to the 360 and it ruined the rest of the genre for me for a long time. I ended up with a board and a cab and a whole year and half or two of playing almost nothing else.

It was probably detrimental, I burned out pretty hard. But I've had some seperation and Ketsui is still my favorite.

[TVG]

For starters, it just looks cool. Unless you hate the pre rendered look, I find it very nice looking along with DOJ.

The scoring is easy to grasp at first, just get 5 boxes, I can pick it up and be satisfied. I love DOJ, one of my favorite games, but after I took a break from it, I could never relearn the anal chaing, I just can't be bothered to. Ketsui is the opposite, you can get some score here and there, try some empty lock when it's easy, get some 5 boxes when you can and whathever. That's why even if i don't remember all the level layout, I still have fun, and is the only cave game I bothered long enough to clear (other than original modes and stuff). I can come back to it and it's not painful.

[drboom]

Just for a little brevity, when Ketsui came out, it was not universally liked - in fact, it got pretty lukewarm and bad reviews. It took a while for it to catch on with the shmups community. It is still my favorite shmup for many individual reasons, but it's really how the game comes together, with the scoring system (proximity based scoring is awesome), graphics, amazing soundtrack and play style. I got good enough to 1CC it then put the board away so I wouldn't burn out on it.

[Special World]

I wonder why people didn't like it at first? Some guesses:

- Too serious and militaristic
- 5 chips are not exactly a cool scoring item
- Strange bullet patterns seem unfair at first
- Salmon bullets blend into orange backgrounds
- Lock on removes aim and "shootiness"

But probably it's none of those.

[Jonpachi]

It was the same with DDP DOJ, now hailed as the GOAT by so many. I wish the original Shmups forum had been archived somehow... Would be fun to go back and see those old threads.

[ATTRACTS]

I wonder why people didn't like it at first? Some guesses:

- Too serious and militaristic
- 5 chips are not exactly a cool scoring item
- Strange bullet patterns seem unfair at first
- Salmon bullets blend into orange backgrounds
- Lock on removes aim and "shootiness"

But probably it's none of those.

Most likely because it's super overwhelming at first play. If you aren't ready for the fast approaching wall of shit all over the screen, it's pretty jarring right off the bat. I love Ketsui but I took me a good number of hours with it before I started really enjoying it. It's not a "pop in a credit and have some fun" shooter until you wrap your head around it. DDP DOJ sort of gradually hit you after level 3, this one comes out guns blazing.

[Special World]

Personally i'm surprised by how many people are saying they love the graphics. Stage 1 and 3 look really good, but the rest are... muddy? Dark? And I've never been a fan of Cave's digitized sprites or red bullets. The boss designs are a bit strange too--they almost look like chibi versions of military hardware. They're really chunky. Kinda like that about them though. It's not an ugly game by any means, but far from Cave's best work visually, imo. Stage 3 is definitely an all-time stunner, though!

Also, I wonder why its scoring gets so much credit compared with ESPrade, which is functionally quite similar.

[FRO]

I wonder why people didn't like it at first? Some guesses:

- Too serious and militaristic
- 5 chips are not exactly a cool scoring item
- Strange bullet patterns seem unfair at first
- Salmon bullets blend into orange backgrounds
- Lock on removes aim and "shootiness"

But probably it's none of those.

This is definitely a point where I'd disagree. CAVE knew what they were doing when they designed the chip system in Ketsui. Who wants to go through the stage and have all these puny little "1" chips flying at them, when you can be flooded by a swarm of huge "5" chips instead? It's an addictive mechanic, because you get that little dopamine rush when you can successfully chain together a bunch of enemy kills for 5 chips, and even more when you can learn how to maximize that with mid-size enemies, by utilizing a stray popcorn to set your counter to 5, before going in for the kill on the larger enemy. In the heat of the moment, it's incredibly satisfying and when you can pull off several of those over the course of a single stage, it becomes a big draw.

As to the other points, there's probably some truth there, depending on the player. Military shooters are probably more widely liked than something with a more niche design, but there's always a contingent that is tired of that aesthetic. Some of the bullet patterns are quite vexing, to be sure, and can be hard to interpret right away, but I do think it gives the game some of its uniqueness. I haven't had issues with bullet blend - it's certainly not on the level of Ghost Blade, with orange bullets blending into the orange background (stage 2), so I can't speak to that specifically. Lock on doesn't completely remove aim, but yeah, I can see how that might be an issue for some.

[Special World]

^^^ oh, i didn't mean psychologically. I meant that theyre simply less "nice looking" than futari's gems or espgaludas gold ingots. Theyre basically just green squares.

[Sumez]

Just for a little brevity, when Ketsui came out, it was not universally liked - in fact, it got pretty lukewarm and bad reviews. It took a while for it to catch on with the shmups community.

I don't recall this at all. What's it based on? Japanese arcade receptions and financial returns?

From a western viewpoint, Ketsui was that elusive game that wasn't emulated and was only available in Japanese arcades. The few people who got to play it were people who went to Japan, or the lucky few who had invested in a full priced new PCB. I don't recall anyone having anything but praise for it.

With the cancelled PS2 port it even remained this way for a long time, and when the Xbox 360 port finally hit in 2010 the game was already popular enough that people would import Japanese X360s just to play it.

[thegreathopper]

It’s the music and sound effects for me, there is something very special about Ketsui and it could also be all the 5’s. I owned it twice on PCB and miss it.

I bought in on PS4 but it’s just not the same as playing on a crt in a Candy cab.

[FRO]

^^^ oh, i didn't mean psychologically. I meant that theyre simply less "nice looking" than futari's gems or espgaludas gold ingots. Theyre basically just green squares.

Yeah, that makes sense. They're not as attractive as Mushi's jewels, or stand out like Dangun Feveron's disco men. But they fit the military aesthetic well, at least.

[ATTRACTS]

Just for a little brevity, when Ketsui came out, it was not universally liked - in fact, it got pretty lukewarm and bad reviews. It took a while for it to catch on with the shmups community.

I don't recall this at all. What's it based on? Japanese arcade receptions and financial returns?

From a western viewpoint, Ketsui was that elusive game that wasn't emulated and was only available in Japanese arcades. The few people who got to play it were people who went to Japan, or the lucky few who had invested in a full priced new PCB. I don't recall anyone having anything but praise for it.

With the cancelled PS2 port it even remained this way for a long time, and when the Xbox 360 port finally hit in 2010 the game was already popular enough that people would import Japanese X360s just to play it.

If you read the Cave interviews (can be found on this site), they say that the game didn't do very well and that they were disappointed. The performance of the game directly led to more character driven games (Espgaluda) because they thought the appeal would be better.

"Tanaka: Ketsui is a game I'm extremely fond of, but I regret that it wasn't very well-received at the time. It was a major blow to my confidence and I felt like the world wasn't interested in my ideas."

[drboom]

Just for a little brevity, when Ketsui came out, it was not universally liked - in fact, it got pretty lukewarm and bad reviews. It took a while for it to catch on with the shmups community.

I don't recall this at all. What's it based on? Japanese arcade receptions and financial returns?

From a western viewpoint, Ketsui was that elusive game that wasn't emulated and was only available in Japanese arcades. The few people who got to play it were people who went to Japan, or the lucky few who had invested in a full priced new PCB. I don't recall anyone having anything but praise for it.

With the cancelled PS2 port it even remained this way for a long time, and when the Xbox 360 port finally hit in 2010 the game was already popular enough that people would import Japanese X360s just to play it.

It was a few western reviewers that reviewed it early on in 2003ish (I think one of the negative reviews came from Icycalm, but don't quote me on that) and the fact that the game itself back in 2005 had dropped to something like $500 or less for a full kit back then. I think at the time it was more of the fantasy style stuff Cave was doing that people were gravitating toward - like Mushihimesama and Espgaluda. I'm going from memory, but I do remember the hype for the game took years to build. I'm sure some of the older forum heads like Gaijin Punch and Skykid would remember the specifics better.

[Xyga]

Way before joining here I was a dweller at the french forum (mid-2000's), and yeah I remember that about Ketsui; obscure and criticized.

Then it got dumped and emulated, IIRC there was some magical shitstorm regarding that dump, it lasted years.
Don't remember if it was about tech issues, money, or the public release, whatever, with Cave shmups it's like that every time lol.

Maybe that contributed to enhance its aura...

PS: ah the story dates back to 2007 I think, but some threads got nuked.
found several over different websites and forums.
Here there's this one at least: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18017

Epic times, I feel old.