Upcoming Cave arcade title (Akai Katana)

[BryanM]

I kind of like how you're flying around with your wings pointed almost at the ground. It's so very odd.

I bet this game never gets ported, I heard it's selling like shit in the arcades.

People are still playing DFK and Deathsmiles.

Whelp here come moar sequels then.

First up: Dangun Feveron 2: Disco Apocalypse Boogaloo. Power up your "disco" and "dance" meters to cancel bullets and make boring looking Youtube videos.

(srsly what's with all the canceling. I know there only so many verbs you can add these games besides "dodge" and "aim", but maybe there are more compelling gimmicks.)

[lgb]

can we have hellsinker ac please

[StarCreator]

Among the CAVE games, its my least favorite.. (although I've never played DDP II - I hear its terrible.)

DDP II isn't CAVE, so I don't think it falls into this comparison.

[Skykid]

Among the CAVE games, its my least favorite.. (although I've never played DDP II - I hear its terrible.)

It's not, it's actually a lot of fun.

[rancor]

Among the CAVE games, its my least favorite.. (although I've never played DDP II - I hear its terrible.)

It's not, it's actually a lot of fun.

Ok - thats three in a row plus a PM. I stand corrected. I'ill just say that DDP II is apparently polarizing. Seems odd that I've never seen it in the wild in any arcades in Tokyo, though.. Anyone got any leads of where it might be?

And as to not derail this thread completely, my local arcade just reduced (over the weekend) the price of AK to 50 yen to play. It may not be my favorite, but for 50 yen I'll learn to enjoy it!

[NTSC-J]

HEY had DDP II until just recently but no one else in Tokyo does at the moment, so I think you're out of luck. I think the people that hate it diss on the recycled graphics, but it's a very fun game. Scraping bullets gives you points plus refills a bomb meter, so it's like Giga Wing but with Cave graphics. Underrated and more fun than some other Cave titles, like Akai Katana, which seems to have been chewed up and spat out by the master players and even most casual Japanese fans.

[GaijinPunch]

Special User Version avairable through Cave Shop.

Differences: Includes stage select. "Overall balance".

[rancor]

Special User Version avairable through Cave Shop.

You've been here too long. Time to go home.

[Udderdude]

Well, uh, hey, at least the soundtrack is pretty good :X

[Dave_K.]

I don't get it, are they saying the defaults are set to Free Play, or is it hard-coded for Free Play use only?

[brentsg]

Free play only, balance is optimized for home use.. Whatever that means..

I can appreciate that they want to clear out kits that apparently didn't sell well. I'm not sure what the advantage is to no coin, since it cost more than the arcade ver.

It's too bad they didn't go the AES route and cut the price a ton, while eliminating coin mode. Of course they would need to wait longer.

Between this, Futari "Another Ver", and that PGM2 DOJ.. I don't really know what to expect next.

[Dave_K.]

Ok, I guess it makes since (Free Play only), since then Cave would not be directly competing with their amusement distributors. But honestly, sounds like another business plan doomed to fail, like the Deathsmiles II PCB leasing program.

[brentsg]

It still makes no sense.

A few people checked into kit pricing recently, only to be told that the game is essentially out of print.

How does it make sense to cut off arcade supply, but do this?

[cools]

If balance means the earlier levels are harder and the later levels have less slowdown...

[THE]

Sound to me like Cave copied our MVS consumer and MVS Gamecenter concept

They should have reduced the price though...at 500 EUR a lot of consumers would instantly buy it...

[emphatic]

Sound to me like Cave copied our MVS consumer and MVS Gamecenter concept

They should have reduced the price though...at 500 EUR a lot of consumers would instantly buy it...

That's the first thought I had when I read this.

[GaijinPunch]

You've been here too long. Time to go home.

On purpose maybe?

They should have reduced the price though...at 500 EUR a lot of consumers would instantly buy it...

That's not going to happen though. I think the cherry spot for them and consumers is about 120,000 yen. Substantially less than retail... they'd move a lot more. Maybe they don't have that many? Then again, it's limited to 3. I'm only getting 2 for myself.

[THE]

They should have reduced the price though...at 500 EUR a lot of consumers would instantly buy it...

That's not going to happen though. I think the cherry spot for them and consumers is about 120,000 yen. Substantially less than retail... they'd move a lot more. Maybe they don't have that many? Then again, it's limited to 3. I'm only getting 2 for myself.

Well still at 600 EUR I would instantly purchase my missing PCBs Akai Katana, DFK BL, DSMBL. That 1800 EUR for them, they would never see otherwise as I will just wait purchase them used.
But I don't know their productions costs per PCB, even though I assume it's in the 150 EUR range from the structure and parts of the PCB.

So, if the Cave iPhone staff reads this, 600 EUR is my sweet spot.

But in reality the main problem probably is, that arcade ops won't as easily purchase new kits if the used sales are dropping like a stone because consumers can get new kits for easy money.

[sven666]

oh man the only thing i hate more than a bullshit re-release like this is the fact that one day itll sit on my shelf

seriously, a fucking stage-select!!!??? you've gotta be kidding me..

kinda wondering what the "uncensored" poster looks like tho?, maybe i just have a dirty mind...

[TonK]

Looks nice...

Maybe $1500 nice...

Fuck, if it didn't sell in the arcade, it's not gonna sell for more to home players.

Well, maybe the elite on here

[brentsg]

Only reason someone buys this is that they've got enough money that they don't care, and they know that they won't sleep at night if they don't own it.

The box isn't really that cool, imo. Stage select and free play is meh. I could replace my volume-adjust fingernail with a katana.. that's cool.

Rebalancing could be great, or they could make it even easier. They did say the rebalance would optimize it for home use. Maybe that means it's going to be easier.

I interpreted that the poster was similar to a matsuri offering but bigger.

[phrenzee]

But I don't know their productions costs per PCB, even though I assume it's in the 150 EUR range from the structure and parts of the PCB.

+ a bit for the time spent actually making the game in the first place.

So, if the Cave iPhone staff reads this, 600 EUR is my sweet spot.

Don't give them any bright ideas

Special User Version avairable

[gameoverDude]

220000 Yen? Thanks for trying, Cave- but that's too much especially with the coin setting locked at free play. There should be some major disparity between a business use and a home use edition in price. $2000+ is hardly anything to an arcade owner, but it's different for home users. If a home use only PCB of Akai Katana were only 50000 Yen (roughly $612), I'd think about it. A price along the lines of a home Neo-Geo cart would be sufficient (maybe a tad higher since it's a full PCB).

I'll wait for the port. 7800 Yen is just fine especially if it means improved HD graphics. There's 360 Daifukkatsu in the meantime.

[Estebang]

You're assuming there will even be a port. The fact that they're releasing an overpriced PCB specifically marketed to home users isn't a good sign; for all we know they're just modifying the ROMs of their stock of unsold arcade boards to try and clear them out.

Then again, Deathsmiles II tanked in arcades but did pretty well on the 360 sales-wise. So maybe they'll find some rationale there.

Did Cave say something about them being done with 360 ports after Muchi/Sweets, or was that just fanboy panicking?

[bcass]

Did Cave say something about them being done with 360 ports after Muchi/Sweets, or was that just fanboy panicking?

Sounds closer to one of TonK's wetdreams than fact.

[Estebang]

Am I reading this right that there are going to be drama CDs for this game?



That's what you call a niche product.

[StarCreator]

VGMdb seems to agree on those being drama CDs. I sort of want to pick those up actually...

[brentsg]

I think they are doing something special with these, like randomly packing autographs and little doodles in with the drama CDs.

[Udderdude]

At this point, we could package up enough CAVE drama to send to them to last a lifetime.

[arcade-stg]

Is there any picture of the "limited version" box?
You know how "special" these cave box are