Ha, take that, stupid catastrophic judgment rumors of last year that were happening in May and October last year! It looked like nothing catastrophic happened in either months. In late May last year, there was an Xbox 360 version of Akai Katana as Akai Katana Shin. Originally an arcade version of the game two years ago, the Xbox 360 version is in full HD and widescreen. The backgrounds are no longer pixelated compared to other Cave shmup games as the game itself is in 16:9 just like Deathsmiles II and Otomedius G. In the Xbox 360 version, there’s also an exclusive level in addition to the additional modes. The Shin mode is quite deadly to me as you get to launch the deadly swords at the strong enemies. That looks pretty badass like causing lots of bloods from the boss characters.
This year, there will be the international release of Akai Katana Shin by Rising Star Games and the names of the game modes are changed in English language and the tutorial in English makes more sense for non-Japanese players. For me, I still don’t have this game as the only way to play this will be Games on Demand or the arcades. In addition, there will be Nesica X Live version which is based on Xbox 360 version but if there are bound to be Cave shmup games on Nesica X Live, there will be signs of pixelated graphics for sure in addition to the hi-res ones. Even the non-pixelated backgrounds don’t use full color for sure and for slowdowns, they have to be re-adjusted to fit the Taito Type X2 system specs. This is all taken from Arcadia magazine. Right now, there’s no release date for the Nesica X Live version but in the meantime, you can try the Xbox 360 version and especially for the international release in May this year.
