Everyone’s favorite purveyor of exceedingly niche shoot-em-ups, Cave, is back again with Akai Katana, a welcome — and rare — appearance of one of their console games localized for the West. Not only that, it’s a boxed retail game, and crazier yet, it’s another horizontal bullet-hell shooter, just like their last Western retail release, Deathsmiles. And if Deathsmiles’ gothic lolita stylings sent you running in the opposite direction, Akai Katana is a much more palatable action game, set in a world where young rebels use their warplanes and the power of the mystical Blood Swords to combat the endless hordes of imperial forces. Yeah, no one really plays these for the plots.
As in every shooter, you fly around the screen destroying enemies that appear from the other side of the screen, using regular speedy fire or more powerful, focused fire that slows your movement. The wrinkle in Akai Katana is that killing enemies earns energy orbs that will let you summon your “phantom.” With enough energy you can switch to phantom form, where you become your humanoid spirit partner, who is invincible as long as you don’t use the stronger fire. As enemy bullets bounce off the phantom, you can move left and right to bat the bullets around and turn them into point value tokens, though they don’t last forever and neither does the phantom energy meter, so you’ll have to know when to switch forms and collect them for your big scores.
