I think I'm the only one that loves my cave games so much that I decided to just keep my 7+ running 10.3 and not update my iPad Pro either. Frankly neither one of the new phones(8 and x) seem great enough to lose my beloved cave shmups or igladiator or rage hd. You guys can have iOS 11. Not me. But I may still get this.
Its not a polarity shooter. Pink and blue bullets are just a common color choice in CAVE games; this is borrowing that. Aka and Blue are different characters that play separately. They dont each cancel a bullet type.
Slick and beautiful! I own(ed) all of the old Cave games (sucked at all of them), and this one is up there with the best of them. At least I think so. As soon as I make it out of level one, I'll let you know. ### Bullet Heaven.
Yeah, not happy about this. It's good, but it is far from everything I'd hoped for and if I'd known beforehand I wouldn't have bought it. I can't afford pricey iOS purchases at the moment - I mean that quite seriously - but I badly wanted a replacement for my beloved Cave ports only, well, this isn't it. It's not "beginner-friendly" in the slightest, it's really, really bloody hard - an auto-bomb is not automatically welcoming to noobs, and there's no difficulty settings at all! Cave ports I could comfortably beat the entire game on the easiest difficulty level after the first couple of tries, and then practice working my way up, pushing the slider up a notch every now and then. This one I can't even pass stage 2, and I've played enough shmups I know when I can get better and when a game feels like banging my head against a brick wall. This is getting alarmingly close to the latter. And while it's not really to do with the gameplay, does it not strike anyone else as kind of dumb to pay a bunch of anime voice actors to talk a lot, to have a setting to turn them off and on, and then... not bother translating one word of the story? I mean, Cave games were hardly great literature but I loved their settings, their art and sound design... visually this is all too close to something like Radirgy or Karous, and when the only other hook is "buttrock and Japanese voices talking about... something?" I'm not hugely impressed. So yeah, mechanically it's plainly very good, and they've obviously put some effort into trying to implement a scoring system that'll work well with a touchscreen. But so far, sorry, I'm not seeing anything to deserve the OMG GUYS IT'S JUST LIKE CAVE NEVER LEFT I'm seeing here and on the front page. It's a decent shmup - it's miles above rubbish like Phoenix II - but it's not a patch on the Mushihimesama games or DeathSmiles or the good DDPs, and for the price they're charging and the history that comes with these guys I'm feeling badly let down. EDIT: Some things people might be curious about, since no-one else here seems to have bothered to mention them - No, you don't want iCade support. Or not as much as you think you do. This is clearly designed for relative touch, it'd be a nightmare with a pad or stick. There is no difficulty slider, and as far as I can tell there are no unlockables of any kind. (No spaces on the menu, nothing to select at the start other than the character, etc.) The only reason to play this multiple times is for score and/or to beat it with both Aka and Blue. Aka is wide shot, Blue is narrow. Their weapons do not change in any way - there are no power-ups of any kind. The whole gimmick of this game is knowing exactly when and where to use your bomb - your shot is only really useful to charge up your bomb gauge. The gauge goes from 0 to 5, and the more you charge it, the more powerful the effect - 1 just does a very small bullet cancel around your ship and damages virtually nothing, while 5 produces a huge explosion that typically destroys or heavily damages a bunch of enemies. More destruction means more score tokens, which also charge the gauge back up. So you wait as long as possible to fire the bomb, then throw it out, then race to collect the tokens that get dropped (the faster you get to them the more charge they give) - but even the tokens from a level 5 bomb don't charge it that much, so you have to rely on your gun and dodging bullets to get it the rest of the way. And these are hard, hard, hard patterns, so you'll probably be reduced to desperately firing off level 1 over and over to stay alive while you chip away at the boss. Then you'll die. When it works, it is good - it's trying to be like Psyvariar's system, encouraging you to dive straight into enemy fire, and there are moments where you manage to string it out for a while and it feels great. But unlike buzzing bullets in Psyvariar you're not invincible when you throw out a bomb (or if you are it's over very fast), so it's really not that newbie friendly even when bombs are set to automatic. And there really isn't much beyond the thrill of working the mechanics. Again, no unlockables, not even the satisfaction of conquering a particular difficulty setting - the story is pointless, it's not translated, and everything is just "generic robots" and the same backgrounds you'll have seen a million times already if you play shmups at all. Maybe it's enough for you they're in 3D. It's not enough for me. So yeah. There's stuff to like here, and if you're a long-term fan of the genre who thinks they're good enough to rack up billions upon billions of points then it's definitely worth a buy. But no, it's not a good enough replacement for Cave's stuff. It's not for casual players, it doesn't look or sound half as good as their better games and there's nothing here to really get stuck into for any sense of progression beyond seeing numbers go up.
I love the game but agree with some of EightRooks’ points — mainly on the difficulty level. This is considerably harder than Cave games IMO. Don’t have any installed to compare thanks to iOS 11, but didn’t they have continues? I know I was always able to complete the Cave games despite not being all that great at them. Can’t get past the first boss in this game and for some reason it seems like the bomb doesn’t automatically go off for me — or consistently go off when I do a second touch. Regardless, I’m probably in the minority when I say I actually really like the art style. The bullet hell patterns are fun as always. But that difficulty....
It's technically strong art, at least. It's just... come on, it's just "flying over a forest", "flying over an army of tanks on a beach", "flying into a factory and along an underground railroad", "flying over a wartorn city"... there's like fifty existing games at least that have done these settings, and it doesn't have half the detail Cave's pixel art did even when they used them. The enemies are all "military flying thing" or "giant robot" or "giant vehicle with guns all over it", and there's nothing else other than a few talking heads. It just looks much the same as any Raiden clone over the years, to me, only in sort-of-cel-shaded polygons. EDIT: You are correct, though, Cave's iOS ports had continues, as well as the excellent difficulty grading. I'm up to the stage 3 boss now and I was doing pretty well with one of its patterns constantly charging me to level 1, until I choked. That's good and bad, though, IMO. Again, I'm really not feeling like there's much point to this once I beat it - if I ever do - since it's so tough there's simply no way I'm ever coming near the high score tables, and there's no other reason to play. (Again, no difficulty setting, no powerups, one very basic weapon difference.) Conversely, though, it's starting to feel like it's actually fairly easy to reach the boss - not to score much, it's much harder once you start playing with the scoring system, just to survive - which for me just ends up making the rest of the level feel all the more boring. :facepalm:
Wow. Harshness abounds. A couple of points: -As far as I can tell there maybe a couple (at least one?) unlock able characters. I have not yet unlocked it/them nor do I know how. -Cave HD ports were considerably more expensive 5 years ago -This is the developers first time out -Who knows what other secrets are embedded? The game has only been available for 3 days. The cave ports were literally available for years! And still some of the scoring mechanics were not wholly understood. I think the artwork and backgrounds, as well as the patterns, are pretty incredible. There are some bullet swerve mechanics that I haven't seen before in many shmups. I hear you on the difficulty. It is difficult. There are no continues. Controller support would not work well because the bullet patterns likely move too quickly. All of this is done on purpose to make it some sort of purist touchscreen shmup. This has been one of the complaints about the cave ports since day one. I'm not sure I completely agree but I definitely laude the effort, and it is progressive thinking.
Aka to Blue $8 5 stages 2 characters one has a straight shot the other has a wide shot Dodonpachi Maximus $12 16 leaderboards 20 achievements 3 bonus goals on each level 5 stages but really 15 (see image) 5 characters with very different advantages/disadvantages Dodonpachi Maximus is the closest Cave game in my opinion as both games were made for mobile and only have one non upgradable shot style per character Personally I think AKA to Blue is a fine game that's worth $8 but it's definitely not a Cave replacement (I still won't update my phone)
I think the only main grief is that us n00bs, who just want to play the game and dont care about score, cant do so. Fix that, fine fine developer, and I think well be good! P.S. I am one of those n00bs. I love playing shmups, but Im just not that good either. I love trying to get into the zone, and being there when I can, but having to start over and over just isnt ideal. Again, no high score but infinite lives would be all we need.
Ok maybe I don't want icade support now...lol I just thought, if it was compared to cave games, it'd be fun to play with physical controls. I like mushihimesama and dodnpachi on the Xbox 360, and the system works well with holding a fire button and reaching over to hold another to slow the ship down. Just thought they could add something like that. I too, suck at shmups, but they are so dang addicting! I love em!!!! The beauty in those bullet patterns, and the feeling I get when i actually squeeze through an impossible curtain!
Great Game As a big fan of the genre I am loving this game. Feels so smooth, and the bullet patterns are great. While definitely not for beginners I am really enjoying the difficulty. Stage 4 gave me some trouble, but now I am up to the boss of Stage 5. Oh yeah and I turned off the constant talking setting as there was way too much talking. But the callouts for bomb charge and bomb detonation are nice.
IKR It'z juz one more of my Daughter's Special Day to be taken care of ########. Tho Thank You Very Much to Boardumb i'm able to dive in & gift two of my Daughters & one of my Nephews that got a new iPhone 6s+ so this Awesomely dope piece of heArtwork iz Mos def getting my rupees to support this surprize former CAVE Team. I have been doing some homework and i can't believe the history combined 4rm these Artist both musically & visually. As the name it'z juz mesmerizing and epic. I had a chance with other fans to give some input on the hub and gameplay i have yet to see it tho i hope it'z of ease of gameplay. You #TouchArcadians heat seek missle out the Devs so they can join us pleaze
