Akai Katana is one of the last vertical shooters Cave brought to arcades, already in the era of Taito Type X2 hardware, with an Eastern fantasy setting and a dual weapon system (Souten Kojin) that forces players to alternate between attacking and absorbing projectiles to maximize score. It arrived in 2011, when the genre already lived almost exclusively off its cult audience. It's a late piece but faithful to Cave's DNA: high difficulty, choreographed layers of bullets, and a deep scoring system built for players who return again and again to polish their run.
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