TGS 2008: Ketsui Hands-On

TOKYO--Arcades are still a booming phenomenon in Japan, and during the GameSpot staff's visits to these collections of shiny lights and ringing bells, we noticed that fighting games and 2D shoot-'em-ups were in no short supply. Sadly, while fighting games still get plenty of attention in the US, old-fashioned scrolling shooters don't seem to capture the same degree of focus. Fortunately, Xbox Live Arcade is the perfect home for such games, and we've already seen Japanese arcade shooters ported to the Xbox 360. And with luck, another such game will be seeing the light of day: Ketsui, a vertically scrolling shooter from developer Cave.

Sadly, the demo on the Tokyo Game Show floor consisted of under three minutes of gameplay, which is apparently the entire first level of the five-level shooter. Of course, such games are notoriously short on content, inspiring multiple play-throughs by delivering insane levels of difficulty. Ketsui is no exception. Enemies like tanks, giant turrets, and armored fortresses volley fire from the ground while helicopters and other bladed monstrosities shoot nonstop streams of lasers from the sky.

When you begin, you can choose from two different ships: one that performs "linear shot" and one that performs "way shot." We chose "way shot," which delivered a nice spread of projectiles toward our enemies. Your ship isn't the only source of fire, however; you can accumulate power-ups that allow a number of pods to join your ship on each side, increasing your fire power accordingly. Late in the level, we had four pods aside our craft, which helped make short work of the smaller foes. There is a bit of a twist to the shooting, though. You can tap the A button to shoot a standard spread of fire with this particular ship, or you can hold it down, which then autotargets your enemies (or in the case of bosses and minibosses, targets their various attack points) and concentrates your fire there.

The final boss was a double-bladed copter, which was occasionally joined by hovering missiles that circled about and also spewed laser fire of their own. The boss put up a good fight, and as far as we can tell, shoot-'em-up fans will get a kick out of Ketsui's strong challenge. We don't yet know when or if it will be released on Xbox Live Arcade in the US. If Cave's arcade shooter manages the jump, we'll let you know as soon as we hear!