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| 92. Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi (2003, Arcade) by Ice Cream Jonsey Yesterday, 9:34am PDT | ||||
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| 92. Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi
Creator: Cave Genre: Shoot 'em Up, Bullet Hell Year: 2003 Platforms: Arcade, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Nintendo DS Mobygames link Available through: Playstation 4 Store Last year, in researching this series of posts, I asked Mischief Maker what he thought the greatest shoot 'em up of all time was. My experience in the genre is that of an extremely casual individual. I played many of these games on Turbo Duo (ZeroWing is insanely difficult but a good game - it doesn't have the "All Your Base" intro, but stands up on its own) and I suppose an R-Type has gotten into the mix over the years. I probably spent the most time with 1942 and 1943: The Battle of Midway. I didn't have the experiences that MM did. I'm happy to say that I could recognize the excellence of Ketsui. There are thought experiments regarding the different major professional sports along the lines of - if you had never seen a basketball game, could you recognize that Michael Jordan or Shaq or LeBron was the best player in the sport? The best player in the game? Probably we could all say yes to that. It is trickier in hockey. I think you'd be able to watch a game if Gretzky or Hasek were playing and point to them. I don't think it can happen at all in baseball or football. I played a few other games in the last year leading up to this and yeah, I think that if MM didn't prime me, I would have picked Ketsui as the best one. My personal criteria for a shoot 'em up is: 1. Can I see what is going on? 2. How nice are the pixel graphics, was it done with CRAFT and FOCUS? 3. Are there cheap deaths? It is extremely easy to see what is going on with Ketsui. I don't know if it was intentional, but the tanks look like the Tiananmen Square tanks to me. The way you shoot, you don't have to worry about destroying enemies on the ground or in the air. Your gunship just blows them all away. The graphics do look like it took a person or team time to make them look incredible. And I have the ability to detect what is being shot at me, and if I can do it and I suck at games, a better player will have no troubles. The only suggestion I have to improve the game would be the music, which is strictly functional. I have read some other lists from enthusiasts and Ketsui is always at the top, if not the #1 "shmup." So here we are. I was able to get it working in MAME (the ROM is "ket.zip" for some reason) and it's emulated perfectly as far as I can tell. The PS store wants 35 god damn dollars for it, and I will admit I can't tell how many games that includes. I wish there was a way to be notified when the Playstation store runs a sale, but I also wish they didn't work on code to take your games away if you go a week without playing them.  |
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