Date Released: 20 November 2020
Date Played: 25 June 2021
Introduction:
Ketsui is a legendary vertical shmup developed by Cave for the arcades back in 2003. Its full name is Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi and has been ported several times to various consoles ranging from the Nintendo DS, PS3, Xbox 360, and finally this definitive edition on the PS4. It was ported by the venerable M2 and is part of their ShotTriggers series of games in which they recreate the arcade experience for home consoles as accurately as possible while adding insane amounts of extra features, modes, and training systems. Since its release, Ketsui has reigned at the top of many lists of the best shmups of all time and makes it onto almost every fan of the genre's top 10 list. It is, without a doubt, one of the most beloved, copied, and hard shmups ever made and is an essential entry for any arcade game lover to play. It is universally heralded by almost everyone and as of the writing of this review is ranked #1 on Shmups Forum's list of the greatest shmups of all time.
Story:
While most people, including myself, don't really consider the story in a shmup to be that essential, it can serve to add a little mystique to an already great game. This is definitely the case with Ketsui. And, since the game is in Japanese and it's difficult to decipher what's going on unless you speak the language, I'll give a brief overview of the setting for you. In 2054 the world is in disarray because global warming has led to the icecaps melting and covering much of the inhabited parts of the world under water. Because of this, there is a huge shortage of resources that humanity requires. This has lead most remaining nations of the world to be in a state of perpetual war with each other in their need to gather as many of the remaining resources as possible. Despite their best efforts, the United Nations has been unsuccessful stopping any of these conflicts because an arms dealer called EVAC has become a tremendously wealthy war profiteer by selling hyper-advanced weaponry to all sides of the conflict. This has led to a huge decline in the world's remaining population and EVAC seems to have no regret in contributing to an even more post-apocalyptic world. Negotiations with EVAC have been unfruitful as they refuse to cooperate or cease operations in their pursuit of money and power. Their profits have been so massive that they have created their own cities, military installations, and combat force. Since the UN can't attack them officially but needs to stop them, they create two superpowered helicopters that are each equipped with a pair of pilots. These helicopters are designed to look like EVAC vehicles so the pilots can sneak into the enemy cities and take them out. Since this stealthy attack musn't be allowed to be traced back to the UN, the pilots are on a suicide mission and even if they succeed will have to sacrifice themselves and their helicopters and never return home. In return for this, each pilot is awarded one wish by the UN for their sacrifice.
It's a very dark premise, but I think it's quite brilliant that your goal in the game is essentially to wreak as much havoc as possible since you know that you'll never get to return. It really embodies the modern doctrine of, "you only live once" and I really like seeing the hordes of enemy vehicles explode by your hand.
I wonder what their wishes were...
Gameplay:
I'm not going to beat around the bush, Ketsui is one of the most difficult games ever made. Many fans of the genre even say it is THE hardest shmup ever. This is saying a lot since many gamers consider bullet-hell shmups to already be on the more extreme end of the difficulty scale and relegated to the domain of the niche gamer and otaku. But, there's no need to worry. M2 has sorted out this issue with this version of the game. I'll touch on their brilliant solution shortly.
The game is a military based vertical shmup that plays like most of Cave's other games. You have the standard spread shot that lets you maintain your ship's normal speed and is good for taking out large waves of smaller enemies, and you have a focus shot that deals more damage but slows you way down. The spin, this time around, is that the focus shot has a lock-on mechanic that allows you to keep blasting the enemy even when you move out of a direct line of sight. It's a really, really nice and refreshing mechanic that allows you to focus on dodging the waves of bullets instead of having to aim your shot. These abilities are modified even more by selecting one of the two available ships in the game. The first ship has a wider spread shot, fast lock-on speed, and slower movement while the other has a narrow spread, slow lock-on, and faster movement. Both ships feel really balanced and it's possible to clear the game with either of them. So, pick the one that suits your playstyle and start learning how to use it as best you can. Both ships also have the standard bomb that does massive damage and can save you in a pinch.
Ketsui truly stands out in the gameplay department and is a masterclass in refined and interesting enemy placement, bullet patterns, and set-pieces. The whole experience is exhilarating, fluid, fun, and so well constructed that it puts most other shmups to shame. Learning the levels and finding a way to route through them is basically every shmup fan's dream. In terms of arcade style gameplay, Ketsui is practically perfect and I've never heard anyone voice any negativity about it. The reason for this adoration stems from its simple, yet challenging and brilliant scoring system. Now, normally, I tend to play for survival when it comes to shmups, but in the case of Ketsui, it's so good that even I got into it. I'll do my best to explain it here, but keep in mind that reading about it is far more difficult than experiencing it for yourself.
The game essentially rewards you for risky behavior (it is a suicide mission after all). When you kill enemies with your spreadshot, they drop these green chips. The closer you are to an enemy when it dies, the more valuable the chip is worth and these chips are totaled together to give you a multiplier and increase your score. The value of the last chip you picked up (5 is the highest value) is locked in and you can switch to your focus shot to make all enemies you kill drop chips with this same value regardless of how far away you are. The goal is then to chain this focus shot for a huge multiplier which essentially boils down to getting right up in the enemy's face and trying to dodge the onslaught of bullets until a wave of popcorn enemies fly down and you switch to your focus shot and grab tons of multiplier chips. If you use your focus shot when you're not chaining, it subtracts from your multiplier. Whatever your multiplier is when you finally defeat the end boss becomes a bonus. I know that's a lot of information thrown at you all at once and hopefully it made some sense. You'll just have to trust me that it doesn't take to long to get the hang of things once you figure out what's going on.
The game takes place over 5 stages that each include a huge mechanized mid-boss as well as a final boss. The first four of these stages have a perfect length and are memorable and action packed. The final stage, as is the case in most Cave games, is overly long and tends to overstay its welcome. But, overall it's almost perfectly paced with no lulls or downtime. The waves of enemies fly out at you in way that is reminiscent of a rhythm game and once you memorize everything and get into your flow, it's almost trance-like.
While I do find this score system to be fascinating, it doesn't really fall into my playstyle. I'm not a, "get up in your face" kind of gamer. However, it was so intriguing and fun that I did learn some routs and timing for the first half of the game that allowed me to get a fairly decent score and pick up a couple of extends. In addition to this, there are a couple of secret 1Ups hidden in stages 3 and 5 respectively and if you're able to snag them will be a huge boon to your success. Believe me when I say that you're going to need these extends because the game, as I mentioned before, is absolutely brutal. If I had to put it into words, I would say that Normal Arcade mode is like... extreme mode on most other shmups. This is even referenced in the game's title. Even the easy difficulty in standard Arcade mode will give most shmup veterans a run for their money. Ketsui roughly translates to, "Determination." And, that's something you'll need in spades to truly tackle this monster of a game.
To help with this, the masters over at M2 have added in a ridiculous amount of features and modes into this PS4 port to help you learn the game and tweak its characteristics to your liking. Firstly, there's a much desired Super Easy mode so anyone can have a chance at this game. It's an absolute blast to play and is one of the biggest features of this version of the game. It really slows down the bullet speed and thins out the massive amount of them that you normally have to deal with. Yet, it doesn't make the game feel like a passive endeavor as there is still plenty of engaging gameplay there for even experts. Additionally, there's the titular Deathtiny mode that acts as an arrange mode that has completely redesigned scoring mechanics and different survival tactics and is the big draw for the PS4 release for huge fans of the game as it rewrites the way the game is played. Not only that, there's a super hard version of the game that was used for a shmup competition years ago that has been previously unplayable until now and is so comically difficult that I'm surprised there's more than a handful of people in the world that would even have the slightest chance to clear it. There's even a custom arcade mode where you can set and change almost any parameter of of the game and has 10 different difficulty settings to tune the the gameplay to your specifications. It really helps you slowly ramp up the difficulty of the game to gradually get better and better and makes getting a clear on the game much easier since you can start from any section of any stage and build up your skills over time. This will eventually let you work up to the 100% perfect port of the arcade version of the game included in this package. If this weren't enough, there's also the Arcade Challenge mode that's become a mainstay of the M2 ShotTriggers releases. It gives you the opportunity to play through every single section of the entire game, on every difficulty, on every loop. You tackle each section of a stage (5-6 each) and if you die, the game rewinds and gives you another attempt to try again. You'll have a set number of attempts before the game makes you restart from the beginning of the section. If you're able to clear that section, you're graded on how well you do and how many attempts it took you before it will allow you to move onto the next one and give it a shot. It basically turns each section of the game into a mini-game that allows you to clear the entire game in segments and is a massive training tool and is the most valuable part of the entire package. Not only that, the game also gives you save states, records spots in the game where you die repeatedly and allows you to replay them whenever you want, and has plenty widgets to let you know how you're doing and where you need to improve. These tools give you everything you need to succeed if you're willing to put in the work.
Presentation:
The graphics of this game are pretty good and have that standard chunky sprite-work that Cave is so well known for. The backgrounds and settings of each stage are standard fare with military bases, ship ports, and cityscapes. With the military theme of the game, you'll encounter an assortment of tanks, planes, helicopters, ships, and other vehicles that are appropriate but aren't really anything special to look at. Unfortunately, this is the same for the bosses and mid-bosses who, while they are huge war machines, aren't particularly inspired in their design and are rather forgettable. All of this is set in a rather drab and dull color pallet that certainly looks like it's straight out of wartime and is most likely exactly the look that the designers were going for. Sadly, none of it is very interesting to look at and is rather boring and generic. I've seen so many shmups like the 19XX series, Strikers, etc. that have this same military based aesthetic but seem to stand out just a little more. Maybe it's because there's no real way to present a war-time game without making it look muted and covered in greys and greens, but it feels like I've seen it all countless times. I wish Cave would have gone with a more outrageous art style and put as much thought into the look of the game as they did with the gameplay.
Sadly, in addition to this, the soundtrack of the game is rather boring and repetitive. It has a sort of rock mixed with electronic EDM feel that is present in a lot of Cave's most known games. Sadly, the chord progressions tend to just shuffle back and forth without ever really going anywhere and there's very little melody and the only slight hook that I can recall from the soundtrack is at the end of stage 4 and is too brief. The sound effects sound good an punchy but are nothing to write home about either and blend in too much with the music the give an overall muddled sound. A truly memorable soundtrack could have propelled this game into the stratosphere and cemented it in it's throne on the top of the shmup pile.
On a positive note, this version of the game contains rearranged music that you can choose to use instead of the standard soundtrack if you want to mix things up. Unfortunately, this music is all based off the original score and just doesn't have a good enough base in terms of its composition to be turned into anything exceptional.
Final Thoughts:
This leaves us with shmup that has an interesting premise, near perfect gameplay, but has a really boring and generic looking art style with mediocre music. The game is extremely difficult on the standard arcade mode, but this release gives enough alternate modes and training tools to provide worthwhile gameplay for anyone who wants to give Ketsui a shot. Despite it's mediocre presentation, the gameplay alone is good enough to not only carry the game, but even launch it into rarified air. While I do side with the general consensus of this being one of the hardest games of all time, I disagree with it being the #1 shmup of all time because of its aesthetic shortcomings. It is such a fantastic game, though, that it probably would have been my favorite shmup of all time if it had better art style, character design, and music. As it sits, it's still near the top of the list, but doesn't quite grab the top spot. Yes, it's so difficult that people spend years and years learning the game and honing their skills just to be able to do the 2nd loop, but that isn't really a requirement to have a worthwhile experience with the game. While I do love the game, and put in enough time to get the platinum trophy for it, I don't want to dedicate my life to its mastery... as that is what the highest levels of the game requires from its most devoted players.
This is honestly the best package I've ever seen on a shmup. The features, modes, and just general gameplay are all top notch and it's truly remarkable what M2 provided with the release of this game and I'll purchase any other game from the ShotTriggers series that they decide to make. There's really nothing more you could ever want from a shmup release.
I would recommend this game to anyone and everyone. If you have the ability to play it, you should do so as soon as you can. It's a must have for anyone who has even the slightest interest in playing shmups and an awesome experience even for the casual gamer.
Final Status: Completed (platinum trophy acquired, 1CC on several modes)
Final Score: 9/10 (almost perfect gameplay set in a boring world)
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