Ludography
55/100
Players1 rating
Ketsui Death Label cover

2008 · Port · Arika · Shooter · Arcade

Ketsui Death Label

Nintendo exclusivePort

Ketsui Death Label is an Action game, developed by Cave and published by Arika, which was released in Japan in 2008.

Released
23 November 2008
Platforms
Nintendo DS
Genres
ShooterArcade
Developers
Arika
Publishers
Arika
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
Side view

About

Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi (ケツイ ~絆地獄たち~) is a 2003 vertical shoot 'em up arcade game by Cave, released in Japanese arcades. A Nintendo DS boss rush version was released in October 2008 in Japan. It included a Superplay DVD featuring a world record scoring run by a top ranked player. The arcade game was ported to the Xbox 360 and released in 2010. A special version of Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label was released on the Xbox 360 in 2011, which is a crossover with Ketsui, featuring the ship, re-arranged music and scoring system from Ketsui on top of the Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label scoring system.

Media

Ketsui Death Label screenshot 1

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Scoring

Ketsui's scoring system centers around numbered "chips" that are dropped from defeated enemies. Each chip bears a number from 1 to 5, signifying their value, which gets added to the player's accumulated total of chip points when collected. The value of a chip is dependent on the player's proximity to the enemy when it is destroyed using the player's normal shots. For example, destroying an enemy from far away will yield lower-value chips (such as 1s and 2s) while destroying enemies at close range will yield higher-value chips (such as 4s and 5s).

Story

In the year 2054, chaos spreads over the globe as global warming finally exacts its toll on Earth: the ice caps quickly melt, causing a tremendous series of cataclysms and for entire nations to disappear under the sea. The near apocalyptic setting and the quickly depleting resources of the remaining dry lands force nations into constant war, eventually culminating into World War III; all efforts by the United Nations to cease hostilities are thwarted by a seemingly endless supply of technologically advanced weaponry being sold to each side of every conflict. After investigation, the source is tracked back to EVAC Industry co. ltd, an arms dealer who's been reaping tremendously high profits from the situation, at times directly intervening to fuel the hostilities with utter disregard towards human lives; any attempt to negotiate with the board of directors has utterly failed, the earnings having proven high enough for the company to build its own cities, shipyards, defensive emplacements and even a private airport, to the point of assembling its own army of extremely well equipped mercenary troops.

Being unable to enter the fray officially, the UN sets up a strike team of four pilots, each pair given one of two advanced helicopters: the plan is to simulate a rebellion within EVAC forces and bring down the company's headquarters, where research on a series of tremendous warmachines is taking place; for this reason, the planes both bear EVAC insignia and callsigns and are built according to stolen prototype blueprints - by no means, in success or failure, must the operation be traced back to the United Nations.

Reception

Famitsu magazine awarded Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi Extra a score of 26/40 based on four reviews (6/7/7/6).

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Nintendo DS23 November 2008Japan

Editions and related releases

Part of
Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku-tachi
Port of
Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi

Games like this

Collections1 collection

Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.