Aka to Blue is fantastic. I'm still only on level 2, but it's no doubt a proper Cave shmup, in and out. It is also automatically the best shmup available on iOS11 (as all other Cave shmups are 32bit games).
+ Bullet patterns are very much balanced for touch screen controls, which, if you disable auto bombs, makes the game far more difficult than DodonpachiR or Espgaluda 2 on iOS for example. Challenge is very good here, again if you keep auto bombs disabled - with that on (and it's On by default), you can sustain many more hits, making the game much easier.
+ Really cool bullet patterns and good to great visuals. Framerate is butter smooth 60FPS for the most part, even on my aging iPhone 6. There can be some stutters as the new visual elements are introduced, but then when you play again, it's all very smooth. Bullets, coins and explosions look awesome.
+ Great music, and good voice acting even though I have no idea what they're saying, sounds like a solid banter between people who are engaged in a cartoony fight.
+ Respectable character designs that don't reek of otaku body pillow desperation, like the later Cave shmups somewhat devolved into. You know how in some of the games they had just a glimpse of the boss-robot being kind of naked just before the explosion - nothing like that here, as far as I can see.
+ I feel like the two characters/fighters are well balanced, each with an advantage over the other. Aka has wider spread shot with which it takes longer to destroy bigger enemies, but with him, the bomb always flies forward, making it much easier to use. Blue has a concentrated forward fire, making it easier to destroy bigger ships, but the bomb has to be aimed in the direction you want it to go to, making it much more difficult to use successfully in the heat of the battle.
- Visuals not quite on the level of Cave's best, in terms of backgrounds especially. They lack that intricate detail, but still the overall visual impression is very strong.
- Why is there no translation to what the characters are saying - at least some kind of on-screen text or something?
- For a game called Aka TO Blue, I was convinced it would let me switch between the fighters anytime I chose during the game. This doesn't seem to be the case, and is a big missed opportunity IMO. If there was one thing I wish I could request, it's to add a third mode to the game where you could switch between the two (with its own separate highscore table).