Ori No Taka: Caged Falcon is a vertical Bullet Hell containing a whooping one hundred levels to clear. They are all bite-sized stages lasting around a few minutes at most and possess a high degree of focus in keeping every moment intense. It features three unique characters to play as with each having their own RPG-like progression. Our first default character has a wide-spread attack, another has a high-damage yet narrow laser, and the third is a melee build that can destroy incoming projectiles. There is a lot of incentive to replay the game due to this variety of gameplay styles. You will also unlock that pilot’s H scenes after conquering enough levels with them as extra motivation.
I’m going to start off by saying that this is in no way a beginner-friendly title like its store page claims. It falls more into a difficulty for intermediate players of the genre, with a few moments I’d even call advanced depending on the stage and your character. This is not a flaw, but the descriptions are not representative of the game. If you do not have experience in this genre, I’d highly recommend starting off elsewhere before attempting to take this one on. Doubly so for those that are just here for the hentai and have little interest in learning the genre. There is no way to unlock them outside of getting through the levels.
With that said, considering you know what you signed up for, Ori No Taka will quickly become your new obsession as you play ‘just one more level’. The heavy focus on gameplay with little in the way of fat or downtime within stages makes it hard to put down. Its graphics are fine, though you will find that there are very few backgrounds or music tracks to vary things up through the 100 stages. To the background’s credit, they all have suitable color schemes and low complexity that make it easy to spot projectiles. Whether you play on the keyboard or with an Xbox gamepad, the controls are tight and responsive. Any deaths will solely be of our own doing.
Something to take note of is that D-input gamepads will not function here. You will need an Xbox or X-input compatible gamepad if you’d like to use a controller. Aside from the movement, there are four other buttons this title makes use of. One is your primary shot, the other is four your sub-weapon, another to use your ultimate ability, and finally a button so you can simply move slower. The single thing all characters have in common is that their ultimate ability can destroy incoming projectiles, making them really handy as a last-ditch effort to stay alive. It requires a full energy meter that fills up relative to the damage you are causing to your foes. While an excellent last-ditch measure, you can not heavily rely on it, and you’ll be better suited using them offensively with most characters.
Early in the game, you will be leveling up each of your three forms of attack constantly. Their effects vary on the character. Higher levels can add range, more projectiles, or even entirely new moves in the case of the melee sword build. One consistent fact is that they heavily increase your potential to cause damage. It is rather brilliant how they start you off weak and force you to learn each character’s quirks. While they do gain more firepower, staying alive and learning how to use them is still the most important thing. It only takes three hits for you to die and have to restart a mission. Funnily enough, the side-effect of leveling up so much early on is the sound effect pollution. I highly suggest you learn the sound made when your energy meter is complete, as its placement makes it near impossible to take a glance at during gameplay.
The levels of a character cap off at one hundred. You should reach that well before the halfway point. Once you advance to that point, your success comes down entirely to your skill as you can’t power through it anymore. The leveling feature is an intelligent way of accustoming the player to a character, but stats won’t play much of a role through the latter half. In a submenu for the mission selection screen, you can tweak your movement speed to your liking whenever you want. It is a nice additional bit of customization, though difficult for those who can’t read Japanese to access. You will want to do it for the melee character. Closing the distance quickly and being able to chase down foes is vital to her.
On the opponents you will be facing, they are all mechanical in nature and of varying sizes. While not visually impressive, they are distinct enough to quickly differentiate and adjust your priorities on the fly. Each and every one of them has an attack that specifically targets you. Some also have projectiles that fill the screen to constrain your movement, though they too cast a smaller barrage in your direction. Furthermore, enemies possess a complete 360-degree aim. This means they can fire at you from anywhere and without repositioning themselves. If you don’t know how to lead shots or what the phrase even means, you will undoubtedly still be a pro at it by the end as it steadily increases their rate of fire.
The unrelenting rate of fire makes the “penalties are mild” claim another questionable description to attribute to this title. Taking a hit is not the end of the world, yet those moments you spend not firing allow even more enemies to enter the screen, all of which are still shooting at you. That can quickly spiral into a player losing all three of their available hits as their second-long invisibility frame wears off. Your best defense is a good offense. Don’t be thrown off your beat, and simply reposition yourself to attack the foes most likely to cause you trouble once your invincibility period wears off. Retreating into a corner or taking a more defensive action will put you into a stickier situation. This emphasis on offensive gameplay is right up my alley, but I just felt the need to clarify that penalties are not mild.
Your default character with the wide-spread primary attack has very poor ways of attacking from behind her ship. On the flip side, the one with the laser can detach into two separate ships. It divides your firepower yet opens up a world of possibilities as you control both ships simultaneously. Only your smaller section is the one you need to protect from getting hit, allowing you to place the other wherever you please, such as behind your primary vessel. Offensively defending your rear is even less of an issue for the melee build. Unlike her range-based counterparts, she is a death machine to anything near her. There are many more intricacies to the differences between the three playable characters. Just as impressive is that there is no best option.
Each excels at something while having a weakness to counter it. For instance, the melee build is a death machine up close, but her lack of range or spread-shots makes missions in where you can’t allow an enemy to pass by you much more tricky. She has a move that damages all opponents around her whose attack area gets longer the more you charge it. Against a horde of quick and rapidly moving units in different parts of the screen though, it is easy to see why choosing the one with the spread-shot basic attack would make it easier. The fact that it tracks who you beat a level with heavily encourages you to go through any hardship playing as a particular character can bring. There is nothing quite like going through the level selection screen and seeing several empty blips denoting where you didn’t beat a level as one of the three.
It is impressive how many unique enemy patterns and challenges the dev hand-placed throughout 100 levels. However, there is something that really causes the relatively high difficulty to plain feel unsatisfying and semi-annoying. Certain stages have an infinitely respawning enemy. That is no big deal in itself but becomes more of a pain to deal with for two reasons. The first is that the enemies in question become quite damage spongy towards the end. Its second issue is that there is no cooldown timer before it respawns. Another replica will zoom right in and replace it before the destruction animation of the one you just destroyed even finishes. It feels like you are going nowhere as no progress is made and actively punishes the player for doing well. This technique is used far too much as you start reaching the end of the hundred levels.
Each stage contains their own objective. It can range from simply staying alive, taking down a certain amount of an enemy type, or the aforementioned one where you can’t let them past you. With it solely being in Japanese, this can be a problem for us that can’t read it. The kill everything that moves method was a good enough approach that I never even had to pull out my phone to translate the mission objectives as two characters. It will become more of a problem with the melee build as she has a far wider move-set that is of a more specialized nature than simple shooting. Her’s is an incredibly fun gameplay change up, but one that benefits more by knowing what exactly you are trying to accomplish.
That prior statement was not meant as a criticism, just an insight of what to expect if you don’t know Japanese. Speaking of, to access the hentai, you simply bring up the menu in the level select screen and choose the third option. You will get a new scenario periodically when beating levels as a character. From my memory, they unlock by completing 10, 25, 50, 75, and 100 of them in total. That equates to five for each character and is overall fifteen different scenarios for us to enjoy. Each scene is just a bunch of stills while soft music plays in the background. There is no text, sound effects, or voice acting of any kind in them. The art is decent enough, but I certainly wouldn’t buy the game for its hentai content alone. Interestingly enough, the reward for beating the game entirely as all three of them is the password to unlock a folder that has all the hentai CGs in them. Pretty cool that they hand us the PNGs like that.
All of the sex is of simple vaginal penetration in differing positions. The only thing that may offend some is the young look of one of the characters, aka a loli. Your other two options have the appearance of a tomboy and a milf. It is quite a varied cast. With the hentai being hidden away in a menu, you never actually have to look at anything lewd if you choose. That makes it all the more unfortunate to see that this game doesn’t have an all-ages version with how inconsequential the H aspects are. Ori No Taka may have some flaws, but it is a brilliant title and what I consider to be a hidden gem of the genre. My hopes are that it one day receives an English translation and an all-ages version to further widen the number of people I could recommend it to. Priced at 770 Yen ($6.77), it offers the most bang for the buck than any other Bullet Hell I’ve played. More importantly still is how enjoyable most of your time will be, given you have some experience with the genre. It is simply one you need in your library if you enjoy Bullet Hells.
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