Ikaruga

Ikaruga first came out on the Dreamcast in Japan as the sequel to Radiant Silvergun – which is still considered by many to be the best shooter ever made. Ikaruga recently made its American debut on the Gamecube, and unfortunately will probably be overlooked by a lot of casual gamers.

Ikaruga is a lot like other shooters such as Raiden and Strikers: 1945, but it adds other creative elements. Ikaruga is a more futuristic shooter, and you pilot a space ship with the ability to change colors. The A Button will switch your ship from white to black whenever needed, and throughout the game you will switch colors quite often. Just like your ship, there are two colors of enemies and bullets as well. When white, your ship will absorb white bullets to build up its special attack and black bullets will destroy your ship. When black, it’s just the opposite. Also, when you’re white, you do a lot more damage to black enemies and vice versa.

Ikaruga’s gameplay is killer. The level of difficulty and creativity is amazing. The concept is so simple, but it adds so much more to the game than if it were a regular shooter where all the bullets hurt you. A lot of the levels have sort of puzzles to solve where avoiding the bullets is impossible, so you must use your color changing abilities to navigate the mazes.

Ikaruga’s graphics are great. Every part of the ships and environment is very detailed and crisp. Anything from blasts to bullets to super attacks are bright and impressive. Each level is full of mesmerizing beauty created by an infinite amount of bullets that cover the screen. Especially in the later levels, all the attacks turn into beautiful and almost stressful patterns. You really don’t have time to think about how to dodge all the shots coming at you.

Game modes include lots of ways to play the same levels. There’s the regular way to play, which is to try and make it to the end of the game. Conquest mode allows you to play a stage you have previously reached on one credit. You can also play in slow motion or watch a demo of the level by the computer. Challenge mode gives you a password at the end of play to post on the Ikaruga website and rank yourself with other players. You can also play a mode called Bullet Eater that isn’t selectable from the menu; you just have to play an entire level without firing a single shot.

The number of options is nice, allowing you to select the difficulty, number of continues, and number of lives per continue. You can also change the perspective of gameplay between horizontal and vertical. So if you prefer games like Strikers: 1945 you’d want a vertical setup, but if you prefer the Gradius style of play, you’ll want to play horizontally. It’s nice to have the option of choosing.

Overall, I would recommend Ikaruga to anyone. A lot of games these days would only appeal to certain audiences, but Ikaruga is the kind of game I think anyone could enjoy. Excellent graphics and sound mixed with challenging and intuitive gameplay is always a winner in my book for any game. Sadly not too many people will play Ikaruga. Games like Ikaruga usually don’t get a lot of attention, so the people that do play it need to tell everyone how cool it is. So that’s what I’m doing now…go play Ikaruga.

Gameplay: 9.6
Ikaruga is definitely not a mindless shooter. It takes a lot of planning and observational skills. Some of the puzzles are mind-blowing, and it’s a blast to play. You will want to play and play just to see what the game throws at you next.

Graphics: 8.8 
All of Ikaruga is crisp and detailed. The environments look great, and the screen is almost always full of brilliant explosions and tons of black and white bullets. The boss characters are really detailed looking as well, and are, of course, huge.

Sound: 8.5
The soundtrack is full of epic, high-energy music backed up by explosions, blasts, and sirens. The music perfectly matches the action and never seems repetitive or annoying.

Difficulty: Hard
There’s a slight learning curve to Ikaruga. It takes a few tries to get good with the color switching, and you’ll definitely need to be good at it when you get to the last levels - there are times where the screen is covered with both black and white bullets.

Concept: 9 
The ability to switch your color on the fly really adds a lot of depth to the challenging gameplay. On the surface, Ikaruga is another shooter; but once you start playing you realize that the concept is very creative and much different than other shooters.

Multiplayer: 6.8
Playing with someone else really adds new tactical opportunities, such as one player acting as a shield absorbing the bullets while the other is the opposite color blasting away the enemies. The problem with multiplayer mode in Ikaruga, though, is that it’s incredibly confusing.

Overall: 9.3
Ikaruga is addicting, beautiful, and challenging; everything anyone could ask for in a video game. Maybe something like extra modes or unlockable levels or ships could have made it better, but Ikaruga is an awesome shooter without that stuff.