Ikaruga (Some Images used from the Adrenaline Vault)
By GaoRed X
System: Nintendo Gamecube
Developer: Treasure

Introduction

Arcade shooters have become a rarity these days, compared to the 80's and 90's when they pretty much dominated the market. But with the local arcade quickly becoming a thing of the past, shooters are only embraced by a niche market. Which makes the recent American release of Ikaruga to the Game Cube such a surprise.

The storyline, such as it is, pits a small group of resistence fighters against the might of an extremely powerful super-nation bent on world conquest. (How's that for an original plot, huh?) Typically, the resistence has only one ship that can stand up to the invaders, and of course, you're the only pilot in question. The plot goes out the window once the action gets going, which is no big loss, however.

Review

Originally released on the Sega Dreamcast in Japan last year, and developed by Treasure, the company that brought us Gunstar Heroes and Sihouette Mirage, Ikaruga delivers 5 levels of incredibly intense shooter action. Yeah, that's right, ony 5 levels. But those are more than enough to keep you occupied.

The game itself is pretty straight-forward, but Treasure added a new twist to the game mechanics Besides being equipped with standard rapid-fire, your ship has the ability to change polarities to either back or white. Therein lies the afforementioned twist since enemy ships in the game come in only two colors--yup, black and white. White ships shoot white bullets and black ships shoot black ones. You can absorb like-colored bullets and release the collected energy as a devasting homing attack, and dodge opposite-colored bullets, so it's not enough to just shoot everything that comes at you. The screen often becomes so crowded with enemy fire that polarity shifting becomes crucial to your survival. You don't even need to rely on the standard fire of your ship's normal weapon at get through the game. Since one half of the enemy fire is lethal, while the other half powers you up, playing Ikaruga requires you to improvise often.

As mentioned before, the game's only 5 levels long, but there are times when you'll be navigating carefully through hails of enemy fire, shifting polarities just to survive as much as you'll be tearing through things in your path. The game is HARD. As in, throwing-your-controller-at-the-TV-in-frustration hard.

The background graphics are all rendered 3-D, but the muted color scheme makes them look dull and washed out. However, this was no doubt done to help the color of enemy bullets stand out on screen.

Conclusion

Ikaruga has enough elements to make it unique among shooters, and there's a lot here to like. But the difficulty might be a detterent in keeping players interested. Still, if you're a die-hard shooter fan, Ikaruga's definitely worth a look.

GaoRed X