I've grown up with scrolling shooters. The drug store that was right up the road from my house used to have two arcade machines. Usually it had a scrolling shooter. At first it was R-type, then Life Force, finally the owner brought in Sky Shark. I became really good at these games and could show off my gaming prowess with the rest of the regulars. I can still remember the smell of the candy that was spread across a low lying shelf across from the counter. So even if these games weren't the same as Ikaruga, the mindset for me was. Instead of purchasing 2 packs of fun dip, and some sweet tarts; I raided my kids' more than ample supply of candy (these days leftover from Easter, but my father-in-law always keeps them constantly supplied) in order to get that perfect sugar buzz going before I took off. The only thing I'm missing is that big joystick ...


Story

The story of Ikaruga is about a repressive society called the Tenro Horai. They have wiped out every one of their rivals except the Tenkaku, and even then the Tenkaku are getting routed. Only Shinra stands in their way. Unfortunately Shinra gets shot down in a village called Ikaruga populated by refugees from another society's war with the Tenro Horai. These people build Shinra a ship along with a former enemy to Shinra now ally Kagari. It's now up to them to take on the Tenro Horai.

The story isn't all that spectacular and it really doesn't play more than a very minor role in the game if you can even call it a role. No characters are really developed. It's the same cliche of saving the world. But that's ok because it really doesn't affect the gameplay or what Ikaruga is all about.


Gameplay

Ikaruga is your basic 2-player simultaneous side scrolling shooter with a twist. You move your ship across the screen avoiding enemy bullets while trying to destroy ships along the way. There are 5 stages each with a giant boss at the end. The twist is that the game follows a theme of black and white. That is either ships coming at you are bluish white or reddish black including the bullets and beams they fire. You can change the polarity of your ship to white or black to absorb like colored bullets. In addition, you can do double damage to opposite colored ships and targets. What this means is that there are all of a sudden a ton of bullets headed your direction to the point where learning how and when to change polarity is more of a must than learning how to fire your blaster. Absorbing bullets also fills up a power meter. After you fill one link of the power meter, you can release the energy which fires homing missiles at a target. The more of the energy bar that's filled, the higher and wider the damage is from the energy release.

Ikaruga is just as much of a puzzle game as it is an action game. Most of the time, you're not concentrating on destroying ships more than you're concerned about simply staying alive and switching polarities. Many of Ikaruga's challenges involve techniques for absorbing bullets and memorizing the patterns that the game presents. Now memorization and remembering what polarity to be at certain times is one thing, it's another to put this all together with tremendous reflexes to avoid bullets. Luckily, Ikaruga is also very forgiving. The hit detection is very precise and you never feel screwed by lousy mechanics like you do in some other similar games. Many times you're left wondering, "I really thought I got shot there. How did I ever get out of that?"

Ikaruga has 5 chapters which last about 10 minutes each. The level layout varies based on the chapter. Some chapters throw a tons of bullets and indestructible objects at you. While others test your reflexes through many different ships and attacks. There isn't much variety in individual enemy ships and weapons and objects but there's no repeated combinations except in the very beginning.

Ikaruga has 3 different difficulty levels. They aren't based on your ship's strength, the power to defeat other ships, or the speed of the gameplay. The difficulty all depends on bullets fired after an enemy ship or object is blown up. At the easiest difficulty level enemies and objects don't fire back after being defeated. At the next difficulty level like-colored objects and ships fire back, but opposites do not. On the hardest difficulty level, opposite colored ships fire back. Even at the lowest difficulty level, Ikaruga is a very tough game. Luckily there are different training modes that help you revisit entire chapters or parts of chapters to hone your techniques. What's great is that there's a mode that will allow you to play parts of the game in slow motion. This is extremely useful because it allows you to observe the patterns that take place when the action is heavy and the patterns are no so apparent.

When all else fails and you're about to give up, Ikaruga gives faithful players one last chance to taste glory. If you play the game for 9 to 10 hours, you'll eventually get infinite continues. So despite Ikaruga's status as a hardcore vertical shooter, it does little things to help draw in crowds that might not be as seasoned, but rather ones who are dedicated to overcoming challenges. To me that's probably the most encouraging aspect of this game, something that not too many other games strive to do.


Controls

The controls of Ikaruga are very precise and exact. They are responsive, yet not too sensitive. The responsiveness is so good, it really makes no difference whether you're playing with a wired GameCube controller or a Wavebird. It also goes to show just how well constructed the Wavebird controller is because it doesn't affect the gameplay at all to play wirelessly. The default control layout makes a lot of sense given the GameCube's controller. The A button switches polarities while the B button fires. The right shoulder button releases your energy attack and the left control stick moves your ship. If this doesn't work for you, the controls can always be remapped. For instance, I don't like to use the right trigger to release my energy attack, instead I like to map it to either the X or Y button.


Graphics

Ikaruga's graphics are very impressive, despite the fact that they are sprite-based. They layering is really impressive and detailed. The backgrounds look very detailed and certainly provide a great visual environment. There are only a couple times when the background clashes with the shots that are displayed on the screen to the point of being frustrating. This happens early in the game enough to make me think that it was a simple oversight rather than a deliberate decision designed to make the game that much tougher.

The animations also raise the bar for sprite-based scrolling shooters. Ikaruga looks very sharp because the frame rate is very high. It doesn't suffer from slowdowns despite the multitude of dots and ships on the screen. It's really amazing to see the sheer amount of activity on the screen without having to worry about slowdown. The ship and environments look great during the cutscenes as well. Finally the most impressive graphical aspect is the explosions after destroying a boss. They are large and very impressive. The game does slow down during these explosions, but I think that's on purpose. Either way, it doesn't take away from the gameplay since the chapter is already over.


Sound

The background music is just how I like it in a scrolling shooter. It doesn't overwhelm you with its presence, but it's catchy and keeps you grooving when you get in a zone. That's something you need for a game that's as tough as this one. There's a robotic voice that does say a few short phrases in the opening sequence and during the game, however I can't tell what's being said or even if it's in English. The sound effects are probably the most important here. Unfortunately, they seem rather muffled. Explosions really don't have that detailed sound effect that accompanies the impressive look. Every other effect seems rather drab and toned down from what I expect to see from an arcade shooter like this. It's not a big downer because it's a home console game and you can always crank up something better on your mp3 player to really bring the game's audio up a notch.


Replay Value

For gaming veterans and experts, there's a ton of replay value in Ikaruga. While the 5 chapters of the game can be played through in less than an hour, it will take most gamers a dozen if not a couple dozen or more tries to actually beat this game as it's that hard. There are so many variations the game takes on in terms of proving your skill level. In addition to the 3 different skill levels, you can try and beat the game without firing a single shot. There's even the video of the person who beat the game on normal difficulty while controlling both ships. In addition, Ikaruga allows you to improve your skill level by replaying certain parts of a particular level, in slow motion if it helps. Certain gamers might not see as much replay value if their goal when playing games is to simply beat the game then move on. There just isn't that much unique content, but rather it's all about the mastery of that limited content.

Overall I'm confident that this game will appeal to most seasoned gamers. It's hard, but not unfair. The skill level ceiling is high, but Ikaruga offers lots of modes and opportunities to improve your skills. It's a game that's simple in nature, but takes so long to master. Unfortunately, this game is also rare and it's a shame that it wasn't ported to any of the other 128-bit consoles (except for the Dreamcast, where it was released only in Japan). So if you can find it for a reasonable price, I'd go for it. It's not the final frontier in side scrolling shooters, but it does offer a new twist on an old but faithful genre.

Recommended: Yes