What are you waiting for?
Alright, fine. I’ll tell you why.
Ikaruga is everything a good vertical shooter should be. The past is fast, the action frantic, and perhaps most of all, you have to think. Ikaruga is a thinking gamer’s shooter, and twitch skills alone will mean nothing. Knowing when to switch polarity, which enemies to fight at a time, and how to get out of some very challenging polarity based puzzles while being fired at from all directions, that’s the kind of thing that really works you over, with a wonderful minimalist idea working in its favor.
The game’s premise isn’t that removed from the normal vert shooter. Blast things into tiny pieces, don’t get shot. Here’s the catch, though. There are two types of enemy fire, black and white (with some blue and red outlining). Your ship has two polarities, black and white. At any time, you’re set to one of those, and you absorb any shots that come your way of that polarity (If this all sounds familiar, this is the same basic idea that was used for the classic, but underplayed, Sillohuette Mirage for Playstation). Those shots are absorbed into a seeker weapon, which you can unleash 16 of for some nasty damage to whatever is in your way. And on top of that, you do massive damage to enemies of the opposite polarity as opposed to the same. Playing it safe is an option, but taking the risk will blast an enemy out of the sky in an instant, netting you more points and with that more extra lives, which ALWAYS matter. And to add more points, killing three enemies of the same polarity in a row adds to a combo meter. As long as you blast sets of three, the combo, and the major bonus it gives, grows, even if the sets aren’t all of the same polarity. Break a set though, and lose the combo.
It’s a very pretty affair, with great models and textures despite the fact the game’s palette is essentially 4 high contrast colors. The special effects are strong, and there’s never a question of what’s coming at you, and how you need to respond. It really is impressive what Treasure (the developer) did with so little, but it goes to show the power of a solid art style and some proper spectacle. It’s easy to get lost in the “Whoa!” of some enemies, and that, of course, means a fiery explosion that used to be your ship. For an extra treat, players who’ve got a TV or monitor they can rotate vertically will get the full experience here, without sidebars preserving the ratio. The game supports rotation to fit native on a vertical monitor, and well, you’re going to yell out “holy shit awesome!” when you try it.
Lots of sections of the game revolve around not dying more than killing things, with streams of energy of opposite polarities forming mazes in ways that players will need to ride through and switch through occasionally. Timing will very much be key, but the reward is great, and it’s easy to load up on homing attacks in such pieces. Minibosses and bosses revolve heavily on the idea of polarity. Some fire certain types and rotate them, some are weak to a specific polarity in specific spots, and some will just require good timing on the swap to not die. One particularly devious miniboss uses both polarities to attack, crossing energy solid beams over the player, ensuring that you WILL get hit. At the same time he’s strafing left and right, meaning you have to swap polarities and engage in a deadly ballet avoiding the beams which will destroy you, and switching as they invert while still maneuvering and dodging the smaller shots still flying.
The difficulty is high, but Ikaruga is not without mercy. As more time is logged into the game and more points, players earn more credits and lives to use to unlock levels. The goals are twofold in this game certainly. One is just the challenge of mastering the basic game, winning it, which is no easy feat. Beyond that, on default settings high scores and replays are uploaded, but the difficulty is quite high at this point. No extra credits, no extra lives beyond those afforded on default settings, everyone is equal except for skill and a bit of memorization of certain devious puzzles.
Like all shooters, Ikaruga can be victim of repetition, especially replaying earlier levels. But those early levels are very fun even after a lot of plays, and provide a basis for the skill needed to finish later levels. Players can also just play a favorite level that they’ve reached by selecting it, instead of always going from the beginning, which is a great feature. Want some motion and polarity puzzles? Hit level three. Non-stop action? Level five. The game is also, like most shooters, rather short, but shooter fans aren’t in a game for length, they’re in it to replay over and over, and to top their best score again and again.
Ikaruga provides that chance. It’s a lot of fun in single-player, and a ton of fun in multiplayer too, with players working in tandem to cover both polarities and protect each other as they unleash absolute devastation on their enemies.
Ikaruga is an easy 5 star game. The polish is top, it’s pure fun, and it’s one of the finest examples of its genre. And on top of that, it’s 10 fucking dollars! 800 points on Xbox Live Arcade gets you the game, which is certainly less than many, many people spent in quarters at the arcade, or the cost of finding a Dreamcast or Gamecube copy of a real collector’s item. Get the trial, fall in love instantly with it, and buy it. Unlike some other XBLA titles, Ikaruga only gets better as you go. Now let’s hope Microsoft decides to give us Treasure’s other opus, Radiant Silvergun.
