Ikaruga

"Feel visible matter, feel invisible matter. There is life everyhwere."

After two years of development and 11 months as an arcade exclusive, Treasure's Ikaruga has finally arrived on the Dreamcast.

Ikaruga is a 3d top scrolling shooter that re-invents the genre of scrollers on several different levels. Technique, battle system, graphics and story are all given a ramp up from other conventional titles, but the defining aspect of Ikaruga is the game's overall cohesion of ideology, story, art and play design.

The central tenet of Ikaruga is duality. This theme is conveyed in the story of a soldier, Shinra, who wrestles with fighting for freedom and how he has lost everything in this fight.

Shinra himself is a soldier fighting against the nation-state of Jintuusya, a militaristic nation state that began conquering others after it discovered an object, familiar to those who played Radiant Silvergun, in an archaeological dig. In a desperate attack, all of Shinra's fellow soldiers are killed. Shinra attacks the Jintuusya alone and is shot down. He crashes to the village of Ikaruga where he is rescued and nursed back to health by the inhabitants of the ville, who are all exiles from Jintuusya.

During his recovery, Shinra has many discussions with the people of Ikaruga. Chapter|Level screens, difficult to read in the tall screen letter box mode, convey words spoken to Shinra during his time in Ikaruga before the game begins.

Chapter 2:
Your will is strong and you will suffer many trials.
Of course you can avoid and escape these trials
But the true meaning of a trial is to overcome your own weakness.

(note-- Translations of the other story texts can be found at: http://www2.incl.ne.jp/~mo2/ikaruga_en/title.html)

(Note--also of interest for Ikaruga fans, in the original sound test release for Ikaruga, conducted on December 25, 2000, there was a significant amount of other text detailing conversations between Shinra and inhabitants of Ikaruga. The conversations revolved around the life that Shinra had chosen as a ''freedom fighter'' and how this life had stolen everything from him. His friends, his home and his freedom.)

When he is recovered enough to fight, the inhabitants of Ikaruga give Shinra a fighter to use against Jintuusya. Shinra departs to meet his fate(this prologue is sadly only available as a text file included on the GDR and accessible in Japanese by popping the GDR into your Mac/PC).

The fighter given to Shinra is called a Hitekkai. But this Hitekkai is unusual in that it can absorb certain types of enemy bullets. Enemy bullets are light and dark, as is the player ship. When the player ship is light, it can absorb light enemy bullets and its weapons have an increased effect on dark enemies. The reverse is true of the dark side.

The player can flip freely between light and dark throughout the course of the game. These flips from light to dark become essential in defeating some of the game's later enemies as well as surviving the fields of bullets that enemies will throw up in your path. In addition, absorbing enemy bullets of the same color powers up your only special weapon in the game, a homing laser attack.

In a bold move by the developers, there are no super bombs in this game and there are no power-ups for the ship! There is only a narrow band machinegun attack and the homing lasers, both available from the start of the game. This forces the player to develop their skills early on and find their technique rather than allowing them to simply carpet bomb their way through the easier parts of the game. This ultimately makes the game much more rewarding to play as the player gets deeper into it.

Ikaruga also features a battle system that rewards careful discipline in the order of dispatching enemies. Ikaruga's ''chain'' system revolves around shooting down three enemies of the same color in a row and then repeating. These enemies can be shot down from either the positive or negative side of your craft as long as they are shot down in color matching sequences.

For example, shooting down 3 light enemies forms one chain. Shooting down 3 more light enemies(or dark enemies) forms another chain. Shooting down 2 light enemies and then a dark enemy breaks the chain. The game keeps track of how many successive chains you complete and give bonus points at the end of the round. It's a system that adds incredible amounts of depth and replay value to what some might call a short game (5 areas that can be defeated inside of a half hour when you get good enough).

The levels are filled with incessant enemy waves, sub bosses, and more enemy waves before crash landing into a final boss fight that closes out each chapter. This stripped down design provides for a more raw and visceral experience (much like the unending boss fights in their previous top scroller Radiant Silvergun--and NO THIS IS NOT A SEQUEL TO RADIANT SILVERGUN!!!!! TREASURE DOES NOT MAKE SEQUELS!!!!!)

The art direction in Ikaruga is truly breathtaking. The heavily armored aero fortresses, fighters and assorted mechs are designed with lavish care. Everything here feels corrupted and aged, like a war machine that has finally come to it's bitter end but refuses to die. The color pallette is restricted to earth and aged metal tones(all in the sierra end of the pallette). This helps to make the player ship, enemies and bullets stand out against the backgrounds as well as providing the perfect ambience for the game.

The difficulty on normal is very hard, but the developers had the foresight to include multiple difficulties and practice modes to give players the freedom to chose where they want to direct their energies. It will take time and concentration, but mastering this game is an extremely rewarding experience in both extras(see 2 paragraphs down) and in terms of personal satisfaction from completing your first 50+ chain.

When you finally defeat the Jintuusya, it won't be on the first few attempts I assure you, the story resolves in one of the more unsettling endings I've come across, and it will stay with me for the rest of my life. I would've loved to see the story realized in a few animated cinemas rendered in the style of Suzuki's (the lead artist) paintings, which are unlockable after 10 hours of play time or if you complete the game in normal mode, but alas there are none.

Extras include five desktop patterns on the disk(accessible by inserting the GD into your Mac/PC CD drive). These are different from the 5 patterns included with the arcade GDR and lower res, but cool nonetheless. Also included is a sound test, so you can check out the score from Ikaruga sans unrelenting gun fire, and finally the proto-type version of the game can be unlocked after 20 hours of play or completing the game on hard with 1 credit (20 hours seems a drop in the bucket compared to what it will take me to complete this game on hard with 1 credit). And for all the die hard arcade fans, there is a vertical mode to the game! So break out your VGA boxes and flip your monitors because this game looks even better in its original format ^_^

This game is transcendence. If you ''get it'', it will change you. If you don't, it's, at the least, a hell of a ride.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/11/02, Updated 09/11/02