Ikaruga

"The Dreamcast goes out with a bang"

Not many games can captivate the feel of old school 2-d gaming while keeping gamer interested. Ikaruga is able to accomplish such an experience.

Ikaruga mixes simplistic 2-d vertical shooting with amazingly detailed graphics and long lasting fun.

Gameplay: 10/10
Ikaruga is pretty simple. ''A'' shoots and ''X'' changes your color from white to black. That's it besides moving left and right. Within this extremely simple control set up, however, is a deep game. By selecting your ship to be black or white, you can absorb the enemies bullets depending on the color they shoot at you. For example, if you press ''X'' to make your ship turn black, you can absorb black bullets that enemies shoot at you. Likewise with a white ship, you can absorb white bullets. Absorbing bullets adds a lot of strategy to this game, as it does two things. It dictates which enemies/bullets to avoid and by absorbing enough shots you can build up your own special attack, which you use by pressing ''R''. And the game never gets boring or too hard, so you'll want to keep playing this game for a long time to come.

Graphics - 10/10
Simply the best 2-d graphics I've ever seen. The backgrounds are amazing, the enemies and bosses are extremely detailed and pretty to look at, and the special effects (explosions,etc) and simply beautiful. The levels designs are unique and don't put you to sleep like the ones in Rez.

Sound - 10/10
The sound is perfect. Bullet blasts, music, it all fits perfectly with the game. There's not much else to say about it.

Story - ?/10
The game is in Japanese so I'm not sure what they story is about. There is an American version that is supposed to come out Game cube in 2003, so you might want to pick that up if you want story.

Replay - 10/10
Like everyone's favorite Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis games, this game is pure fun, and you'll want to play it over and over. When you beat the game you unlock prototype mode, this mode is like a new difficulty, but just like the difference between easy, normal, and hard, it's like playing a new game. The game isn't made harder by throwing 100 extra enemies at you, or adding hit points to certain bosses, but by having you play the levels differently, so instead of 5 levels, it's really like 20 levels including the prototype mode.

Overall-Buy
Well, you can't rent Ikaruga since I doubt any rental stores carry imports, but you should definitely own this game. Shenmue II and Ikaruga have given Dreamcast an amazing final days of life. While you might want to wait for the Game cube version since it will have a few extras, if you get this version instead you won't be disappointed.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/22/02, Updated 09/22/02