Ikaruga

"It's technically excellent but lacking in fun!"

Ikaruga

Ikaruga - In simple terms is a 2-player vertically scrolling and vertically oriented arcade shooting game with fully 3D graphics with a handy option of flipping your TV/monitor on its side to appreciate the vertically-oriented gameplay.

The graphics have been given particular attention because even the most minute enemy craft are intricately detailed. Backgrounds are very detailed also. Slowdown is almost non-existent even though the screen can be quite crowded with enemies and bullets. These bosses are generally well designed. Mostly they're very large machines that fill the best part of the screen. Regular enemies consist mostly of orbs and small planes with plenty of medium sized ''things'' that fire large beams as well as bullets.

Sound effects are good. The music is of an orchestral nature. It's quite dynamic and mostly very good.

Gameplay: The major theme here is to do with colours. All enemies and their fire is either black or white. Your ship also, can change between white or black with the press of the B button, while A fires. While white you fire white bullets which do double damage to black enemies and vice versa. But make the effort to shoot the black enemies while you're in black mode and they'll release black ''stuff'' down the screen when destroyed. The same goes for being in white mode and shooting white enemies. This ''stuff'', as long as it matches your ship's current colour, can be absorbed to charge your special weapon, the homing shot. But change to the opposite colour and it'll kill you just like regular bullets fired by the enemy. What all of this means is that you have to learn the enemy patterns and also take note of what colour the enemies are. So switching colours is as vital to survival as positioning and movement and it's a great idea.

Shooting enemies of the same colour, black or white, in groups of three produces a chain, which is announced both by a voice and a chain meter on screen. Performance or rank is influenced very heavily by chaining. The whole game is structured so that enemies appear in multiples of three and to get a high score you must learn the best way to attack each level and get a complete chain. Chaining can't be ignored, especially when there's an almost continuous electronic chatter reminding you of your chain status. This is unfortunate because chaining is not really an enjoyable pursuit. It detracts from the usual enjoyment of a shooting game, robbing it of the cavalier ''kill or be killed'' idea. ''Kill or be killed, but only in groups of three of the same colour'' isn't half as enjoyable. It would be better not to have to play little chaining games, carefully selecting enemies to shoot while battling through the game. Accidentally losing the chain by shooting one out of place enemy is very annoying. And one more thing; chain status is indicated on the VMUs display only, not on screen!

Aside from chaining though there is a certain amount of enjoyment to be had weaving through waves of enemy fire but not as much as in other shooters simply because this game isn't designed that way. Presumably, chaining is added to give the player more to aim at than simply shooting everything. Sadly it does little for the enjoyment factor and it adds very little besides

You've got to tackle 5 adequately-sized levels and a boss level and, putting it plainly, the first two levels are boring. Level 2 is a chore to play through as it's especially slow and very lacking in action. It picks up quite a bit from there though in terms of action and challenge. Level 3 has some very impressive shifting columns and gates that close with just enough room to pass through. Level 4 is mostly a really long battle with a giant satellite surrounded by waves of bullets. Later on the spaces you must negotiate become extremely small. So bullet dodging and improvisation is mostly absent in favour of precise colour-changing and timing. In fact, the game's enemies are almost completely pre-programmed to shoot in the same direction each time you play so there aren't that many shots directed at your ship, unlike most modern shooting games which insist upon bullet-luring.

Overall, it's a well tuned machine, it looks great and sounds good, shows a fair amount of imagination and the colour-themed gameplay is a nice touch. There's some satisfying play here with learning the patterns and making progress but it rarely reaches a thrilling level and it's much more boring than it ought to be. There's a certain sterility or rigidity due to the flow of the game being so calculated and pre-planned. The areas in which you can move are restrictive and the typical shooter feeling of letting the enemies ''have it'' is replaced by a more neurotic art of selective shooting.

Games like this need addictive qualities to draw you back. In that respect Ikaruga fails. It just doesn't entice you back like it should.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/02, Updated 12/05/02