Ikaruga

"Red, White, and Dead"

Built up frustration and shooters go naturally together. Just think of all those times you threw your battered and beat-up controller against the wall because Vic Viper had just burst into a brilliant orange ball of flame when you had just ,“totally dodged that shot“. Simply put, a shooter without challenge is no shooter at all. It's some wussy game that wants to be a shooter, but it doesn't deserve the manly title such as Uber Tough “Pound-Me-In-The-Ass” Shooter. Treasure's recent snerdly hyped shooter Ikaruga luckily is a real man's shooter. It proves to be tough as nails, but that doesn't necessarily mean all that hype is deserved.

In this horizontal tale of shooting every plane in sight, you'll take the role of a ship with a peculiar ability: it can change color. The big gimmick in this title (because every Treasure game seems to need a gimmick) is that everything is classified as either red or white. Your ship, however, can switch between being red or white to make the whole ordeal quite interesting (wait, wasn't that the plot to Silhouette Mirage as well?). If you're white, you can absorb white bullets. If you're red, then red attacks will prove useless. Therefore, it's pretty obvious this is one of those shooters that fills the screen with bullets rather than enemies. In addition if you're white, you'll execute double damage to red enemies. And if you're red, those whities will soon be in a world of hurt (that'll teach ‘em for taking their land). In addition if you kill an enemy of opposite color (white killing red) you'll obtain twice the points (and that's what shooters are all about, mister!). Thus the color gimmick adds a level of strategy to this quaint shooter. Anyway, you'll soon be freaking out trying to make spit decisions like, “Should I risk losing a life and get more points or should I play it safe and just kill the damn thing?”. You'll have those shooter jitters in no time like a coke-head needing a quick fix. Before you know it you'll start seeing Jerry Garcia's happily stoned-up face smiling at you amidst the grim wreckage of a downed enemy. And that's when you know that Ikaruga has proved itself manly.

Actually there's another reason for absorbing your pesky foes' attacks rather than merely saving your own tail. With every bullet, beam, or. . . .well that's about all Ikaruga has for attacks. . . . a small meter to the right of the screen slowly fills up. As soon as it begins to flash, which won't be anywhere near the top of the meter, you can unleash your built up rage against this tough game in the form of homing ion missile things. The more full your meter is, the more you'll throw toward your soon to be dead adversaries. Just think of it as any other horizontals shooter's bomb attack such as SNK's Ghost Pilots or that “blah” Genesis game Truxton. But moving along, I noticed a huge flaw with Ikaruga's rudimentary physics.

What the hell is wrong with you Treasure? How did you get some of the bare basics wrong. It pains me to say it, but this shooter has no power-ups. How? Why? It's just something that's really needed. The entire game you'll always be stuck with a feeble “double quick blast of bullets“. That means no lasers, spray, homing, back fire, or even any form of tiny turrets that aid you by firing two extra things of what you're release from your long, smooth shaft. One weapon is just boring and dull. I want several ways to demolish those bastards. Another basic problem with Ikaruga is your ships speed: it's just too damn slow. It would have been nice if you could earn speed-ups or adjust between four different speed settings a la Thunder Force IV. Alas, you'll be stuck with the same relatively slow pace. Thankfully we aren't talking about the rate of a slimy slivering snail or anything. Moving your ship is still bearable, just annoying at times.

Not only do you rack up a slew of points by smashing away the fleets of enemy ships and absorbing their impending offensive maneuvers, but you can also earn a nice bundle through the use of the Chain. If you're a quick enough shot, you'll be able to kill multiple enemies within a few seconds of each other. Should you complete this task, you'll complete a Chain Combo, which will earn you more points. The bigger the chain, the bigger amount of points you'll earn. Unfortunately trying to earn a chain usually results in throwing you into a dire situation (and when I say dire situation I mean “you will die now“). While a few “hardcore“ gamers will want to execute these chains just for the points, the rest of us might as well forget it. Points just aren't worth it in the long run if you waste lives getting them.

While the first level may be quite uneventful, the second level will begin Ikaruga's wondrous level design. I mean the first level is just so boring when you think about it. You just fly straight and shoot things - no other immediate dangers at all. Then you get to the second level and there are these gigantic fans that blow waves of bullets to envelop the entire room with death. You'll be gliding by without a scratch and laugh at those fans (I mean you are a manly man that can dodge bullets, right?), but then you reach another huge room filled with even more fans that blow sprays of red and white bullets mixed together. So you start out switching back and forth so your puny ship won't crash, burn, and end up being some chubby guy's outhouse door. Then these two enormous ships come up out of nowhere and blast red and white beams directly at your ship. By now you're weaving in and out of the way of two beams while trying to switch between the red and white colors so that these fans won't spray you with their bullets and completely destroy your pathetic life. Pretty intense, huh? Then you'll get to the third level and narrow tubes will jet of the walls in an attempt to poke you, a whole militia of red fighters will fly right up the ass or your ship, and even a circular orb will arise momentarily to spew forth red and white currents of electricity. But then we all know that all good things must come to an end, and this is where Ikaruga begins to disappoint. Unfortunately Treasure only created a mere five levels for this entire game. I don't know about you, but a mere five levels seems a bit too short to me. Pretty much every damn shooter on the holy Sega Genesis is longer than that. I guess you can say I have issues with length.

Unfortunately Ikaruga also has somewhat poor enemy design too. Most of what you'll be shooting is some sort of orb that's either a white or a red foe. Then there's some other weird stereotypical cheesy sci-fi robot look-alikes such as these things with big legs that jump up while blasting away at you or the things in level one that have razor sharp claws but no head. Fortunately the bosses are quite grandiose with excellent detail. Take the first boss. It's this enormous white knight with a long rife that shoots our white bullets and a shield that opens up to spew a barrage of red bullets. Then it even goes so far to lob red and white grenades, release sentries to fire at you some more, and cast illuminant burst of pure white energy from its cold-hearted talons. This is some heavy stuff.

Apparently Treasure went with the Neo Geo philosophy on arcade quarter-muncher console ports. Generally people don't want to be able to beat a game in their first sitting due to the developers giving you unlimited continues (remember Strider 2?). So instead Treasure gave you only three continues to beat Ikaruga. Believe me, there is no way you'll beat this game the first time you play the game. There's no wussy mode that gives you unlimited lives or anything - just a trial mode that ends after level 2. You're going to have to master the game if you want to beat it. This is a keen idea if you ask me. If Treasure lavished you with unlimited credits, there'd be no skill involved in the game. You could just fly right up to a big bad boss and fire away without a care of dying. Nope, you'll have to formulate strategies and execute them flawlessly. This is a manly shooter for crying out loud! Why even with three difficulties, you'll be losing even on the easiest one. However, that's partially due to the fact that the difficulties essentially change the number of bullets a tad. But don't worry. You'll be dying quite a lot, but at least you'll look good doing it.

Truly this is one gorgeous shooter. The polygons are just so smooth, so attractive, so fine, so groovy! However, the poor design of the enemies hinders the marvelous polygons. Still the backgrounds are simply jaw-dropping stuff with lush green vegetation, towering skyscrapers, long clinical, metallic corridors, and even, yes, puffy white clouds. Nothing says grim metallic shooter like puffy white clouds. But probably the most gorgeous effect in this game is when one of the big bad bosses explodes in flaming glory. In addition the Dreamcast's power really holds strong with this one. Even with thousands of bullets on the screen, Ikaruga retains its speed by not even slowing down one bit.

Every stage has a marvelous action-packed climatic instrumental tune (that's something you don't hear everyday) to keep your spirits high even in the most dreary situation. Ikaruga definitely has some excellent music, but by the third stage you'll grow a little tired of it. It's just that the stage music sounds a little too alike due to the constant re-use of the same instruments. The sound effects are quite thunderous with a wide array of explosions and futuristic weapons emitting beams across the brooding skies. However the overall presentation of these superb sounds is marred by this atrocious robot-esque voice that mutters weird things during gameplay. For example if you execute a chain, it'll say in its horrid monotone, “Chain 1” or something along those lines. Ugh, I just hate it.

Ikaruga is a pretty interesting shooter. On the one hand it has awesome level design, smooth graphics, no slowdown, rocking sound, a sweet color gimmick, and tons of challenge, but on the other hand it only has five stages, the enemy design sucks, your ship is slow, the chains are lame, and you only have one boring weapon. Any fan of shooters however will cherish this different title, but won't feel it's anywhere near the best. But if you happen to be some yuppie gamer that thinks they're “hardcore“, then I'm sure you'll have a grand ol' 10/10 time with the GameCube version.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/09/03, Updated 06/09/04