Ikaruga

"Ikaruga...one of the best shooters ever"

Ikaruga is one of the best shooters I have ever played. Its unique format makes it both fun and extremely challenging. If you are a fan of top-down shooters, this game is a must-have.

The gameplay of Ikaruga defines what it really is. You play as Shinra in the Ikaruga fighter plane, which can alternate between white and black. This innovative system of alternating adds to the challenge of the game. The enemies in the game are either white or black firing bullets of the color of their ship. Depending on the color of your ship, you can absorb the bullets of some of the enemies while the others will destroy you. For example, if your ship is white and you come across a group of white enemies, they will fire white bullets at you, but you can absorb them and you will be safe. However, if those ships happened to be black and they fired at your white ship, you would be destroyed unless you changed your ship color. Alternating colors is simple: you press A to switch any time during the game. As you absorb bullets, a bar charges up on the screen, which is for your special attack. The special attack can be used as long as some the bar is charged, and it goes all over the screen attacking enemies (the amount of enemies it hits depends on how much the bar is charged). Besides this special attack, there are no power-ups. While I at first thought this would make the game less appealing, I didn't even care about the lack of power-ups once I actually started playing.

The main goal of many Ikaruga players is chaining. Chaining involves killing 3 enemies of the same color in a row. Each chain adds bonus points to your score, and the bonuses increase as you complete more chains (the bonus, while still added to your score, stops increasing once you complete 26 chains). Chaining adds a ton of points for players trying to get high scores for the challenge mode. If you don't understand chaining, here's an example: you see a group of 6 white enemies, so you kill those, thus completing 2 chains (3 whites make a chain). Then you see 6 black enemies and kill them, that adds up to 4 chains (the 2 white chains + the 2 black chains). If you had come across 6 whites, but only killed 5 of them, you would have to wait for another white enemy to complete the chain because killing a black one would disrupt the chain and start it all over.

There are 4 playable modes although they're all similar. The regular mode allows you to play on easy, normal, or hard. The modes should actually be called hard, very hard, and impossible. In easy mode, the enemy ships don't fire back any bullets as they die. In normal mode, enemies that are the same color as your ship fire back as they die. In hard mode, all enemies fire back as they die, and this makes hard mode chaotic. After you pick a difficulty, you can choose a normal game or a trial game. In a normal game, you have a certain amount of lives (depending on how many you pick in the options menu - 3 is the default) and a certain amount of credits (continues) depending on the amount of hours you have played. A normal game consists of the 5 Chapters of the game or 18 stages total with the designated amount of lives and credits. A trial game lets you play the first two chapters with unlimited lives.

The second mode is practice mode. In this mode, you can play each chapter that you have reached to improve your skills.

The third mode is conquest, and this lets you play the stages that you have unlocked. You can watch a demo of how the stage should be played in slow-motion, you can practice it in slow-motion to become more familiar the stage, or you can practice the stage at normal speed to get a better feel of the stage. I use this mode to improve my chaining skills. The demos can be especially helpful if you need strategies to get by the level or beat bosses.

The fourth mode and the mode that I play 95% of the time is challenge mode. This is a true arcade-style game with no credits and 3 lives. Challenge mode is designed for those who want to achieve high scores and make it known that they are that good. After you complete (or for most people, die in) a challenge game, you are given a code on the screen that you can enter into the Ikaruga website. This code enters your score into the database, and if it's high enough, it will appear on the top 100 scoreboard. Challenge mode is what a lot of people like to play. It requires a lot of concentration and is very fun. In my opinion, this is the best mode of the game.

There isn't much of a story behind Ikaruga. None of it is mentioned in the game; it's all in the manual (a page of it). It's somewhat interesting, but the gameplay is the main strength of this game. A story isn't too important with this kind of solid gameplay. Basically, you are someone who is resisting an authoritative group. Your resistance group is virtually gone, with you being the sole survivor. You obtain a fighter plane from a town called Ikaruga, thus giving your fighter plane the same name. The people of the town enable the alternation of colors of your ship so you can continue your resistance.

The graphics are great, no complaints here. The backgrounds, if you actually take time to look at them, are well-done. You will probably be too busy avoiding shots and killing enemies to look at the background. There isn't too much that Treasure was able to do with the graphics, but it looks great and plays great.

The sound is also quite good. The music in the different chapters is great, and there are distinct sounds for the bullets hitting certain enemies. Again, not too much could be done with the sound effects, but the music is great, and again, no complaints here.

While the 5 chapters only take 4-7 minutes to complete each, it will take much longer than 20-35 minutes to beat the game. You will die many, many times before actually beating the game, and it will be a real challenge to beat it without having to use credits for continues. Challenge mode always provides great replay value as many Ikaruga players strive to improve their scores for the scoreboard. Having your name on the scoreboard is not the only reward; prizes are also awarded to the top 5 scores. I have put many hours into this game trying to improve my chaining and my score, and it doesn't bore me one bit.

This game is a must-have for any shooter fan. Ikaruga is one of the best top-down shooters I have ever played, and it is the first excellent one I have seen in a long time. This game should be in the hands of every Gamecube (or Dreamcast) owner. Treasure succeeded in making an excellent game. I hope to see more like Ikaruga in the future.

There are 4 playable modes although they're all similar. The regular mode allows you to play on easy, normal, or hard. The modes should actually be called hard, very hard, and impossible. In easy mode, the enemy ships don't fire back any bullets as they die. In normal mode, enemies that are the same color as your ship fire back as they die. In hard mode, all enemies fire back as they die, and this makes hard mode chaotic. After you pick a difficulty, you can choose a normal game or a trial game. In a normal game, you have a certain amount of lives (depending on how many you pick in the options menu - 3 is the default) and a certain amount of credits (continues) depending on the amount of hours you have played. A normal game consists of the 5 Chapters of the game or 18 stages total with the designated amount of lives and credits. A trial game lets you play the first two chapters with unlimited lives.

The second mode is practice mode. In this mode, you can play each chapter that you have reached to improve your skills.

The third mode is conquest, and this lets you play the stages that you have unlocked. You can watch a demo of how the stage should be played in slow-motion, you can practice it in slow-motion to become more familiar the stage, or you can practice the stage at normal speed to get a better feel of the stage. I use this mode to improve my chaining skills. The demos can be especially helpful if you need strategies to get by the level or beat bosses.

The fourth mode and the mode that I play 95% of the time is challenge mode. This is a true arcade-style game with no credits and 3 lives. Challenge mode is designed for those who want to achieve high scores and make it known that they are that good. After you complete (or for most people, die in) a challenge game, you are given a code on the screen that you can enter into the Ikaruga website. This code enters your score into the database, and if it's high enough, it will appear on the top 100 scoreboard. Challenge mode is what a lot of people like to play. It requires much concentration and is very fun, and in my opinion, this is the best mode of the game.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/24/03, Updated 04/24/03