Radiant Silvergun

"A game that gives the so-called "King of Shooters" R-type a run for its money"

This game literally blows all other shooters out of the water and makes them beg for mercy. It's very worth it's weight in gold. Possibly the crowning gem of the shooter genre, really.

Story: Amazingly enough, this game has a story (on Saturn mode, anyhow), and a really good one at that, with cut scenes and even voicing. Even if most of the story is in Japanese, look around, you'll be able to find a site with story translation (one side does indeed offer a English translation, though I can't remember it's URL for the death of me). Here's the basic gist of it: an octohedral shaped "crystal" is found and, after some studies are performed on it, it releases a massive light and eventually just nukes every human being off the planet except 4 people (2 of them the players, 1 of them another pilot that doesn't seem to be able to pilot jack, 1 of them the 3 pilots' commander) and a robot with an extremely interesting twist that's explained in the game. The "crystal" turns out to be (in one interpretation) to be the "power of the gods," (similar to Ikaruga), although what it REALLY is is also explained in the story (which gives yet ANOTHER twist to this whole game's plot).

Gameplay and Difficulty: In three words: hard as hell. A meat-and-bone grinder. This game is absolutely brutal even when just trying to get by with a clear. Players have 7 weapons at their disposal (actually 8, but that's more of an extension of another), all avaliable at the press of a button (or buttons), and will probably die a lot unless they learn how to use all of them depending on the situation. And even still, you'll probably be dieing a lot cause there's very few moments when there isn't at least 4 things you're trying to pay attention to while weaving ever-so-carefully through a massive death maze of bullets, missiles, lasers, kamikaze-style fighters, and lord knows what else. The hitbox for the player's ship is very small, which is a blessing due to the sheer amount of stuff that's needed to dodge. There will even be moments where you've just realized you haven't blinked in the last 5 minutes cause of the intensity of everything. And that's not even adding some other strategies, like selectively killing one color of enemies to score massive chains (also like Ikaruga), killing bosses after destroying all their parts (which makes bosses a lot harder in general, also adding to the fact that each boss fight is timed and there are an absolute TON of bosses), and doing the aforementioned on a single continue or even a single life (doing all that on Very Hard mode certifies a person as the absolute master of the genre...it's THAT hard). Also, the boss fights and some enemies have a certain 3-D aspect to them, with some zooming in and out of the screen at certain elevations.

Music: The music isn't andrenaline pumping rock or anything, but it's actually orchestral pieces that sound absolutely epic. It's almost like the music is supposed to calm the player while he/she is shooting and dodging like an absolute maniac while also giving the feeling of grandness of the game.

Graphics: Epic. Nuff said. Seriously, while most of the ships are sprites, ALL the bosses are polygonal. Explosions are extreme, particularly with bosses, where the sheer number of explosions will usually cause lag cause there's so much. Also, there's a limited 3-D aspect with height.

Overall: Extreme game with brutal difficulty, awesome graphics, epic soundtrack, and good story. If you get this game, prepare to become a slave to it.

All this courtesy of Treasure.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/06