Fox's Review: Ikaruga

[Fusion]

One of the last great shooters, that didn't get much of a release in Japan and same for America is one of the most underappreciated shmups of all time.  ALL TIME, I TELLS YA!  Dubbed "Project RS2", people believe that this is the spiritual sequel to Radiant Silvergun.  The game covers Humanity's own spiritual enlightenment.

Graphics (10/10):

For a Dreamcast game, the graphics are remarkable.  Everything in this game, graphically, is pulled off with no slowdown except when the bosses explode (which just makes their destruction a bit more dramatic, I think).  Everything is rendered at 60 frames persecond, and the amount of bullets on screen can astound you, because on any other system it would slow the game down drastically.  I'd say this game is on about the same graphic level as Silpheed: The Lost Planet... Only, the lava looks a right bit better.


Sound (10/10):

The sound of this game is incredibly unique.  The music, presented in a MIDI-like fashion (though beautifully composed with instruments that you'll never hear in except maybe Radiant Silvergun).  Although the in-game sounds may sound a bit dull if you heard only the regular effects, it actually comes together nicely.  You can feel the tenseness of the music as it transitions from a theme of hope to a theme of victory in the first stage, yet the battle has only begun.  The game ends on that same theme, a calming arrangement of the 'theme of Shinra'.


Story (10/10):

Years ago, some old guy dug up a great power from the depths of the Earth.  This man and his army, called the Horai, with this great power at their hands, set out to "purify" the world.  They used this power to develop fighter planes named "Hitekkai."  Soon, the Horai were challenged, among the challengers was Shinra, the main character of the game.  All of their challengers were shot down.  Shinra was, of course, among them.

Shinra crash-landed near a town named Ikaruga, a town oppressed by the Horai.  They found Shinra's body, and managed to nurse him back to health.  Shinra pledged to defeat the Horai, and the town gave him their secret weapon, and last hope.  A secret weapon, named over their very town: The Ikaruga.  A ship, able to switch between dark and light polarities at the pilot's will, would prove to be a much more effective weapon than originally thought.

*Spoilers begin here, though there isn't much story to this game*
Throughout the game, humanity slowly proceeds to enlightenment as their trust in Shinra's ability grows.  At the end, Shinra faces Horai himself, only for Horai to fall.  Then, the very god-like power (the Stone-Like) that Horai had possessed is released, and begins fleeing.  Shinra pursued, intent that this power would never be abused again.  With his weapons damaged, Shinra activated the last thing he could: The FInal Release system.  With the limiters broken, Ikaruga unleashed a barrage at the Stone-Like.  However, the power of the release turned out to be too great for the Ikaruga, and as such the Ikaruga fell apart, and then detonated.  But moments later... The Stone-Like detonated in a much larger blaze of glory.  Shinra had went out fighting.
*spoilers end here*


Gameplay (10/10):

Ditching the traditional powerups, and manual lock-on lasers, Ikaruga has the polarity system.  Your ship has a shield, a polarity shield.  Shots of your ship's same polarity will not affect you at all.  You gain energy from the bullets that hit your shield that are the same polarity.  Storing this energy allows you to use the Release system, where the Ikaruga releases the stored energy in form of auto-targeting lasers.  These lasers are all of your current polarity, which means you can do a devastating attack on a boss and not use default weaponry.  Even if your enemy shoots a solid beam of energy, if it's your polarity, you can absorb it.  As implied, you can switch polarities at will.

What's that?  TOo many dark shots and you wanna unleash a light burst assault?  Don't worry.  Watch the bullets, switch to light polarity, and unleash your assault, switch back, gather more energy, and repeat.  The collision system is -very- forgiving, which means it has a very small "hit box".  This game also picks up in difficulty as you play along, and requires some level of memorization.  The game rewards intuitive thinking, however.

Another touch is the chain system.  Kill 3 enemies of the same polarity in a row and you've got a chain.  You can kill 3 light enemies, 3 dark enemies, 3 light enemies, and 3 dark for a 4-chain.  You can repeat that as many times as you like unless you hit a light enemy and you've got 2 dark enemy counter hits.  That breaks the chain.

Now, as for my opinion, I'm gonna install a polarity system on my Arwing.