Ikaruga

Richard gets to grips with this revitalising import which proved to be a pleasant surprise.

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I wonder when it was decided that vertical scrolling shoot 'em ups were a dead genre. Perhaps it was a decision not unlike the recent one to abolish the Lord Chancellorship, what’s fourteen hundred years worth of history between friends. In such games you don't get annoyed with camera problems because the position is fixed. You don't get bewildered by the enemy AI as they can have simple, understandable behaviour. You don't get frustrated by the controls as they can be well honed. You can still marvel at great explosions. You can still make an innovative, great game. Ikaruga is proof of all of these things. It is fun, furious, frenetic, fantastic and frelling hard. In keeping with that last reference it is, alas, likely only to be seen by a small audience when it deserves so much more.

The game was developed by Treasure who I know only by reputation. They are renowned for making great old school games, particularly Radiant Silvergun for the Sega Saturn. Ikaruga is in fact the spiritual successor to that title as evidenced by the lettering RS-2 subtlety printed on the title screen.

That Ikaruga was released in Europe is something of a minor miracle. It is quite an old game dating back to its Japanese arcade debut at the end of 2001. It was ported to the Dreamcast the following year but was never released in the US or Europe, to the dismay of many gamers. When it was decided that a GameCube version would be produced many thought that we would once again be left out of the party. Thankfully Infogrames (friends call them Atari now) decided to take a leap of faith and dare us to look at something that wasn't a first-person shooter. We should be on our knees thanking them for this move. There is often a cry for innovative and different titles to be released outside of Japan, like Animal Crossing, and here one is folks. Infogrames have laid down the gauntlet, are you going to pick it up?

So what's the big deal? Isn't it just like any other scrolling shooter? Well Ikaruga is like every other vertical shooter like Goldeneye was just another FPS. With Ikaruga, Treasure have taken all the elements that go into the genre, flipped them on their head, then polished the final product until it glowed. It is a work of art. The name Ikaruga stands for mottled dove and this reflects the main premise of the game play. You take control of a ship by that name that has the ability to flip between light and dark modes. When you are white you can absorb white bullets and when you are black you can absorb black bullets. Absorbing bullets also charges up your homing lasers, the only power-up in the game, that you can use to get out of sticky situations.