IKARUGA

Project Radiant Silvergun 2

By Treasure Arcade 2001
(Sega Dreamcast release September 2002)
Review by Mike B

With the surprise announcement that Treasure's arcade blaster 'Ikaruga' is definitely in the pipeline for a September 2002 release on Dreamcast, your DAM editor reports on the much-anticipated sequel to the legendary 'Radiant Silvergun', after being one of the lucky few to actually get his grubby mitts on the arcade version....

ECLECTIC  

Ikaruga is an arcade shooting game released by Treasure in Japan and Asia in 2001. The company is rightly famed for its innovative console back-catalogue but Ikaruga is only the second Treasure arcade release (the first being the original Radiant Silvergun in 1997). It runs on Sega's NAOMI/GD-Rom Arcade System, the platform for a number of recent arcade classics including Powerstone 2, Airline Pilots, Crazy Taxi and House of the Dead 2, and as such a Dreamcast port was always going to be a feasibility. I've been a long term admirer of Japanese developer Treasure's output. An eclectic but highly individual style to its games (varied and often very original concepts produced with meticulous craftsmanship and attention to detail) make Treasure one of the most creative and respected of the Japanese games houses.

Back in the 16-bit days two of my favourite console titles were the maddeningly playable 'Gunstar Heroes' and the graphical tour-de-force 'Alien Soldier' both of which appeared on the Sega Megadrive. Moving onto Sega Saturn we'd seen scrolling beatemup 'Guardian Heroes', mad but very innovative platform blaster 'Silhouette Mirage', and of course the Ikaruga-prequel 'Radiant Silvergun', voted by many as the 'Best Shootemup of All Time'. More recently we'd been privy to graphically excellent 'on-rails' 3D shooter 'Sin and Punishment' on Nintendo 64 and the highly underrated 2D 'mech' shootemup 'BangaiOh' on Dreamcast. But given the unfortunate and untimely commercial death of Sega's NAOMI-friendly console it seemed unlikely Ikaruga would ever see the light of day on a home system, especially seeing that a port of the Sega-hardware based arcade game to the Playstation 2 or other seemed much more unlikely. I'd been wanting to get a peek at this game since it was announced, so the disappointment was high. Because the perceived popularity of 'old-school' shootemups in the West is virtually zero the arcade game was unlikely to ever appear at any arcades outside of Japan and Asia.

However with this week's surprise announcement all that has changed. We WILL be getting Ikaruga on Dreamcast after all. Treasure finally answered the prayers of many fans who had been petitioning hard via the internet for over a year to get the game a home release. Bravo Treasure and roll on September 5th!

PROJECT RS2
However rewind back to April 2002. Your friendly DAM Editor (yours truly) is on holiday in Singapore. He wanders into an amusement arcade and spots a rather attractive-looking shooting game, vaguely trying to make it out amid the crowd who have gathered to watch the oncreen antics of the two players at the controls. He gets closer. The game's running on a large 29" generic Sega cabinet but the flyer is in Japanese. It looks amazing. Those ships look a little familiar. Hey, those explosions are waaayy cool. The lighting effects are incredible. It uses a mixture of parallax scrolling and what appear to have be 2D bitmaps and throws them around at an impressive rate. The backdrop zooms, rotates and swirls all over the shop. The game ends. A line of white text on an otherwise empty black screen appears. It reads 'PROJECT RS2'. And undeneath in smaller letters.. 'Copyright Treasure 2001'.

Needless to say, a large percentage of the money in my pocket got changed pretty sharpish into arcade tokens. The game I'd stumbled across was, of course, Ikaruga.

FEAST

The most striking aspect of the game on initial play are the stunning visuals, arguably the most beautiful to appear in a NAOMI system arcade game to date. The visual pyrotechnics and sheer on-screen artistry on display are a feast for the eyeballs, from the wonderful use of colour and shading in the sci-fi style backgrounds, positively brimming with detail and graphical trickery, such as subtle use transparency and parallax, to the craft design and awe-inspiringly realistic explosion effects. The incredibly vibrant lighting effects, as mentioned previously, really have to be seen to be believed. In contrast to the original which was designed for a horizontal monitor, Ikaruga is a vertical screen game, which I have to say that for me is a welcome development, as this format seems more suited to lending the visuals a grander sense of scale. As you start the game you are treated to an impressive, graphically-updated version of the original Radiant Silvergun intro. Your craft blasts off into a crimson cloud-filled sky (complete with groovy lens flare effects) leaving mother earth far behind, the screen swirls and rotates, a distant planet surface can be seen disappearing into the background and dozens of enemy ships hove into view.


BLUE AND RED

Many will be interested in how the gameplay compares with the original Radiant Silvergun. It may come as a surprise to reveal that the game is radically different in this respect. Gone is the intricate array of weapon types mapped to 6 different buttons as seen in the first game, to be replaced with a much more streamlined 2-button system. There are now only two offensive weapons, with just one stock type of laser and a secondary 'lock-on' Special Attack (ie smart bomb) for emergencies (activated by pressing both buttons simultaneously). The ability to use the latter isn't present from the start but has to be earned by charging up an attack guage. This is done by shooting three or more of a certain colour enemy in a row, similar to the 'Combo' system seen in the original game. Lastly there's an all new feature: a colour-coded shield system. By use of the second button the player's ship can switch on the fly between two different forms corresponding to the two colours of shield he wishes to use: Light (Blue) and Dark (Red). The Dark form can absorb dark coloured enemy bullets while the Light form can absorb light-coloured enemy bullets. However when alligned to a certain shield colour you are still vulnerable to projectiles of the opposite hue. Most enemies are also colour-coded to Light or Dark alignments and the players shield can absorb collisions with the right colour enemies in a similar fashion, very useful in taking out large onscreen build-ups of enemy craft. In addition the players laser weapon is more effective when alligned to the opposite colour of any particular enemy he is shooting. The 2-button system here might sound like a relative step back in terms of complexity (at least in terms of weapon variety) compared to the original Radiant Silvergun but in practice in works beautifully, the shield system transplanting a fascinating 'puzzle-game' feel into Ikaruga's otherwise purely reaction-based shooter content. Again Treasure have taken a simple but very original idea and implemented it flawlessly in such a way that it adds highly to the interest of the game, and even though a very different system to that seen in the original Silvergun game I have to say I like it a lot. Whereas the original Radiant Silvergun was all about discovering which of the six weapon types was most effective against various bosses or stages (ie the player's offensive attributes) Ikaruga is more about defensive attributes.

SWATHES

This basic idea of dual shield types is explored very well in the design of the games stages, with the player needing to think strategically and logically to progress, and not just bash indiscriminately on the fire button. Various areas of the game switch between large populations of either Light or Dark enemy forms and bullet patterns and the player needs to be aware of shield colour and switch quickly between them at will. Bullets literally pepper the screen in swathes of either colour, usually at awkward moments when you are straining to avoid collisions with the frequently maze-like backgrounds, so you have to think quickly about which shield alignment is most advantageous for survival at any given point in the game and act on this to absorb a certain colour enemy firepower which is far too dense to avoid manually. Bosses can have body parts aligned to either colour and pepper the screen in both Light and Dark bullets, however the patterns of these bullet formations are always designed so as to benefit the player using certain opposing shield colours in specific sequences, and herein lies the biggest interest of the gameplay, as the player tries to work these sequences out. It's all very fascinating and maddeningly addictive and it's like nothing else I've seen in an arcade shooter. And as an added twist, later in the game you'll find yourself pitted against enemies and bosses who have the ability to use their own colour coded shields! Combine this factor with the need to counter enemy firepower and blast the bad guys and the depth and strategy of the game starts to become apparent.

CURVE

However Ikaruga is certainly not an easy game to master, and the learning curve is high. Progression is inescapably linked with learning the stages and boss attack patterns as in the original game, and working out the best shield strategies to best them. I only saw a small percentage of the game (even after spending a small fortune at the arcade) but this could mean it's very well suited to a home release where the player is free of the financial burden of simply having to stick large piles of cash in the game, but admittedly some could find it a rather frustrating experience. Like most games though with such a learning commitment it just takes a certain amount of practice and for those prepared to stick with it will be justly rewarded as they progress further and master each situation thrown at them.

Ikaruga is everything you could want in a 21st century shootemup. It has depth, immaculate artwork and design and most importantly very compulsive and addictive gameplay. You want to see what surprises and incredibly impressive bosses the next stage will throw at you and there are plenty of hidden bonuses and secret stuff to uncover (like the secret 'dog bonuses' in the first game). Whether Treasure will be adding extra features for the home conversion as it did for the Sega Saturn release of Radiant Silvergun is at this stage unsure but even it makes the conversion to Dreamcast intact in its current arcade form I shall be a very happy man. :)

Score out of Five:

Mike B