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Genre: Shooter
System(s): Other
ESRB: E
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Ikaruga (??, Spotted Dove) is a vertically-scrolling shooter video game developed by Treasure Co. Ltd. It was released in the arcades in 2001 on Sega's NAOMI system and subsequently ported to the Sega Dreamcast in Japan and then worldwide to the Nintendo GameCube. It is a spiritual sequel to Radiant Silvergun, and the introduction says it is "Project RS2" (usually interpreted as "Project Radiant Silvergun 2").
The gameplay consists of shooting enemies who come in one of two polarities: either black(/red) or white(/blue). The player's ship can be either polarity, and can be switched at will. The first character in the title (which is normally pronounced in its Japonic reading as /fu/ or /madara/, or its Sinitic reading as /han/) means spotted or variegated, which can be interpreted as a metaphoric reference to this polarity change.
One unique feature of this game is the way in which only opposing bullets (i.e. a black bullet if the player's ship is white and vice versa) can kill the player. If the player is hit by a bullet of the same color, that bullet is absorbed and stored - if enough energy is stored, homing projectiles can be released by the player, the number determined by the energy stored up to a maximum of 12. Correspondingly, if a player shoots an enemy that is a different polarity than he or she is, the enemy will take double damage. Players also can perform "chains" for points. A chain occurs when three enemies of the same polarity are destroyed consecutively. The more sets of three enemies that are dispatched in a row, the more points are acquired.
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