Ikaruga

Holy crap, never have I played a more intense game. I have never played anything as intense, addictive, and insanely difficult. Ikaruga is a masterfully done shooter for both Dreamcast (what I played it on), and Gamecube. In my opinion, the DreamCast is worth getting just for Ikaruga and a few other gems.

I'm sure you've played other shooters, such as Raystorm, Galaga, and Einhander, but they all pale in comparison to Ikaruga. The games I have just mentioned are solid, but not awe-inspiring, as Ikaruga is. The premise of the game is that your ship can change between light and dark. When you are dark, you can absorb dark bullets, but if you touch a light bullet, you die. Vice versa if you are light. That energy you absorb charges up a homing attack that, one fully charged, can devastate even bosses. If you are dark, you do twice as much damage to light enemies, vice versa if you're light. Also, if you kill 3 enemies of the same color, you get +1 to your chain. If you mess up, (ie. shoot 2 light enemies, then one dark, your chain dies.) then your chain goes away. If you continue chaining enemies, massive scores are possible.

The graphics are superb. The contrast between light and dark is beautiful, and intense. The backgrounds and enemies are nice looking, and your ship (in both light and dark forms) is detailed and cool looking. Explosions are pretty as well.

The sound is also great. The gun noises and explosions are standard issue, but what really got me was the music. Intense, finely done, and matching perfectly to the action, it's perfect.



The campaign is great, it pushes you to use every ounce of skill you posses, then it pushes you a little further. No game has ever pushed me so hard as Ikaruga. It's tear your hear out difficult, but entertaining. I've never gotten past the third (out of 5 or 6, I think) level. Each is different, as you don't just blow crap up (even thought you do tons of that). You fly through storms of mixed light and dark projectiles, avoid getting crushed by giant obstacles and otherwise thread the needle through impossible odds. Trust me, it never goes stale. The bosses also rise beyond the simple "shoot it until it dies" type of boss, as you might be tasked to fly through a sea of bullets to concentrate on a weak spot. If that's too difficult, then just survive for 100 seconds (even though that's not much easier).

There's also 2 player, and the other ship looks different enough, so there's no mix-up problems there. It works, but I found you can "nudge" your friend, which has caused several deaths, much to my frustration.

The difficulty is relentless. The Japanese are an unforgiving people, who program unforgiving games. A prime example of this is Ikaruga. Difficult beyond what most of you soft, pampered gamers could imagine. For the longest time I could not get past the second level, and I'm no slouch at shooters. Ikaruga is as hardcore as you can get without taking your clothes off. If you want to play Ikaruga naked, though, that's your choice.



In summary, Ikaruga is beautiful, a work of art that just happens to be playable. I loved it, and if you're a shooter fan, you probably would too. Just keep a masochistic, "yessa massa" attitude about you and you'll do just fine. If you do really well, give me a yell. I want to see what the fourth level looks like. I highly recommend Ikaruga to you all. Good luck, you'll need it.

5 star(s) out of 5

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