Ikaruga on Xbox Live Arcade

Sunday, Apr. 13 2008 | Author: Mr Butterscotch

Finally Microsoft has done the right thing. They have brought out a game that has true respect from the hardcore audience – it is also quite modern so doesn’t look bad at all. In fact, running on HD it looks pretty damn sweet. Ikaruga came out on Xbox Live Arcade on 09/04/08. It is a shooter, costs 800 points and features multiplayer mode. But what makes it special?

Ikaruga originally began life on the ill-fated Dreamcast. However, this was actually a port of the arcade cabinet. It now finds itself on thousands of Xbox 360 hard drives across the world. So what is it? Put very simply, the game is a totally retro vertical shooter.

As a sequel of sorts to Radiant Silvergun, the game is pretty damn hot. For those of you who don’t know what Radiant Silvergun is, you’ve missed a treat. The dev studio responsible for Ikaruga is of course the now very famous Treasure – thanks to their high calibre of shooters in the old-school sense.

So, lets see about Ikaruga then. Well, frankly, it’s one of those superior games that are easy to pick up and play, but incredibly difficult to master. As such, it retains a certain element of addictiveness to it. You control one of two ships, which allows you to control whether you have a white or a black shield. This can be changed at will during gameplay.

The white shield absorbs white bullets whilst the black shield absorbs black bullets. Simple huh? Well yes, it is. Until of course you bust enemies up then the opposite colour comes out and all manner of madness. In the later levels you’ll see a mix of both white and black enemies all over the screen, so what do you do?

Throw in the fact that the opposite colour damages the enemies faster, whilst the same colour brings the same bullets to absorb and you have quite a complex game. Just to reiterate, the game is old school in a big style.

That being the case, you’ll find that enemies appear in certain places at certain times (with very few exceptions) that allows you to memorise the game patterns. Bearing that in mind, that brings you to the way in which you earn a high score in the hopes of being on the famous board (I was for a very short time 49th best in the world with a pretty decent high score). Basically you are awarded chains on your way through the level.

One chain consists of three enemies of the same colour. In other words, 3 white enemies give you a chain. You can then follow it with a chain of any other colour, up to the max chain, that results in a much higher score bonus.

Another thing to note about Ikaruga are definitely the incredible level designs, with good levels of detail on the enemies and the bullets etc when the game becomes complex in the later stages. Overall, for those who missed it on the Dreamcast, you simply must pick this up for the GC before it goes forever. Classic gameplay.

Oh yeah, just before I round up the view: I simply must mention the fact that Ikaruga was originally made to be played on a plasma TV, turned on the end. This allows the screen to be much taller than it is wide – and bear in mind that the game is played best (as it is a vertical shooter) in this mode. However, if you were prepared to put up with the borders on the screen I really wouldn’t let this concern you too much.

Overall, this is an excellent conversion of an excellent game, and I’d certainly recommend it, especially for only 800 points. If you’ve never played it, you’re going to have a lot of fun. If you have and your Dreamcast is gathering dust, why not get it for your Xbox 360?