Ikaruga is a masterpiece.

April 5, 2009 at 11:17 pm (Video Games) (games)

Well, the sad truth is that shoot-em-ups like Ikaruga, Gradius, Darius, etc. are still dying out. More and more each year, it seems. Last year saw the re-release of Ikaruga on XBLA, but hardly anyone seemed to care. It’s sad to see such a cool genre of games being so unpopular outside of Japan. 

Now, I own a lot of these kinds of games, especially on the SNES, Genesis and Saturn. But my favorite one ever is Ikaruga, of which I own the first re-release on the Gamecube. I have a Dreamcast, but I really felt like playing the re-release more because I love the hell out of the Gamecube controller. Those Wavebirds are sexy to this day.

Anyway, why is Ikaruga so amazing, you ask?

1.) The mechanics. Sure, this is a “bullet hell” shmup where half the screen is often covered by enemy fire, but in this game you can absorb either the light or dark bullets depending on your ship’s current polarity, which you can switch at will very quickly. This means a lot of very careful maneuvering and very quick polarity switching to stay alive and kill your enemies faster. When you absorb bullets, you charge up your enemy-seeking missiles, which kick major ass.

2.) The looks. My god this game is gorgeous to behold. It has such a clever combination of 3D and 2D effects, and all the machinery just looks brilliant. Never get sick of seeing everything explode in a shower of missiles, either, of course.

3.) The difficulty. This game is, as all shmups should be, quite difficult. No, very difficult. Even on Easy you’ll be trying this many times before you can beat all five levels at any decent speed or survival rate. And of course, no saving…and game over means you have to start over, buddy. This was an arcade game, after all. It’s designed to steal quarters.

4.) The music and sound effects. Perhaps the most reocognizable sound in the game is the robotic voice over that counts your combos and says stuff in the menu. Yeah, that’s cool and all, and so are the other sound effects, but the music is phenomenal. Some of my favorite video game music ever, mind you.

Here’s some game play on Youtube for you to see. This is an extremely good player on Hard Mode of Level 1…getting combos that flawlessly is incredibly difficult.