Some submit that the much-praised development house known as Treasure is overrated, while others claim that their titles, from Gunstar Heroes to Bangai-O, are a bit too bizarre for their own benefit. Mad, aggrandized geniuses they may be, but the Treasure designers are never at a loss for new ideas. That's what allowed them to craft Radiant Silvergun, arguably the most remarkable 2-D shoot-‘em-up in gaming history. Now, after Sega Saturn collecting and an almost justified fervor have made Radiant a ridiculously sought-after title, Treasure returns to the fold with Ikaruga. And in the same way that Radiant Silvergun enhanced and perfected every part of the shooter template, Ikaruga reimagines it.
With a dualistic sense of simplicity, Ikaruga presents no power-ups or diverse selections of weapons. Instead, your vaguely insectile fighter can switch between a black or white shade, coinciding with the equally polarized enemies. A white ship absorbs white projectiles and can damage black-hued foes more effectively, while a black ship has the same effect on dark bullets and adversaries. Sucking up like-colored enemy fire (which also falls from destroyed ships) fills a power meter that can be expended in a burst of white or black lasers.
It's a basic concept culled, in part, from Treasure's Silhouette Mirage, but it remains a unique device, and one that doesn't have to carry an otherwise ordinary shooter. After an introductory first level, the black-and-white aesthetic provides a constant array of rapaciously difficult designs. Challenging players for nearly every inch of the journey, Ikaruga throws out attack patterns and enemy varieties at an almost sadistic pace, yet it's all for the best. At times, it seems less like a shooter and more like the most rapid puzzle game ever conceived, but Ikaruga's habit of simultaneously testing your coordination and color-related reasoning makes the experience unlike any action title before it.
Granted, the flow of the game is somewhat reminiscent of Radiant Silvergun (Ikaruga's code name was “Project RS2,” after all), and, as with that impressive shooter, navigating Ikaruga's levels would be fun even without new ideas. This time, however, you're not only weaving through storms of enemy fire and slamming a return barrage into your attackers –you're also snatching the absorbable bullets out from the lethal ones, switching between white and black modes within seconds, and trying to pick out the hue-specific weaknesses of the many cleverly assembled bosses. And once you've mastered the general progression of the game, there's a lot of space to experiment. Shooting ships of the same color in certain successions boosts your score, and the “Hard Mode” is taxing enough for the highest echelon of shooter experts.
Instead of cramming Ikaruga with all of the bright colors and animation that modern systems can handle, Treasure opted to give the game a palette as stark as its gameplay. Enemies are limited to light and dark motifs, while the backgrounds show a subdued use of grays and sepia tones. It appears boring at first glance, but the restrained look meshes so well with the gameplay that it eventually feels quite natural. The soundtrack's also reserved and ambient, reflecting the sharp staccato of Radiant Silvergun's score.
Of course, the nicest shooter in the world is going to lose something without a fair continue system, and Ikaruga provides the same concept as Radiant Silvergun: credits are doled out as playtime increases, granting more continues as one grows more accustomed to the game. The “Free Play” option presents itself after seven or eight hours on the clock, but by that point, you've already been sucked in by Ikaruga's fascinating architecture.
The only missing part of that architecture, in my opinion, is an interesting story. Yes, playing a shooter for the plot is like playing Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball for the prairie dog cameos, but Radiant Silvergun was an exception, supplying a colorful and rather compelling sci-fi tale of men, gods, time travel, and apocalypses. Ikaruga does, in fact, have the makings of a decent storyline involving ancient weapons and mixed loyalties, but it's detailed only on websites, and the characters (all five of them) are seldom spotted outside of a bonus art gallery. While it's a shame that Yasushi Suzuki's skeletally beautiful artwork won't be used for anything but atmosphere, Ikaruga ultimately does just fine without a narrative.
Nor is it much of a problem that the game's Dreamcast conversion lacks extra modes. A prototype version of Ikaruga is unlocked eventually, but there's little to do other than enjoy the main attraction, which can fortunately support routine play better than a heap of gimmicky extras could. Shooter classics like M.U.S.H.A, Gaiares, and R-Type didn't need bonus features to entertain for months, so it's fitting that Ikaruga doesn't need them either.
Directly comparing Ikaruga to Radiant Silvergun is, of course, unavoidable, and it's the only manner in which Ikaruga might disappoint. Radiant was an amazing achievement, offering a wealth of weapons, tons of replay incentive, beautiful aesthetics, deftly built stages, likable characters, and everything else a shooter could possibly need. Ikaruga, by contrast, isn't an expansion of existing ideas so much as it is a presentation of new ones, and as enjoyable as it is, it's not always satisfying in the same reflex-flaying, bullet-dodging way that the rest of its genre pursues.
If the minds at Treasure are riddled with insanity, the method to their madness may very well save an entire breed of gaming. Shooters are often derided as thought-free quarter catchers that seldom last long once removed from the arcade, and if such a remark holds true for some of the category, a suitable counterpoint emerges every now and then. This time, it's Ikaruga, an innovative argument that as long as there are crazed talents like Treasure at work, there's still plenty of life left in the old shoot-‘em-up.
