When it comes to my experience with the shoot-em-up genre, a lot of it consists of me playing one of these kinds of games when I came across them in an arcade or as a minigame in something much larger rather than going out of my way to play anything specific. Most of my familiarity with the genre involves classics from the late 1970s and 1980s like Space Invaders, Galaga, or Gradius, as well as a few 90s gems like Pop'n TwinBee or Space Harrier, and while I had my fun with them, they never had me playing for very long. The first one of these games that I actually wanted to play from the beginning to the end, though, would be Ikaruga, as its basic gimmick and supposed high difficulty were enough to pique my interest, and thanks to my familiarity with its developer Treasure through Gunstar Heroes and Sin and Punishment, I became even more excited to check it out. My time with the game was quite short, but it was able to leave a huge impression on me, and while I still consider Sin and Punishment to be Treasure's best game, Ikaruga is a very close second.
Ikaruga is easy to understand, difficult to do well in, and even harder to master, but because the game took full advantage of its core mechanics, it ends up being an entirely rewarding experience rather than something rage-inducing. In this game, your ship can switch its polarity to not only do more damage to enemies of the opposite color, but also to absorb the attacks of those with the same polarity as you in order to fill up your energy meter and fire homing shots, as well as to simply not get killed instantly. While the game does still feature the knee-jerk reactions and fast pace that the genre is known for, this one mechanic adds a puzzle-like layer to its gameplay, as having the screen get coated head-to-toe in bullets and enemies of different polarities makes it so that you're less concerned with killing everything on the screen and more about knowing when to shift colors, where to go in order to fill up your energy meter as quickly as possible, and when to shoot out your homing attacks. The deceptive simplicity of Ikaruga meshes perfectly with the tough-as-nails level design, because the chapters and setpieces not only get harder as you go, but they also get more demanding of you and your skills, and having everything click as you figure out what moves to make in order to survive through a combination of memorizing enemy firing patterns and muscle memory is one of the most satisfying feelings I've ever felt in a video game. Despite how hard it can be, Ikaruga never resorted to cheap deaths or unfair tactics and instead made every single death feel like it was my own fault rather than that of the game, and that sense of refinement in both the game's mechanics and its level design made actually getting past that one hurdle and moving on to see what other crazy obstacle the game had in store for me made me immediately want to try again as soon as I ran out of continues rather than getting angry with the game and quitting for the day.
In all three of the games from Treasure that I've played so far, there's been at least one moment where the game fully leans in on the spectacle of its action and allows you to do something really impressive, and what's great about Ikaruga is that practically every moment of its five chapters has the potential for you to achieve that, and pulling one of these moments off rewards you with both a higher score and an unmatched sense of accomplishment. Since the game's central gimmick puts a strong emphasis on its visuals, it would only make sense for Ikaruga to be as stunning to look at as it is fun to play, as the gorgeous artstyle and effective compositions made the bullet hell moments and enemy formations into visual marvels. This especially applies to the game's hectic and immensely creative boss fights, with the battle against Tageri being my favorite moment in the whole game thanks to both how cool it looked and how satisfying it was. Ikaruga also features some amazing music from the game's director, Hiroshi Iuchi, and I especially loved how it was directly tied into the pace of each level. Ikaruga was an absolutely masterful game that not only became one of my favorite efforts from Treasure, but also my favorite shoot-em-up by far, and I really hope that I can check out the game that this served as the spiritual successor to, Radiant Silvergun, at some point.
Ikaruga is easy to understand, difficult to do well in, and even harder to master, but because the game took full advantage of its core mechanics, it ends up being an entirely rewarding experience rather than something rage-inducing. In this game, your ship can switch its polarity to not only do more damage to enemies of the opposite color, but also to absorb the attacks of those with the same polarity as you in order to fill up your energy meter and fire homing shots, as well as to simply not get killed instantly. While the game does still feature the knee-jerk reactions and fast pace that the genre is known for, this one mechanic adds a puzzle-like layer to its gameplay, as having the screen get coated head-to-toe in bullets and enemies of different polarities makes it so that you're less concerned with killing everything on the screen and more about knowing when to shift colors, where to go in order to fill up your energy meter as quickly as possible, and when to shoot out your homing attacks. The deceptive simplicity of Ikaruga meshes perfectly with the tough-as-nails level design, because the chapters and setpieces not only get harder as you go, but they also get more demanding of you and your skills, and having everything click as you figure out what moves to make in order to survive through a combination of memorizing enemy firing patterns and muscle memory is one of the most satisfying feelings I've ever felt in a video game. Despite how hard it can be, Ikaruga never resorted to cheap deaths or unfair tactics and instead made every single death feel like it was my own fault rather than that of the game, and that sense of refinement in both the game's mechanics and its level design made actually getting past that one hurdle and moving on to see what other crazy obstacle the game had in store for me made me immediately want to try again as soon as I ran out of continues rather than getting angry with the game and quitting for the day.
In all three of the games from Treasure that I've played so far, there's been at least one moment where the game fully leans in on the spectacle of its action and allows you to do something really impressive, and what's great about Ikaruga is that practically every moment of its five chapters has the potential for you to achieve that, and pulling one of these moments off rewards you with both a higher score and an unmatched sense of accomplishment. Since the game's central gimmick puts a strong emphasis on its visuals, it would only make sense for Ikaruga to be as stunning to look at as it is fun to play, as the gorgeous artstyle and effective compositions made the bullet hell moments and enemy formations into visual marvels. This especially applies to the game's hectic and immensely creative boss fights, with the battle against Tageri being my favorite moment in the whole game thanks to both how cool it looked and how satisfying it was. Ikaruga also features some amazing music from the game's director, Hiroshi Iuchi, and I especially loved how it was directly tied into the pace of each level. Ikaruga was an absolutely masterful game that not only became one of my favorite efforts from Treasure, but also my favorite shoot-em-up by far, and I really hope that I can check out the game that this served as the spiritual successor to, Radiant Silvergun, at some point.