The world is dead. A weird eldritch diamond thingy has killed all but 4 humans and 1 robot, who now descend upon earth in a final desperate attack, facing a ludicrous barrage of bosses, enemies, and other hazards in their fighters which have 7 unique weapons, all of which are a bit weird. It's non linear, it's super serious, there's level-ups, the scoring is utterly bizzare and even long time shmupers are liable to see the game over screen before the end of stage 3 (which is actually the first stage) is done. All the while, Hitoshi Sakimoto rings church bells and the screen blares out NO REFUGE to really hammer it in - that you are particularly fucked.
It's a lot.
That, in itself, is almost a hallmark of Treasure. Alien Soldier is a game that begins with a 4 minute opening crawl of nonsense followed by a ludicrously intense first level matched unconventional controls. It's something their presence as a wobbly middle ground between arcade and home console development really thrived at doing. Almost all of their good games take a few attempts to really click.
And Radiant Silvergun really takes it up a notch. The increased focus on narrative, partiuclarly heavy emphasis on boss encounters and a level of subtext and nuance - it feels like an utter behemoth.
Miraculously though, it's all really, really great.
The core gameplay appeal of silvergun is how it's 7 weapons interact with a whole pile of bosses - 26 of the damn things in the story mode, and they will easily take up over half of the game's playtime. And they're almost universally fantastic. In true treasure fashion they're made out of loads of contorting arms and guns, and you're encouraged to tear them apart piece by piece, which works particularly well with the weapon selection you have. Many bosses are placed essentially inside setpieces - notably Gollets and SBS-130KI, and not a single one feels like filler, especially in the arcade mode.
The gameplay is marred by one serious problem though. The scoring. It's terrible. It's basically identical to ikaruga's except you can't swap colours between chains of 3 enemies, and it just ends up feeling really awkward, as optimal strategies involve clumsily ignoring huge amounts of enemies. Sadly, you also need to score, because your weapons power up significantly based on the amount of score you have achieved with each one, and if you don't score, Stage 5 and 6 in particular become and absolute nightmare. The Story mode which is probably the more popular way to play sidesteps this by keeping weapon exp through playthroughs, but in Arcade it almost ruins the game for me, and RSG is very fortunate to have the Ikaruga chain mode included in the 360 and Switch ports, which honestly the game feels more suited to than the original despite not being designed for it. With it, the game's routing isn't quite as harsh and lame, and it becomes far more approachable, and heresy as it may be to suggest veering from the original vision - i highly reccomend everyone use it no matter what mode they play.
So the gameplay's great and leans on Treasure's existing strengths to make for a unique, boss filled game. On it's own, that would be enough, but it's really RSG's presentation and narrative elements that push it to the legendary level it has now attained. To put it simply and to avoid spoilers, Silvergun's narrative is just great. It's this tragic, interesting sci-fi tale that has great planting and payoff, and a particularly incredible ending sequence. And director Hiroshi Iuchi (who would later go on to do Ikaruga and Gradius V) has a fantastic eye for setpieces and pacing, with great use of sweeping camer angles, background elements, and how to throw in all of this game's billion bosses at just the right time.
Hitoshi Sakimoto also really puts in a shift here. The soundtrack to RSG isn't exactly one of those things you'd listen to on it's own, but it perfectly accompanies the game, and the instrument choice is great. The reoccurring motif and the use of church bells in particular really hammers home how "epic" it all is.
One of the things that's gone a bit lost over the years with relation to RSG is it's subext and one of the things it's going at. This is, granted, partially because the story in the straight up text is worthwhile and who's looking for subtext in a Shmup, but it's definetly there. Essentially, RSG is kind of a comment on the game industry and it's nature of recycling tropes, series and how it's being held back. Almost all of the bosses in RSG are a reference to something, usually old shmups, which are implied to be the spawn of past cycles of humanity, and the ending sequence in the story mode contains snippets of speeches from executive board meetings meddling with developers and consumers. And the name of that one robot "CREATOR" is a bit... on the nose when you consider it's role in the story. It's a really neat element to the game and thanks to it's emphasis on replays and it's references generally being a bit more subtle than say, Zeroranger, it's surprisingly really interesting. (More details from the horses mouth can be found here)[http://web.archive.org/web/20080419104927/http://www.emuxhaven.net/~silver/Link%20Stage%20Explanation.html].
I think it's fair to say the end result is a little messy and occasionally confused, and I wouldn't be amazed if some people even found it a little pretentious. I've barely even mentioned quite how hard it is and it's amount of secrets, and I expect even this review will be a little confusing to people who havent seen at least snippets of the game. There's just so much to digest here.
But it is, in my opinion unquestionably special. It doesn't quite come together as much as Iuchi's later work Ikaruga, but itis an experience that leverages all of Treasure's existing strengths, and piles incredible presentation and a truly great narrative on top of it. And even though now it has come to be imitated plenty itself - in the realm of what it does, it remains completely unmatched.
It's a lot.
That, in itself, is almost a hallmark of Treasure. Alien Soldier is a game that begins with a 4 minute opening crawl of nonsense followed by a ludicrously intense first level matched unconventional controls. It's something their presence as a wobbly middle ground between arcade and home console development really thrived at doing. Almost all of their good games take a few attempts to really click.
And Radiant Silvergun really takes it up a notch. The increased focus on narrative, partiuclarly heavy emphasis on boss encounters and a level of subtext and nuance - it feels like an utter behemoth.
Miraculously though, it's all really, really great.
The core gameplay appeal of silvergun is how it's 7 weapons interact with a whole pile of bosses - 26 of the damn things in the story mode, and they will easily take up over half of the game's playtime. And they're almost universally fantastic. In true treasure fashion they're made out of loads of contorting arms and guns, and you're encouraged to tear them apart piece by piece, which works particularly well with the weapon selection you have. Many bosses are placed essentially inside setpieces - notably Gollets and SBS-130KI, and not a single one feels like filler, especially in the arcade mode.
The gameplay is marred by one serious problem though. The scoring. It's terrible. It's basically identical to ikaruga's except you can't swap colours between chains of 3 enemies, and it just ends up feeling really awkward, as optimal strategies involve clumsily ignoring huge amounts of enemies. Sadly, you also need to score, because your weapons power up significantly based on the amount of score you have achieved with each one, and if you don't score, Stage 5 and 6 in particular become and absolute nightmare. The Story mode which is probably the more popular way to play sidesteps this by keeping weapon exp through playthroughs, but in Arcade it almost ruins the game for me, and RSG is very fortunate to have the Ikaruga chain mode included in the 360 and Switch ports, which honestly the game feels more suited to than the original despite not being designed for it. With it, the game's routing isn't quite as harsh and lame, and it becomes far more approachable, and heresy as it may be to suggest veering from the original vision - i highly reccomend everyone use it no matter what mode they play.
So the gameplay's great and leans on Treasure's existing strengths to make for a unique, boss filled game. On it's own, that would be enough, but it's really RSG's presentation and narrative elements that push it to the legendary level it has now attained. To put it simply and to avoid spoilers, Silvergun's narrative is just great. It's this tragic, interesting sci-fi tale that has great planting and payoff, and a particularly incredible ending sequence. And director Hiroshi Iuchi (who would later go on to do Ikaruga and Gradius V) has a fantastic eye for setpieces and pacing, with great use of sweeping camer angles, background elements, and how to throw in all of this game's billion bosses at just the right time.
Hitoshi Sakimoto also really puts in a shift here. The soundtrack to RSG isn't exactly one of those things you'd listen to on it's own, but it perfectly accompanies the game, and the instrument choice is great. The reoccurring motif and the use of church bells in particular really hammers home how "epic" it all is.
One of the things that's gone a bit lost over the years with relation to RSG is it's subext and one of the things it's going at. This is, granted, partially because the story in the straight up text is worthwhile and who's looking for subtext in a Shmup, but it's definetly there. Essentially, RSG is kind of a comment on the game industry and it's nature of recycling tropes, series and how it's being held back. Almost all of the bosses in RSG are a reference to something, usually old shmups, which are implied to be the spawn of past cycles of humanity, and the ending sequence in the story mode contains snippets of speeches from executive board meetings meddling with developers and consumers. And the name of that one robot "CREATOR" is a bit... on the nose when you consider it's role in the story. It's a really neat element to the game and thanks to it's emphasis on replays and it's references generally being a bit more subtle than say, Zeroranger, it's surprisingly really interesting. (More details from the horses mouth can be found here)[http://web.archive.org/web/20080419104927/http://www.emuxhaven.net/~silver/Link%20Stage%20Explanation.html].
I think it's fair to say the end result is a little messy and occasionally confused, and I wouldn't be amazed if some people even found it a little pretentious. I've barely even mentioned quite how hard it is and it's amount of secrets, and I expect even this review will be a little confusing to people who havent seen at least snippets of the game. There's just so much to digest here.
But it is, in my opinion unquestionably special. It doesn't quite come together as much as Iuchi's later work Ikaruga, but itis an experience that leverages all of Treasure's existing strengths, and piles incredible presentation and a truly great narrative on top of it. And even though now it has come to be imitated plenty itself - in the realm of what it does, it remains completely unmatched.