Ever since I played Treasure's Alien Soldier and fell in love with it, I decided to start looking around in Treasure's other games. I have played Wario World (I think it's okay) and I have Gunstar Heroes and Sin and Punishment on my backlog, but the one game that is always talked about is this one: Ikaruga.
Treasure themselves are very strange developers, as the games they make are for the most die hard of action games fans. AKA: Insane people, like myself. Their library mostly consists of renowned cult classic action games or anime game shovelware. Looking deep into their company philosophy though, they have said time and time again that they take these shovelware commissions to raise funds to make the games they want to make, and for their fans, never worrying about how well they actually sell, which is one of the reasons why they created Ikaruga.
Ikaruga is probably Treasure at their most focused on what they make best: good arcade centered action games. Designed as a sort of spiritual successor to Radiant Silvergun, another one of Treasure's original games, Ikaruga on the surface seems like just a typical bullet hell spaceship shooter. Now I've tried my fair share of them before such as Touhou, but I could never really properly get myself into them. They're designed to be overwhelming as you navigate yourself around a seemingly maddening series of one hit kill bullets with your deceptively small hurtbox as you fire away at a boss fight till it goes away. They have their audience no doubt, but mastering them has always seemed like such a steeper challenge as it involves a lot more reflex mastery and memorization from the player to get the most enjoyment out of them and yes at times that can feel exhausting. Ikaruga is still like those games but what makes it stand out from those other bullet hell games is the Polarity System.
The premise is simple: by pressing the B or O button, your ship will change from White to Black and vice versa. What this means is not also you do double the damage to ships of that same color, but you also absorb bullets of that same color. Yes, you read that right, you absorb bullets in a bullet hell game, and the bullets you absorb fills up a meter on the side which allows you to launch powerful shots to clear the screen. You think that would trivialize a lot of the challenge here, but that's where the other color comes in, as you have to make sure you avoid the opposite color or else your spaceship will explode. And the game will test you on this gimmick constantly, as not also patterns will constantly mix up on bullet colors, but on the hardest difficulty enemies will shoot an array of bullets of their color upon death.
The lead designers of this game has often described Ikaruga to be approached as a puzzle game that just so happens to have shooting mechanics baked into it because of the Polarity System. While you can think that statement is a bit too general, it's an interesting way to describe the utility of the Polarity System because it doesn't make the game revolve around just maneuvering around the bullets while pumping the enemies full of your own, but it also gives the game a sense of strategy. Every encounter you ask yourself where the enemy is, what are they doing, what are they firing, what form should you be in and when should you be dodging bullets or switching colors, taking a very simple mechanic and giving it layers of depth and nuance.
Breaking the game down like this probably made the game sound easier than it actually is. No, far from it. Ikaruga is the hardest game I've ever played and it's not even close. Yet I'm not swayed from it because at it's core, Ikaruga is not your average spaceship shooter. It's challenging, relentless and frantic but also wildly addicting and mesmerizing, backed by a kickass soundtrack which seems to be a Treasure Games staple.
So, as a recommendation, try this one out, even if you aren't particularly into bullet hells. Switch the game into Free Play mode and do a couple of playthroughs on that. Then, as you get a feel for the game, take those training wheels off and let yourself be caught in the wonderful puzzle-like flow of Ikaruga.
Also check out Alien Soldier that game is fantastic like oh my god words cannot describe how-
Treasure themselves are very strange developers, as the games they make are for the most die hard of action games fans. AKA: Insane people, like myself. Their library mostly consists of renowned cult classic action games or anime game shovelware. Looking deep into their company philosophy though, they have said time and time again that they take these shovelware commissions to raise funds to make the games they want to make, and for their fans, never worrying about how well they actually sell, which is one of the reasons why they created Ikaruga.
Ikaruga is probably Treasure at their most focused on what they make best: good arcade centered action games. Designed as a sort of spiritual successor to Radiant Silvergun, another one of Treasure's original games, Ikaruga on the surface seems like just a typical bullet hell spaceship shooter. Now I've tried my fair share of them before such as Touhou, but I could never really properly get myself into them. They're designed to be overwhelming as you navigate yourself around a seemingly maddening series of one hit kill bullets with your deceptively small hurtbox as you fire away at a boss fight till it goes away. They have their audience no doubt, but mastering them has always seemed like such a steeper challenge as it involves a lot more reflex mastery and memorization from the player to get the most enjoyment out of them and yes at times that can feel exhausting. Ikaruga is still like those games but what makes it stand out from those other bullet hell games is the Polarity System.
The premise is simple: by pressing the B or O button, your ship will change from White to Black and vice versa. What this means is not also you do double the damage to ships of that same color, but you also absorb bullets of that same color. Yes, you read that right, you absorb bullets in a bullet hell game, and the bullets you absorb fills up a meter on the side which allows you to launch powerful shots to clear the screen. You think that would trivialize a lot of the challenge here, but that's where the other color comes in, as you have to make sure you avoid the opposite color or else your spaceship will explode. And the game will test you on this gimmick constantly, as not also patterns will constantly mix up on bullet colors, but on the hardest difficulty enemies will shoot an array of bullets of their color upon death.
The lead designers of this game has often described Ikaruga to be approached as a puzzle game that just so happens to have shooting mechanics baked into it because of the Polarity System. While you can think that statement is a bit too general, it's an interesting way to describe the utility of the Polarity System because it doesn't make the game revolve around just maneuvering around the bullets while pumping the enemies full of your own, but it also gives the game a sense of strategy. Every encounter you ask yourself where the enemy is, what are they doing, what are they firing, what form should you be in and when should you be dodging bullets or switching colors, taking a very simple mechanic and giving it layers of depth and nuance.
Breaking the game down like this probably made the game sound easier than it actually is. No, far from it. Ikaruga is the hardest game I've ever played and it's not even close. Yet I'm not swayed from it because at it's core, Ikaruga is not your average spaceship shooter. It's challenging, relentless and frantic but also wildly addicting and mesmerizing, backed by a kickass soundtrack which seems to be a Treasure Games staple.
So, as a recommendation, try this one out, even if you aren't particularly into bullet hells. Switch the game into Free Play mode and do a couple of playthroughs on that. Then, as you get a feel for the game, take those training wheels off and let yourself be caught in the wonderful puzzle-like flow of Ikaruga.
Also check out Alien Soldier that game is fantastic like oh my god words cannot describe how-