Ikaruga user review

A modern take on scrolling space shooters.

Review written by
Luca Colonnese

In the era of first person shooters and driving games, flight sims and space shooters are getting all 3D fussy and time intensive. It seems you can't pick up a good old shooter and play it for 10 minutes.

Unfortunately, with work, family, chores etc who has time to play more than 10 minutes at a time?

Enter Ikaruga; The gameplay is simple enough, you shoot stuff coming at you from above or the side, and you avoid being shot. The game uses a polarity system where you can be either black or white and swapping polarity is as simple and elegant as pushing the green button A.

Getting hit with something of your own polarity is good, as it charges your smart-bomb. However getting hit with something of opposite polarity has obliterating and immediate effects, there is no shielding to be had anywhere in the game so you need a keen eye and reflexes.

Also there is an incentive to shoot what are called chains which are in essence threesomes of paired colors (well ok, not really paired as there are three at a time, so I suppose you'd call them trioed). What this means is that by shooting sets of three ships of the same color in a row, you get a chain and eventually you reach maximum chain status and score the big points.

Personally I liked it enough to find it on eBay considering its rarity a feat in itself. The game shines in its graphical and audio presentation, easy enough to learn and play successfully in only a few hours but difficult enough to keep you cursing for a few hours. The major shortcoming is in it's replay value as it will not keep you coming back to find secrets. Once you've completed the game I suppose it will be off to eBay.