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ajlouie's Ikaruga (GC)
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| [March 6, 2008 07:57:25 PM]
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GAMEPLAY
If surviving this game wasn't hard enough, the designers also put in a special "chain" scoring system that adds even more difficulty to this game. I've played to the point that killing everything in my ships line of fire in any order of color has become relatively easy. However, the chaining system simply boggles my mind with what must be done to keep a "max chain". Chaining works like this: the player must destroy 3 of the same colored enemies to make one chain (ie: 3 red baddies or three blue and vice versa). After destroying 3 of the same color, the player is free to alternate colors to keep the chain going (ie: 3 red, 3 blue, or 3 red, 3 red 3 red, 3 blue... etc...). After 8 chains the player acquires a "max chain" boost which awards the max amount of points. The object of utilizing this scoring system is to keep a "max chain" for as long as possible. With 20 enemies of different colors on the screen shooting multicolored bullets at you, you can see why chaining 3 of the same color continuously would become rather difficult. I've managed to chain the first 3/4 of level one, but after that, it simply becomes too hard for me. However, I'm always up for a challenge.
The last interesting thing about this game is when you absorb enough of the enemies shots (you also get points from this), you can use a "special" which shoots out up to 10 bolts of energy of your current color to seek out the enemies on screen. Because which enemy each bolt seeks out is random, it becomes hard to use this to keep a chain (it is possible though).
DESIGN
The graphics in this game for a SHMUP and especially for a dreamcast is utterly stunning. The designers did a good job in giving the backround a nice 3D feel, truly immersing the player in the fantasy world. This is rare in a SHUMP, because most of this "scroller shooters" depend purely on gameplay rather than 3D and great graphics to capture an audience. The bosses are also beautifully animated and challenging which gives a real sense of completion of each of the five levels. Don't let the five levels trick you into thinking this is a game with a small quantity of gameplay. It probably took me 20 to 30 hours of game time simply to beat the game on easy (without chaining), and I have been attempting different difficulties since as well as utilizing the chaining system. The five levels have definitely kept me entertained for the past year when I first started playing.
Even though the difficulty of this game would probably turn many players away, my advice is to stick with it, for it is one of the finest SHUMPs ever made.
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| [March 6, 2008 07:44:04 PM]
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SUMMARY
Ikaruga is a beautiful example of what can be done with the typical scrolling space shooter genre. This would probably be the epitome of the "manic" SHUMP as there are at least 100+ bullets heading towards your ship at any given time during the harder stages. What I found extremely interesting about this particular SHUMP is the ability to change color to "absorb" the enemies attacks. The two colors "dark red" and "light blue" are the two colors the player can utilize defend one's self against corresponding "dark red" and "light blue" bullets. Another interesting concept is that firing a color that is the opposite colored enemy does double the damage.
GAMEPLAY
As stated above, the thing that really makes this game interesting to me is the ability to change color. This simple concept really makes this game something special and unique compared to other shooters. Even without this color change ability, Ikaruga would probably still be a pretty solid and challenging SHUMP, but this little add-on bumps this game up to one of my favorite games of all time. One thing that should be noted is the difficulty of this game. It took me a LONG time to beat it on easy with three continues and the max amount of lives (5), but I loved the challenge so the time just flew by. Many of my friends who played this game thought it was fun, but gave up after dieing fifteen times on the first level for the fifth time. Even the first level can get completely crazy, and it requires a great deal of concentration to really utilize the "color change" ability.
The first level, out of five, is pretty straight forward, as there is usually only one group of enemies of the same color on the screen at one time (although sometimes the mix it up to make it a little more tricky). However, towards the end of the level and advancing to the second, third, forth and fifth levels, the game starts to get completely crazy, as there are about 300 bullets of two different colors that are mixed together on the screen at all times. This is when it gets exceedingly tricky, and one must really concentrate to prevail.
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ajlouie's Ikaruga (GC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 5 March, 2008
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