Consolation Prize

Ikaruga, from those artisans at
Treasure, is a top-down vertically scrolling shoot-em-up. It was originally developed for the arcades and subsequently ported to the Sega Dreamcast (2002) and Nintendo Gamecube (2003), but now there’s no excuse not to play this gem of a shooter as it’s available from Xbox Live Arcade for 800 Microsoft points.

Generally in most “shoot ‘em ups” the aim is to avoid any incoming enemy fire. However, Ikaruga employs a simple but clever mechanic that revolves around switching the polarity of your ship between two colours, “black” and “white”, allowing shots of the same colour to be absorbed.

The polarity of the ship can be changed at will by the player and this not only changes the ships colour but also that of the weapon it fires. Because enemies also come in one of the two polarities switching to the opposite colour ensures that you will deliver more damage, but balancing this effect is the knowledge that you are going to be vulnerable to attack.

Switching polarity is essential to your success and part of the core game-play. If you don’t switch then you will often be swept aside by the waves of enemies thrown at the player and the game keeps up the constant pressure by mixing waves of ships with different polarities.

Ikaruga looks and sounds absolutely gorgeous. If I didn’t know that this game is a few years old I wouldn’t have guessed it wasn’t specifically developed for the 360 with its use of beautiful backdrops and glorious ship designs. Ikaruga is no walk in the park and the difficulty will be off-putting to some, but for those that can cope then this will become a treasured part of their collection.

The trial game unfortunately only lets you play the first level, but the full game features on-line co-op over Xbox Live as-well as the usual mix of achievement points and leaderboards.