Gamecube - Ikaruga review

| GAME FEATURES |	Developer : Treasure
A.) Professional quality in over-head shooter genre which hasn't been seen since Radient Sivergun. (That's 4 years ago) High Resolution explosions to add to the adventure.	Publisher : Atari
B.) Good sound track.	Released on April 10, 2003
C.) A practice area where someone can increase their skills at coverting to white shielding or black shielding in the game. A lot of practice will be needed for an average gamer to get past the C grade level at the end of the practice run.
D.) A co-op option letting a friend battle evil with you.	Type : Action Shooter

I bought this title thinking that I could play hours of mind boggling action. In fact for the first 2 days I was afraid to play it because I read that Ikaruga had a difficult learning curve. That almost made me bring it back to the videogame trader. I bought it because the graphics looked great.

In the game you have a ship called the Ikaruga that has black and white bullets shooting at you. Black shielding absorbs black bullets . But black sheilding will instantly be destoried with one or 2 hits of white bullets. You have about 5 retries and 14 levels to beat. In the game you have 3 difficulties to play around with : Easy, Normal, Hard.

The soundtrack in this game sounds like it came straight out of Soul Caliber. The level 1 track in Ikaruga is the exact same track in one of the fighting levels. There is no guitar playing in this game.

I've recently got up to level 3 on Easy mode. The game has 5 chapters. Ever feel like the game is preventing you to getting very far. Beginning with the 3rd level you have black and white bullets being shot at you at the same time. So your first thought would be to try to get up on the screen to avoid them. Problem is you have walls in this game. Passageways that you must go through. Go in crossfire is your second thought. That part is easy part to figure out. The tough part to figure out is how to always be in right kind of crossfire when it happens to avoid the opposing color as much as possible. If you got that part down. Then congraduations, you are there for master gameplayer. When I began playing this game I thought that level 1 on easy was a bit hard. Little did I know. In some places there are swarms of enemies that go diangle and have a stream of firepower. Death is the only way it seems. I have little natural talent in these kind shooters, but I play it for fun, and that is the only thing that matters right now. (Article posted on May 13, 2003 | revised 1 time on May 18, 2003)

Summing up Ikaruga
Graphics	7.0	Has scrolling background, looks like flash on the Internet. Everthing is sequenced to happen the same way at the same time in every game. But Treasure has some nice 2D artwork. I admit that the bosses are cool looking in 2D shooter 3D form.
Control	8.5	If In the box Sun Tzu says "Amid the turmoil and humult of battle, there may be seeming disorder and yet no real disorder at all." On the controller you use the joystick the A and B button. But the disorder is how you obsorb the energy. So the quicker you can change your shielding, the longer you'll stay alive. No average gamer can beat the first level without dieing once!
Orginalism	5.0	The same exact thing has been done for years. Ikaruga is continuing to keep this once shriving genre alive.
Story	1.0	No story at all.
Replayibly	8.5	Beautiful to look at, hard to beat. In my opinion the patterns of enemies that you fight against adds to the experience.If you download many action 2D shooters like DeathStar off the Internet, I advise looking at Irkaruga. There are better Gamecube games out there like Metroid Prime that will satisfy your adrenaline for a good action game, but this game shouldn't be underestimated. Personally, I'm okay with it.