Ikaruga

Richard gets to grips with this revitalising import which proved to be a pleasant surprise.

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This might sound simple but when the screen fills with enemies, bullets, laser beams and bosses it is anything but. To keep things interesting there are a few little twists to the formula. All the enemies are either black or white and will fire projectiles that match their colour. If you fire at a ship that is the opposite of your colour you'll inflict twice the damage, but of course in doing so you are then vulnerable to being hit. You can also build up a 'chain' attack if you destroy three enemies of the same colour in a row. So you can destroy three white, then three black, then three white ships and each chain will give you double the points. If you break the chain at any point the bonus reverts back to zero. In order to get the really high scores then you must learn the patterns of the ships and keep a cool head when trying to pick off a ship of the right colour. Most of the time though you'll be firing and flipping polarity like crazy just trying to stay alive because this game is hard, very hard.

The game is split up into five chapters and once you've mastered the game you'll be able to play through them in under an hour. But that's after you've mastered it and believe me you'll need a lot longer to achieve that. On easy it took me about six hours to finally reach the end. Take into account that on your first few goes you'll probably not make it past the first boss, so that's roughly three attempts in fifteen minutes. You can just imagine how many times it took me before I saw the final credits and to be honest my success was partly due to the extra continue you gain for every hour played. Now that I’ve completed it am I still coming back for more? You better believe it.

Now normally I hate repeating sections of a game because mostly that’s exactly all they are; a repeat. You’ll move through the level in pretty much the same way as you did previously, only to die at exactly the same tricky part. The pace of many games can be quite slow making such a repeat tedious. Then there are those times when you try and take a shortcut to speed things up only to be killed by your impatience at simple jumps. Ikaruga isn’t like that. The levels are fast with no let up in the action. You don’t start back at the beginning of a level when you die, so as long as you have some extra lives or continues you will progress. Also the game keeps going when you die, even in the boss battles. You have one hundred seconds to defeat a boss with points awarded depending on how quickly you do so, as long as you survive you progress. Though you will be repeating sections the context in which you do so changes. When you come across an awkward enemy for the first time you can focus on simply staying alive. For the next encounter you can workout the best way to defeat them. Finally after a few more attempts you can start building up chain points. Take the first chapter for example, initially you’ll lose quite a few lives and struggle with the boss but after a while you’ll glide through without a scratch whilst getting chains of twenty to thirty. Much of the satisfaction comes from this challenge to do better, to master each chapter, each time you play.

The game also has various incentives to keep you coming back. Firstly at the end of each chapter you are given a rating from C to A and your maximum chain is also listed. It is always nice to get a good passing grade. There is even a special ‘dot-eater’ because it’s possible to complete a level without firing a single shot. There are a few galleries to unlock that showcase some interesting conceptual artwork. You can unlock each level to be played separately for practicing tricky parts with the added option of slowing things down. You can even watch a computer-controlled demo of a chapter to see the ‘correct’ technique. For the hardcore though the real challenge is to compare your skill with players around the world thanks to the addition of a web ranking system. Basically you play the game in a set mode (medium difficulty, three lives, no continues) to try and attain the highest score. When you die you are given a code that you can type in on the Ikaruga website once you’ve registered to record your score. The top one hundred players are listed in a hall of fame. Infogrames are also currently running a competition for the top players…with prizes!