Alter your polarity to absorb enemy shots in this top-down scrolling shooter from Treasure.
History
Ikaruga's first appearance was as an arcade game, running on Sega's NAOMI hardware. The game went on to appear on the Dreamcast and GameCube, and, more recently, made an appearance as a downloadable game via Xbox Live Arcade
Gameplay
The gameplay in Ikaruga revolves around black energy and white energy. Your ship can change polarities to fire either white shots or black ones. All of the enemies are black or white, as well. Hitting enemies with their opposite color does additional damage. Your ship can absorb same-colored enemy fire, which charges a secondary attack.
Chains: An extra part of the game which gives it more depth is the chain combo system. Although it is very simple to comprehend only a true master of the story is able to chain together these combos. The way a chain combo works is when you destroy three ships of a certain color in a row. For example if you defeat three black ships then another three blacks and then three whites that is three chains. You can do groups of three by always defeating the same color or alternating or with no specific pattern. Each level has a perfect playthrough method of passing the level with a perfect full chain combo. To many who have mastered the five main levels of the game the chain combo system has had them coming back for more for more of a challenge and more opportunities to prove their skills in Ikaruga.
Plot
The plot of Ikaruga revolves around a group called "The Divine Ones" lead by Tenro Horai. Horai discovered an item called the power of the Gods, and with it he led his island nation on a path of conquest, taking over several nations, but a group of freedom fighters called the Tenkaku arose to oppose them. They fought back against the Horai but were defeated, except for one man called Shinra, who landed near the town of Ikaruga. There he recovered and was nursed back to health, vowing to defeat the Horai. The villagers trusted him enough to give him a unique fighter plane developed by their village, the Ikaruga, it is capable of using both types of energies and switching between them, that is when Shinra begins to fight back. When the game is played co-operatively, the second plater assumes the role of Kagari, one of Horai's mercenaries who was defeated by Shinra. Due to Shinra sparing her life, she decided to join the resistance, and the villagers equipped her ship, the Ginkei, with the same polarity swapping powers of the Ikaruga.
Reception
Although it did not sell many units in its initial Japanese release around 18,500 units and around 6,000 units for the Gamecube version, it redeems itself as being widely recognized amongst the shoot 'em up community as seen from an active unofficial leaderboard. Its debut on Xbox Live Arcade also boosted its sales significantly and added leaderboards and replay options which from their use one can see the game remains to be fairly popular.
| Game Name | Ikaruga |
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| Original US Release |
April 15, 2003
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| Original US Release |
2003 know the real date? |
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