“Don’t relax now! Your goal is to clear all the stages!”

I played Ikaruga when it released, and enjoyed it then. But I never properly engaged with the systems. I’m on record here as remembering the first couple levels were way easy and then difficulty spikes hard. I wasn’t totally wrong, but I didn’t really appreciate what the game was doing.

I’ve gone back to it over the past couple weeks (my frothing demand increased), and had a great time! Still not good at it, at all. And I’m not so well-versed in the genre on a serious level, so bear with me.

If you’re not familiar with the game, Ikaruga is a Treasure STG released in the early aughts in arcade, on Dreamcast and Gamecube (I’m playing the latter). Its main gimmick is a polarity system, where you can change the color of your ship and absorb enemy bullets that match your color.

At first the flow seems really straightforward - you’ll see a big chunk of white bullets, too many to dodge, so change to white and absorb them. Then likewise with black. Meanwhile, just blast away mindlessly.

But there’s also a chaining system, and that’s where it gets really cool. So enemies are all black or white too, and you have to kill them in sets of three to get a chain. Scoring is almost entirely dependent on this - killing enemies outside a chain is worth peanuts. Suddenly you can’t constantly auto-fire, you need to have intention.

Having mostly played shmups just to see how far I can get, playing more for score and chains really pushed me to see the beauty in this. (I guess this sort of layered gameplay isn’t uncommon in these games once you’re past the basics?) I dunno if the extra lives you get from score are worth it when just trying to survive, but it makes the game more fun.

Trying to dodge bullets and track your chain is a lovely balancing act. Your shots also do double damage to enemies of opposite polarity, and enemies that match your polarity emit bullets on death, and you have a burst gauge to charge up, all the while you keep switching which bullets are dangerous. There’s a lot to keep in mind.

The game enables you to do it though. They offer demos showing how to fully chain each level, and a practice mode that lets you grind each sub-chapter in either slow-mo or regular speed. Weirdly, the demos change (to be more basic or advanced) based on which screen ratio you select. They’re eye opening, and I really appreciate that they’re available within the game. You only unlock demos and practice by reaching those chapters on 1 credit, so there’s incentive to beat parts of the game, it’s not all or nothing.

Good play is much more focused around memorization than I realized or expected at first. Which is nice for me, not being great at the twitchy reflex stuff.

If you want a different challenge, you don’t have to kill anything. Every enemy will go away after a bit. Even the boxes on chapter 2, it’s possible to squeeze through. The game awards you a special rank at the end of each chapter if you manage it.

There are other unlocks based on hours played. You get gradually more credits until 7 hours, where I got infinite continues and at least saw through the end of the game. After that, you can either 1CC on Easy and Normal to unlock the last two things, or play 15 and 20 hours.

I just hit 20 hours (~5 from my youth, ~15 recent) and unlocked Prototype mode, so I’ll probably stop playing for now. My eventual (realistic for me) goal is to 1CC up through Chapter 3. In the time I’ve played, I haven’t even made it through the sub-boss. But I’ve had a blast learning section by section, and definitely recommend checking the game out if you haven’t.

Curious to hear what impressions, thoughts, or experiences you all have with this one.