So I played Ikaruga for the first time...

[Despatche]

It's a better game than Dodonpachi, at least.

[Never_Scurred]

It's a better game than Dodonpachi, at least.

[Rob]

Rob has had too much sway on your minds, I think.

If only.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Rob has had too much sway on your minds, I think.

Maybe we should send Rob to do some missonary work on those Touhou fan forums

[Sumez]

You can say that about any good shmup, not just Ikaruga, and difference here is that most good shmups don't have a scoring system tailor-made for severely OCD mental-hospital patients.

No, most of them are designed for extreme autistics, but I don't see how that's much better.

[Wenchang]

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Hopefully you can move on to enjoying more Shmup offerings. I definately would recommend Psyvariar to you as someone else did.

I hate Ikaruga though honestly. It's basically a bad Irem game. Aside from maybe one or two puzzle type elements in the 2nd half of the game(I hate those, but that's just personal taste, at least they're fairly interesting from a level design perspective), in terms of enemy placement, bullet patterns, scoring, and boss fights, it's one of the most dull, soul-sucking gameplay experiences of my life. I would respect the game more if it humbly went about its oldschool way and designed a memorizer that's just a bit more puzzly than an Irem offering, but no, it has to design the whole game strictly around a chaining scoring system that's not even fun and what's left is a game that offers very little in terms of creativity to the player. Not to mention the encounters suffer for it, far too much of the game has like 2-6 enemies on screen at once that you can simply let fly off the screen, shooting is nothing more than a tedious exercise in memorization(first time I ever played a shooting game where I didn't enjoy shooting).

The game is just far too contrived, if I wanted to admire that kind of design I would just stick to playing R-Type, it's a much better game because unlike Ikaruga, the actual level design is top-notch and a big part of the game, whereas Ikaruga is frequently empty. Plus, it's actually fun to shoot enemies in games like R-Type(or games like Image Fight and Trxuton), whereas Ikaruga's shot type is limited seemingly only to justify making a game based around chaining with small amounts of enemies on screen. It's a fucking limited, robotic game. One stage of a Raizing game has more going on than the entirety of Ikaruga, a game that is almost entirely devoid of any interesting patterns, unique enemy behaviors, or frantic action.

[Sumez]

Alas, Ikaruga is going... Undesired, unwanted them... What makes them go?

[Despatche]

how can people even say things like that

do they actually play any of the names they drop

[TrevHead (TVR)]

how can people even say things like that

do they actually play any of the names they drop

Its all horses for courses at the end of the day. Although I do understand why Ikaruga tends to resoniate with the non / returning shmup player as its mechanics of play and the idea of the perfect run is easier to understand then other shmups with more obscure scoring systems like chaining and proximity.

Infact if I think even deeper in to it, that even ppl who have only played the game a few times or even folk who have just seen others play it at home and on You Tube can even appreciate the beauty of the game. Unfortunatly what they dont understand is that these are qualities of the genre as a whole and not just Ikaruga or Treasure.

[R-Gray 1]

Ikaruga...beautiful game....

[Deca]

All opinions and hype and whatever aside, I find this game horrendously unpleasant to play. I've tried coming back to it, giving it another chance multiple times, and it's just never fun. The scoring system is so rigid and once you mess up once it's really hard to continue caring about it, leaving you to play for survival. This is no better as all the difficulty is introduced artificially through the awkward polarity switching mechanic and all the encouragement to be charging your homing shot at all times.

I guess I can understand why a fan of methodic games could get into it, but it's definitely not for me. Frustrating, unrewarding, and unappealing aesthetically.

[R-Gray 1]

.... But to many people (including people who don't ever played the game or shmup. Some of my friends also.) say they love the game and that it is the best shmup ever. Not true ....

The best shmup ever depends of each person

for example i like more Axelay, i like a little more Radiant Silvergun, image fight, and maybe others.....

thinking of a list of favourites just now...

1) Axelay- Image fight - Radiant Silvergun - Einhänder

2) Raystorm, Star Force, Gradius V , Border Down, Ikaruga, gradius III

this doesnt mean that im not still thinking ikaruga is a gr8 shmup ....

Ps: scoring

[evil_ash_xero]

Rob has had too much sway on your minds, I think.

Maybe we should send Rob to do some missonary work on those Touhou fan forums

That would be a good idea!

Then, maybe we can get him to spread Christianity throughout the Middle East!

You can do it!

[psy]

Ikaruga's scoring system is something that I will always have a soft spot for; it grasps me with a mixture of intrigue, irritation and downright intimidation. I will probably never be able to so much as S rank the first level, but I still try all the time and enjoy the hell out of it while simultaneously asking whatever god may exist why he has done this to me.

Aside from that, the music, artwork and general presentation is superb.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhfaQuDtZ1E
Seriously. Go find me a piece of shmup music that tops the sheer epicness of that. Everything about Ikaruga makes me feel like it's meant to be linked to some big RPG or something with an elaborate story and developed characters, and that's what draws me in for the most part.

[MathU]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhfaQuDtZ1E
Seriously. Go find me a piece of shmup music that tops the sheer epicness of that.

Well that was easy.
Hiroshi luchi is a decent composer, but Hitoshi Sakimoto is one of the most talented "epic" orchestral composers in the industry. It's too bad they didn't get him to do the music for Ikaruga like they did for Radiant Silvergun.

[Observer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhfaQuDtZ1E
Seriously. Go find me a piece of shmup music that tops the sheer epicness of that.

Well that was easy.
Hiroshi luchi is a decent composer, but Hitoshi Sakimoto is one of the most talented "epic" orchestral composers in the industry. It's too bad they didn't get him to do the music for Ikaruga like they did for Radiant Silvergun.

Speaking of RSG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9aCnQcM_EI

There we go. Return is just plain awesome. The kind of epic track you expect from grandiose, exaggerated and over the top pew pew. (Considering the amount of bosses you face with this tune on...)

The drumming, the bells, the sky setting of the stage... awesome.

Jamestown Chapters 1 and 5 and TLB songs are nothing short of great either. The latter songs feature synth choirs for increased epicness.

While not orchestral, the music of Dangun Feveron stage 5 is excellent too.

The three different TLBs from Hellsinker feature great music, and I like the first one a lot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzV5bvobmrg

[Kobayashi]

Let me just say I recently am getting back into shmups recently after a long lull. I love the Gradius series. I fell out of Shmups because they got beyond my level and I moved on to other genres. Recently, I had my Hori VLX modded with a PS1 dongle which opens up use for my Saturn and Wii using adapters and decided to get back into shooters.

I picked up two games Batsugun for the Saturn and Ikaruga for the Gamecube. Batsugun is awesome. It reminds me of Truxton with a little bit of Raiden thrown in. However, Ikaruga is what I wanna talk about. I have never played the game ever. Only heard the heaps of praise leveled on it by fans and journalists. Some said it was the best shooter ever made. I decided to buy the game to see if the praise was warranted. Would it surprise me?

It not only surprised me but surpassed my expectations. Treasure took new school and old school shooting mechanics and merged them beautifully. I'm getting killed at the game but the game encourages you to keep playing and try new strategies to get through the game. Its hard but never cheap. Its shooting at its finest. This is an amazing game and has revived my love for the genre. I was a doubter but now I'm a believer. Ikaruga is amazing.

Ikaruga is great, indeed. The ambience, the level design, the soundtrack and the sound, the challenge and the gameplay... All high quality.

If you like Ikaruga and Gradius, then try the excellent Gradius V too made ​​by the same Treasure staff.
Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRWginPt50U

[Siren2011]

I find this game horrendously unpleasant to play. I've tried coming back to it, giving it another chance multiple times, and it's just never fun. The scoring system is so rigid and once you mess up once it's really hard to continue caring about it, leaving you to play for survival. This is no better as all the difficulty is introduced artificially through the awkward polarity switching mechanic and all the encouragement to be charging your homing shot at all times.

^This, word for word. A few years back, when I was wide-eyed in wonder at any STG I got my fingers on, Ikaruga was damn impressive looking. It still is, but I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that it is one of the worst shmups I've ever played. Get to the second boss? Get to the third stage? Doesn't matter. There is just nothing to hold my interest in playing any further. My only regret is that I will only be able to see the beautiful fifth stage through YouTube videos. But would I play this simplistic abomination all the way to that point? I think I'd prefer an enema.

Treasure doesn't understand what makes a good shmup, let alone a great one. A good 2D vertical scrolling shooter has to have a scoring mechanic that is very addictive. This addictiveness lights the incentive fire underneath a passionate player to explore every nook and cranny of the game. Ikaruga lives in the dark ages in this regard. Treasure might as well have left out the polarity mechanic, so everyone would realize how primitive and bland it is.

Now it could very well be argued that some people simply are addicted to the polarity mechanic for whatever reason. This is of course where subjectivity comes into play, and their perception of the game will differ accordingly.

[Drum]

Mighty Monkey did the polarity thing way better back in 1982. Instead of switching boring colours you transform from a monkey riding a cloud into a dragon head thing and you can just eat dudes. As long as the dudes are on fire. Having one form shoot and one form eat means you aren't just reacting to whatever, you gotta get in there and eat shit with your dragon head thing. Or shoot shit with your monkey.

It also has a great soundtrack - can't beat the classics.

[louisg]

^This, word for word. A few years back, when I was wide-eyed in wonder at any STG I got my fingers on, Ikaruga was damn impressive looking. It still is, but I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that it is one of the worst shmups I've ever played. Get to the second boss? Get to the third stage? Doesn't matter. There is just nothing to hold my interest in playing any further. My only regret is that I will only be able to see the beautiful fifth stage through YouTube videos. But would I play this simplistic abomination all the way to that point? I think I'd prefer an enema.

Treasure doesn't understand what makes a good shmup, let alone a great one. A good 2D vertical scrolling shooter has to have a scoring mechanic that is very addictive. This addictiveness lights the incentive fire underneath a passionate player to explore every nook and cranny of the game. Ikaruga lives in the dark ages in this regard. Treasure might as well have left out the polarity mechanic, so everyone would realize how primitive and bland it is.

Now it could very well be argued that some people simply are addicted to the polarity mechanic for whatever reason. This is of course where subjectivity comes into play, and their perception of the game will differ accordingly.

This doesn't make any sense. Ikaruga is much more forgiving in the scoring department than a game like Mars Matrix where, if you drop the chain, you're not going to get a good score period because it's exponential. Ika on the other hand caps at 12 or so, so if you drop it, it's not the end of the world. Second, the scoring in Ika is a lot of realtime thinking and deciding what to gamble on to go after and what not to. It's only exceptional players who are going to be able to chain the whole thing. In the case that a player is that good that the game for them is all or nothing, then I can see that it might be tedious. To see what is fun about Ikaruga, I'd urge you to check out the variety of replay styles on the GameCube disc.

Finally, you can't take a scoring game and then say that if you removed the scoring system that people would see how shallow the game is. Basically, "if you take the game out of the game, you would see that there is no game"... I think every game is like this!

[mesh control]

Ikaruga is much more forgiving in the scoring department than a game like Mars Matrix...

Seriously?

Pretty sure Rob dropped his chain on stage 4 and still pulled out 1.3 trillion.

Point is, you can make small errors in MM and get away with it.

[burgerkingdiamond]

Ikaruga is a cool game, but I can't stand playing it. If I force myself to ignore the chaining it get's better though. I think that only a very small amount of people have the mindset to excel at this game because the scoring is so damn hard and tedious. If Ikaruga was the standard shmup design, I think it's safe to say that I wouldn't be playing shmups...

However I do like to watch the high level replays because it's impressive to watch someone play through perfect. Theres a replay I remember watching of a guy doing a double play and getting perfect S scores through the whole game. The dude's probably autitstic though.

[psy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhfaQuDtZ1E
Seriously. Go find me a piece of shmup music that tops the sheer epicness of that.

Well that was easy.
Hiroshi luchi is a decent composer, but Hitoshi Sakimoto is one of the most talented "epic" orchestral composers in the industry. It's too bad they didn't get him to do the music for Ikaruga like they did for Radiant Silvergun.

Meh, really doesn't do anything near as much for me. I guess it's just interpretation.

I just felt that Ikaruga's music had more personality and relevance, it fitted into the style of the game and everything else like a piece of a puzzle as opposed to just being some generic hollywood style orchestra that sounds clichéd.

[Siren2011]

This doesn't make any sense. Ikaruga is much more forgiving in the scoring department than a game like Mars Matrix where, if you drop the chain, you're not going to get a good score period because it's exponential.

Even if it was forgiving like you claim it to be, chaining in general is not fun. Even when I'm doing relatively well in level one the game feels like work.

I think the main reason people are turned off of it's scoring system is the same reason people don't like Do Don Pachi's scoring system; it is very strict, though at least the latter leaves room for alternate routes and improvisational moves when your typical run goes wrong. The same goes for Matrix.

I remember Rob saying somewhere that "In the superplays for Ikaruga, all of the players more or less take the same chaining route." How in the hell am I supposed to enjoy experimenting with score with a shoddy game like that? If you've seen superplays for Galuda, people have their own ways of handling different areas for the most part, but sometimes they collectively share the odd one. Flexibility is very important in a shmup. If the game is very limited in its possibilities, then so will the player's stratagem. Just think Pac Man and you'll see what I mean.

[Udderdude]

Ikaruga is a puzzle game disguised as a shump, only the solution is easy to figure out and boring to execute. >_>

[burgerkingdiamond]

Ikaruga is a puzzle game disguised as a shump, only the solution is easy to figure out and boring to execute. >_>

that sounds about right

[Observer]

All you need to know about Ikaruga: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vAO6akjqdg

[louisg]

I remember Rob saying somewhere that "In the superplays for Ikaruga, all of the players more or less take the same chaining route."

That's the exact problem with how you're thinking about it. The keyword here is 'superplay'. So, if you're going for a superplay, that is true; it is probably very tedious. The fun really is in deciding when to take risks and when to play it safe. You might be getting frustrated because you're just trying to blindly mimic a video. But, if you think you might break your chain by taking a shot, you should hold off. You'll then find yourself in a situation that requires quick thinking, and you generally have to change your route to compensate. This is what's fun about the game; because of this, every time I play it I have a different experience. But then again, I'm not looking up superplays.. I try to figure out the best way to chain the stages for my skill level and play style.

[Skykid]

It's a better game than Dodonpachi, at least.

Get the fuck out.

[Ghetto Tate]

most good shmups don't have a scoring system tailor-made for severely OCD mental-hospital patients.

News to me.