Arcade Treasure

Ikaruga

Release date: December 20, 2001 (Arcade); April 15, 2003 (GCN); April 9, 2008 (Xbox Live Arcade)
Genre: Vertical Shooter
Developer: Treasure; G.rev

For several years after its 2001 release, the arcade shooter Ikaruga wasn't available outside of Japan. In 2003, however, the game was ported to the Nintendo Gamecube. Five years later it arrived on Xbox Live Arcade, an archive of video games available for download to the Xbox hard drive.

Ikaruga follows the golden rule of all great arcade games: easy to learn, impossible to master. During the game players pilot the ship Ikaruga through hostile skies filled with enemies and hazards. What sets Ikaruga apart from generic shooters, beside its vibrant graphics and poetic preambles, is its dual polarity system.

Enemy ships in Ikaruga are either black or white and shoot colored bullets accordingly. The player's ship can reverse polarity - from white to black and black to white - to maneuver through ribbons of enemy fire. When polarized to black, Ikaruga can absorb black bullets and inflict more damage on white ships; when polarized to white, the opposite holds true.

Ikaruga is brief, spanning only five levels, but the replay value is enormous. The Xbox Live Arcade version is especially addictive, with its online co-op mode and leader boards.

Score: 90/100