Treasure is a video game developer founded in 1992 by former employees of Konami. Over the years they earned a position as one of the best, thanks to titles which offered innovation within the most prolific genres of their time. This innovative is what leads us to Ikaruga, a classic space shooter full of new playable.
What makes it so special to Ikaruga, plus innovative nature is the resulting mixture between the simplicity of its approach and the difficulty involved in mastering it. Its gameplay is based on polarity. We have a ship capable of changing its polarity, differentiated by the white and black colors, and only the shots of the opposite polarity can end it. Changing the polarity of the ship also changed the color of our shots, something really important when consider that the shooting blacks are twice as effective against the ships of the opposite color.
A system that is easy to understand complicated when comes into play special attack meter. By absorbing enemy projectiles and colored pieces left to die reload remote attack vital to our survival in certain levels. Ikaruga’s challenge lies in the careful and constant choice by the player, including the lethality of down enemies using his invulnerability opposite polarity or that involves using the same color as their projectiles. The whole test of concentration, reflexes and maneuverability.
This work of Treasure was a significant turning point in the genre of Shoot’em Up as far as graphics are concerned, quite an achievement when you consider that the creative team was formed only by four developers and a composer.
Its graphics left behind the mixture between the three dimensions and conventional graphics or purely two-dimensional elements. The development team created some scenes full of details and textures well defined and modeled up some of the time. It also had special importance the play of light produced by both polarities mainly designed to test the player’s reflexes.
It is considered by many as the second best of its kind under Radiant Silvergun, his spiritual father. With it shares similarities as the design of the ships or mythological background of its mild argument. In fact, when you start the game welcomed us with the text: “Ikaruga Project RS 2”.
Ikaruga was a Japanese Edition for the Dreamcast, a international for Nintendo Gamecube and finally a version in HD downloadable for Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Marketplace, priced at 800 Microsoft Points.