Support NeoGAF

[Dolphin_Butter]

Just over 12 years since its original release in Japanese arcades, Ikaruga, a shoot 'em up by developer Treasure, makes its PC debut on Steam.

Developer: Treasure
Publisher: Treasure
Platform: PC (Steam)
Release Date: February 18, 2014
Price: $9.99
Frothing Demand: Increasing

Official Ikaruga Steam Edition Webpage (Japanese)
Steam Store Page

Prologue

"Several years ago in the small island nation of Horai, one of the most powerful men of the nation, Tenro Horai, discovered the Ubusunagami Okinokai—the Power of the Gods. This energy emanated from an object he dug up from deep within the earth and gave him powers of unimaginable strength. Soon after, Tenro and his followers, who called themselves the 'Divine Ones,' began to conquer other nations one by one. They considered themselves 'The Chosen People' and carried out their conquests in 'the name of peace.'

"Meanwhile, a freedom federation called Tenkaku emerged to challenge the Horai. Using fighter planes called Hitekkai, they fought with the hope of freeing the world from Horai's conquests—but all their efforts were in vain. They lost battle after battle and were eventually almost completely wiped out. Miraculously, however, one young man survived. His name was Shinra.

"Refusing to accept defeat, Shinra set off again for Horai to wage another battle. He was shot down and crashed in a remote village called Ikaruga, inhabited by a group of aged people who had been sent into exile there by Horai's conquests.

"Kazamori, the village leader, and the other inhabitants pulled Shinra from the wreckage of his plane and nursed him back to health. Shinra regained his strength and announced that he was determined to continue the battle against Horai. The villagers entrusted him with a fighter plane that they had built themselves, called the Ikaruga."

The Ikaruga Fighter Plane (Shinra's Fighter)

"The Ikaruga was designed by the former engineering genius Amanai, with the help of Kazamori and the leader of Shinkai Village. It was kept in a secret underground hiding place beneath the village and moved to the surface for battle by means of a transportation device called the 'Sword of Acala.' It is the first fighter built that integrates the two energy polarities, black and white, and is capable of successfully switching between the two."

The Ginkei Fighter Plane (Kagari's Fighter)

"Kagari—once a Horai assassin to kill Shinra—was ultimately shot down and rescued by Shinra himself. After this twist of fate Kagari joined Shinra in the fight against the Horai. The Ginkei was originally a Horai fighter with excellent performance, however it presented problems in mass production. As a result, only a few experimental models were made. Kagari liked the design of the Ginkei fighter and once the Fighter Plane Service Department decided to scrap this model, she was able to get her hands on one. Then, after moving to the village of Ikaruga, she had Amanai upgrade it to the same specifications as the Ikaruga fighter. ."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X8wyi5-iGQ (Ikaruga Tutorial by TREASURE Channel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZEGyrEnXrk (Solo two-ship gameplay)

Polarity Change

Ikaruga's gameplay revolves around a mechanic known as "Polarity Change", with which the player's ship can switch between black and white polarities. Every enemy in the game is either one of the two polarities, and shooting an enemy while in the opposite polarity does double damage. The same goes for all the bullets on the screen; they are either white or black. When the player's ship is white, then white bullets are absorbed and deal no damage; when the player's ship is black, then black bullets are absorbed and deal no damage. If you are hit with a bullet of the opposite polarity, your ship is destroyed.

Return Fire

When an enemy ship is destroyed, it will fire back bullets depending on the difficulty. The times a ship will fire back are as follows:
- Easy Mode: None of the ships will fire back upon being destroyed.
- Normal Mode: Only ships destroyed by shots of the same polarity will fire back.
- Hard Mode: All ships will fire back upon being destroyed.

Energy Release

By absorbing bullets, energy is stored in the Energy Release Power Gauge. For every ten bullets absorbed, one segment of the meter is filled, with a maximum of 12 segments on the meter. Each segment is equal to one homing laser, which is ten times more powerful than a regular shot. By pressing the Energy Release button, the entire meter is expended, and the corresponding amount of lasers are fired.

Scoring and Chain Bonus

Points are given out three ways in Ikaruga:
- Defeating enemy ships
- Absorbing enemy bullets (100 points per bullet)
- Chain Bonus

The primary source of a player's score will come from the Chain Bonus, which involves defeating three enemies of the same polarity in a row. The first Chain Bonus will give out 100 points, and each successive Chain Bonus will give double the points as the previous one; the Chain Bonus caps out at 25600 points. If an enemy of the opposite of polarity is destroyed while building up a Chain Bonus (for example, destroying a black enemy after destroying two white enemies), then the Chain Bonus amount is reset to 100. At the end of each chapter, the player is given a letter grade based on their performance.

Various Screen Mode Support
- Set resolution to the same your desktop (full-screen mode)
- Adjust size of Menu and HUD as you like
- Window Mode
- Vertical Mode
- Horizontal Mode
Full Controller Support
Keyboard and Mouse Supprt
Two game modes: ARCADE, PROTOTYPE (not hidden).
Two Player game (Local)
Double Play Mode
- You can play 2-Players game with one controller
Replay Mode
- Replay data save available same as Xbox Live Arcade edition
- You can download replay from Leaderboard
Steam Feature
- Steam Achievements
- Steam Leaderboards (Global / Friends)
- Steam Cloud
- Steam Trading Cards
Free Play Mode (infinite continues) unlocked from the start

OS: Windows 8 / 7 / Vista / XP
Processor: Intel Core2 Duo (Athlon64 X2)
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 9.0c supported (256 MB VRAM)
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Hard Drive: 512 MB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c supported

 

[Dog Problems]

Nice OT. I'll be buying this game for the fourth time.

 

[Persona7]

I think I will install steam for this... I need to finish a few other games because my GOG in progress backlog just cleared up.

 

[hoggert]

Nice OT! Time for the triple dip!

 

[Baust]

Great OT. Can't wait until this drops on Tuesday. I'll buy it for any price!

Also, I <3 Yasushi Suzuki's artwork.

 

[Nete]

No price announced yet?

 

[Dolphin_Butter]

No price announced yet?

Unfortunately, no. There was a Siliconera interview where $10 is mentioned at the end, but it's not directly referring to Ikaruga's PC release.

 

[hoggert]

No price announced yet?

9.99 or bust! At least that was the price I paid on XBLA years ago. Hopefully it will be something around that.

 

[TheSeks]

No price announced yet?

$10 is what they said on the Japanese tweet from Treasure. But still nothing "official" on the Steam page. It's really bizarre and someone from Valve needs to tell Treasure putting an official page up two weeks from launch and no data is bad form.

Still, day 1.

 

[injurai]

Jamestown didn't scratch the itch, and I got tired of Touhou.

This will be great.

 

[blackMamba1187]

Buying it. No cards?

 

[kick51]

Our frothing demand increases....


it never goes down

 

[Tizoc]

Silly question:
I am trash in bullet hell games, but want to play Ikaruga.
Assuming there's no demo, should I still play it?

At worse I'd make a giveaway to support the dev.

 

[jbueno]

Time to get a new VGA monitor for some hot 31 khz TATE action.

 

[TheSeks]

Buying it. No cards?

Cards are included.

Single-player

Local Co-op

Steam Achievements

Steam Leaderboards

Steam Cloud

Full controller support

Steam Trading Cards

Probably gonna break my "no buying cards" rules to make an exception to level 5 Ikaruga's emblem.

Silly question:
I am trash in bullet hell games, but want to play Ikaruga.
Assuming there's no demo, should I still play it?

At worse I'd make a giveaway to support the dev.

You can unlock "free play"/infinite credits after playing for like... 2-6 hours in-game time if it matches the XBLA version (which it should, since it's an enhanced port of that port of a port from the arcade), so... yes?

 

[BoosterDuck]

Oh boy, Strider and Ikaruga coming out the same week! Dat hype!

 

[Fhtagn]

Will happily buy this for the fourth time. It's only shmup I've ever 1cc'ed! (On easy mode... which is still bloody well difficult!)

 

[Dreamgazer]

Cards are included.



Probably gonna break my "no buying cards" rules to make an exception to level 5 Ikaruga's emblem.

let's start pool >.>

 

[Occam]

Ikaruga is more of a puzzle game than a shoot 'em up. If you feel like playing an awsome Dreamcast 2D shooting game, then check out Border Down.

 

[Vanillalite]

Silly question:
I am trash in bullet hell games, but want to play Ikaruga.
Assuming there's no demo, should I still play it?

At worse I'd make a giveaway to support the dev.

GAF Giveaway!!!! (So I can winrar)

PS: Game is still fun, and I to suck at shumps generally. The polarity mechanic helps lend it to a puzzle game of sorts.

 

[LiK]

triple dip time

 

[brandonh83]

This game; it is both bliss and torture wrapped up into a single fap burrito.

 

[TheSeks]

$10. $10 dollars. AH-AH-AH

(OP should include this price)

 

[Aaron]

I would have gone with 'The PC is no refuge from Treasure.'

 

[kick51]

never got past ch.3 with 1CC

 

[d0c_zaius]

so many forms of yes. Had no idea it was this close!

 

[Dolphin_Butter]

I would have gone with 'The PC is no refuge from Treasure.'

My first OT and honestly, the hardest part was settling on a title, lol. Especially since Ikaruga has a wealth of weird-ass quotes ripe for tweaking.

$10. $10 dollars. AH-AH-AH

(OP should include this price)

Done!

 

[fredrancour]

Oh my god. A whole new platform to get mercilessly obliterated on. I will see level 5 someday....

 

[Novocaine]

2nd monitor going portrait in preperations.

 

[Tizoc]

You can unlock "free play"/infinite credits after playing for like... 2-6 hours in-game time if it matches the XBLA version (which it should, since it's an enhanced port of that port of a port from the arcade), so... yes?

Man it's a shame there isn't a 2-pack, I'd gotten that asap.
Will try infinite mode and see if it improves my playstyle.

 

[theRizzle]

My god... I just realized that I will actually have a reason to turn my monitor into portrait mode finally!

 

[TheSeks]

Oh my god. A whole new platform to get mercilessly obliterated on. I will see level 5 someday....

Free play unlock, baby. It's how I beat the game. ;_;

Man it's a shame there isn't a 2-pack, I'd gotten that asap.

It wouldn't count it out, SNK did similar with Metal Slug 3's port but they gave out two beta codes to test the netcode on that. So I dunno if Treasure will do the same so people/friends can play together. But you really don't need that. You can do the two player-solo option (new to the PC version thought not really "new" if you had two controllers before) or just play someone randomly online IIRC.

Edit: DO NOTE that infinite credits isn't unlocked by default. You'll start with... 5 continues(?) or 10, then it increases by five to 5/10->10/15->15/20->20/20->Infinite.

You have to play with limited credits and in-game-time to unlock the infinite credit mode, so don't give up. You'll eventually get infinite credits to power through the game if that's how you want to play it.

 

[Ezalc]

Will try to sell cards to buy this.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Amid the turmoil of battle, there may be seeming disorder and yet no real disorder at all...

 

[brainpann]

Im so ready for this. Just bought a VIrtua Stick High Grade and will be putting it through its paces with this and Metal Slug.

 

[Tain]

Ready for this again.

no continues dudes.

 

[Cheddahz]

The OP is beautiful, I'll probably end up buying it when it comes out!

 

[TheSeks]

Also OP, you're forgetting that it's including Steam trading cards. Go look at the Official Store Page since they haven't updated that Greenlight update in a little bit.

 

[Htown]

ooh, if it really is only ten bucks, I might go ahead and pick it up

 

[FTF]

Still have my Dreamcast and GameCube copies, still can't beat it on hard :/

 

[Dolphin_Butter]

Also OP, you're forgetting that it's including Steam trading cards. Go look at the Official Store Page since they haven't updated that Greenlight update in a little bit.

Sorry, it slipped my mind even though I totally saw that update. Thanks for the corrections.

 

[Artanisix]

double dipping so fucking hard

haven't played it in years, miss chaining mega combos throughout this

 

[Arcayne]

Couldn't go past the second level in this game. I barely scratched the surface of this game, yet I hold such high respect and regards for it. That tutorial level is masterful. Think I'll grab it for PC too

 

[neohwa]

One of the best GCN games I have played. Music is sooooooo good and game is fun.

It seems to have a deep story behind it too. Want more games like this.

 

[yogloo]

Vertical mode!!!!! I hope I can play it on my tablet.

 

[nded]

I'm excited! Have a poorly upsized wallpaper!

 

[mrmickfran]

Let this succeed so that Treasure can release Radiant Silvergun on Steam.

 

[PirateKing]

I'm wondering, is there a reason why this game is not on any Sony platform? I own the Gamecube and X360 version, but would love to get a Vita version and play it anywhere I go.

 

[DXLelouch153]

might pick up a steam card when i pick up Tales of Symphonia Chronicles and pay off Dark Souls 2 the 28th

 

[TheSeks]

Let this succeed so that Treasure can release Radiant Silvergun on Steam.

They're already making plans to put an original title on the service. So Greenlight buzz must've shown them there's HEAVY interest in their stuff.

But yeah, Radiant Silvergun would be next on my "DO WANT" list from them on the service.

I'm wondering, is there a reason why this game is not on any Sony platform? I own the Gamecube and X360 version, but would love to get a Vita version and play it anywhere I go.

XBLA license exclusivity clause or something. Or Treasure just doesn't care to port it to PSN for the money they'd probably make to break even on it or something. Who knows. There's no plans at the moment but if you beg them in Japanese maybe they'd do it?