As video games became more advanced, we’ve seen many genres make the jump from 2D to 3D. With this leap in technology, the games seemed to get easier. Look at the Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker, there’s just something not right about being able to beat a Zelda game without dying. But if a challenge is what you seek, one genre has ignored the 3D trend and kept true to its difficulty roots. Yes, I’m talking about 2D shooters (what a great name for a genre). The latest of which, Ikaruga for the Gamecube, shows us that these games still mean business.

     Unlike many older games in this genre, Ikaruga actually introduces a new element to the gameplay. Ikaruga doesn’t rely on power-ups, speed boosts, or even bombs. The only trick you get is the ability to change polarities. The enemies’ fire comes in two different polarities, or colors, black and white. By having your ship in a certain polarity will allow you to absorb fire of the same polarity. For example: if you are using the white polarity, then when hit by the white fire, you will not die, but absorb it instead. Not only is absorbing a great, and might I add, only way to get past the screen full of enemy fire, but it serves as fuel for a powerful attack. As you absorb more shots from the enemies, your power gauge will increase. Each level in the gauge that is filled, equals how many homing missiles you will fire.

     Ikaruga is a relatively short game. There are only a handful of levels to go through, but this is nothing new to this type of game. Beating Ikaruga isn’t the main goal of the game, mastery the skills to do it with one life is. For the first couple hours you’ll find yourself questioning whether the game can even be beat. The computer is relentless in its attacks. The only thing it seems to care about is the player’s ultimate demise. At several points in the game, you’ll find yourself switching polarities quickly in order to survive. If you find that the dodging of enemy shots is too easy, there’s always the environment to run into. Those walls just seem to come out of nowhere sometimes. But eventually, you’ll come to realize that beating this game with one life is a possibility.

     Ikaruga offers several modes of play to keep you entertained. A couple of the modes even exist to help train your skills. There’s just the normal game, which is the Start Game option on the menu. Here you find three difficulties, easy, normal, and hard (duh). The only difference I can really tell is that when you kill ships of the same polarity, they will fire back. Example: If you’re white and kill a white ship, the white bullets will be fired at you when the ship is destroyed. On easy, this doesn’t happen and on hard everything fires back, same polarity or not. Then there’s Practice mode that allows you to practice any level you’ve beaten already. It is pretty straightforward. Conquest mode allows you to practice a specific part of each level. A better mode for fine-tuning your skill then Practice is.

     But the jewel of this game is the Challenge mode. This is probably the mode that you would have played in the arcades. Challenge mode sets you out on a normal game (that whole enemies of the same polarity fire back at you thing) with only three lives and no credits. The goal here is to get as high of a score as possible. After your game, probably because you died, you get a password that is used for the Ikaruga website. It’ll put your score into there ranking system and you can see how you did against everyone else.

     Just because it’s a 2D game, doesn’t mean that it won’t have impressive graphics, cause they are nice. The backgrounds are just beautiful and give the world life. Some of the boss designs are really cool, even if they are out to kill you. Ikaruga has an artistic feel to it that adds to its mystique. This is prevalent in the galleries that can be unlocked. This game just looks really good, no matter how you look at it.

     Ikaruga’s music is moving, moving in the way that makes you want to destroy everything in your path. It just fits the game and increases the overall military atmosphere of the game. There’s a voice that tells you what you’ve chosen and also of your bonuses and such during game. At first, it’s hard just to decipher what it’s saying, but eventually you’ll come to appreciate what it has to say.

     Treasure has made a complete game with Ikaruga. From the sound to graphics to controls, everything has been done nicely. Of course more levels and ships to choose from would have been welcomed, this doesn’t affect the overall performance of the game though. But let’s face it; you’re not going to buy Ikaruga based on this review or any others. You’re going to buy it, or not buy it, because of your love for 2D shooters. With the beautiful graphics, innovative gameplay, price tag at release of $40, and lack of 2D shooters being made, fans of this genre should already own Ikaruga.