It seems that in the run up to a big XBLA release, the quality seems to drop quite noticeably. Between Boogie Bunnies (a game so awful, we actually weren’t able to review it properly) and TiQal (yeah, neither did I) it’s all been rather uninspiring. Shoot ‘em up fans certainly haven’t had much to look at apart from Triggerheart Excelica (which really wasn’t any fun at all) and that risible Rocketmen game (quick Peoww review score? Piss out of ten).

So when a well-respected title like Treasure’s NAOMI shooter Ikaruga turns up you’re almost ready to spend those 800 points without looking at the demo. I mean Ikaruga’s great right? Well yeah… kinda…

It certainly looks lovely. Those lovely hi-res Dreamcast graphics have been further smoothed out and spruced up. It’s still pretty functional stuff, certainly not as interesting to look at as Omega Five but the sleek elegance of Ikaruga is part of its charm. It doesn’t need to throw huge explosions and gimmicks at you. Just that sweet contrast of black and white. Classic.

Of course, being a vertical scroller, a lot of screen real estate is lost to the side bars. A big hi-def tv is definitely the preferred option for this game but you also have the TATE mode if you want to play it as a full-screen horizontal scroller. I just couldn’t get on with this, but you might want to explore the option if you’ve got a small telly.

If you’ve not dabbled with the Dreamcast or Gamecube versions, Ikaruga is a ‘bullet-hell’ vertical scroller and takes place over five increasingly difficult stages. As with most of these type of shooters this game has a gimmick. Your enemies’ bullets are either black or white and you can switch the colour of your ship accordingly on the fly.

Opposite coloured bullets will destroy you instantly (no energy bars = win in my book) but if you match colours, you’ll absorb the damage and store the energy to release as a slightly underwhelming smart bomb. Accordingly, your bullets match your current colour and shooting a white enemy with black bullets, or vice versa, will cause them far much more damage than matched bullets.

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