Ikaruga

[hazeredmist]

1,066,570 max chain 26, grade B. Curious, my best score was C I’m certain... died twice, if I’d had that run with no miss I’d have got bonus score for sure. This is addictive

[Stanshall]

I would love a C&R issue on Ikaruga. It's an amazing, fascinating game that can inspire an incredible sense of meditative flow as well as a genuine primal hate.

Edit, good stuff Haze. It's one where once you've got a section, you can just repeat and refine the strat, there's almost zero improv or randomness so it's always a case of building on a better and better foundation.

[KSubzero1000]

I’m finding myself restarting if I don’t get the maximum possible chain for the intro bit of stage 1 (22) now. Definitely playing this as a score chase game with less concern about the rest of the stages right now.

[hazeredmist]

There’s just so much to it, once you’re focusing on the chaining, trying to ensure you’re killing in multiples of 3 and not just survival, you can easily lose focus on the polarity, so I’m losing more lives now but scoring higher and getting a higher rank. I’ll obliterate my high score once it all comes together I think. Nearly reached it before with a 30 something chain.

[hazeredmist]

Alex I’ve just posted a score on normal and you’re not on the friends leaderboard still, I think you might need to hit “default” to adjust any settings back so it saves scores etc - I had this with Rolling Gunner a while back.

These games tend to stab you in the nads if you dare to stray from the norm settings wise and pretend you never played it.

I’ve managed to get 1/3 of Stan’s score on stage 1 normal, grade B, quite chuffed with that

[Alex79]

Alex I’ve just posted a score on normal and you’re not on the friends leaderboard still, I think you might need to hit “default” to adjust any settings back so it saves scores etc - I had this with Rolling Gunner a while back.

Oh I've switched to easy now. I'll have another try on normal in a bit and see if it posts a score. If not I'll try the settings thing, thanks

[KSubzero1000]

I imagine the leaderboards discrepancy might be due to Haze player Chapter Select (1) and Alex playing normal Arcade.

[hazeredmist]

Just credit fed this to see the remainder of the game... wow. What an absolute horror show this game develops into! It gets so ridiculous with patterns, polarity and scenery dangers I was laughing while navigating it. Forgetting score, you’d need to be superhuman to 1cc this.

Back to simply enjoying the first stage for the score challenge fun. At which this game excels.

[Stanshall]

Check out shamo_tx on the Leaderboards, he'll be in 1st or 2nd place. The way he plays it is completely hypnotic. It's why I do rate the game so highly, I'm just not good enough to engage with it on the level where it truly sings.

I do intend to get S++ on chapter one at some point, because I am close having nailed every section on different runs, I just don't have it in me to put it all together right now. It's too mentally tiring. I'll probably get back into it over summer or something, I'm planning on taking a few weeks off.

The prospect of doing that for the next four stages is a total impossibility in my lifetime.

[KSubzero1000]

I do intend to get S++ on chapter one at some point, because I am close having nailed every section on different runs

Have you gotten S+ already? What's your current highscore?

[Stanshall]

I do intend to get S++ on chapter one at some point, because I am close having nailed every section on different runs

Have you gotten S+ already? What's your current highscore?

Not yet. My current strats will get me S++ if/when I pull them off. My runs when I've done the last sections would have got me S++ except I'd already ruined the run in the middle of the stage - maybe that took the pressure off. The only way I'd get S+ is if I did maybe the first columns and then skipped the rest and just took down the big ships. That's unlikely to happen though because the first column is the hardest for me. The threading isn't that bad. I've just never reached there having chained the whole stage up to that point.

[KSubzero1000]

So I've just finished (re-)watching the replay of the top spot on the PS4 leaderboards.

And honestly, this might very well be one of the most mesmerizing and awe-inspiring thing I've ever seen in my life. The sheer amount of self-control and planning and raw energy that must have gone into that full-game chaining is just... wow. It's like watching an olympic-level athletic performance, hidden inside an unassuming 600mb video game.

Even if I dedicated my entire life to mastering this game, there's no way I would ever be able to accomplish anything of that sort. I'm completely out of my depth with this one. I feel like I'm already getting my money's worth just from sitting around and lurking other people's replays.

Add to that the sumptuous soundtrack and impeccable camera work during the stage transitions... If nothing else, this is probably one of the most elegant games I've ever come across. In every aspect of its design. Hats off to the devs for crafting something so special. I can only imagine the creative focus that was necessary for everything to come together so perfectly and with such an intentionally high skill ceiling. Every enemy, every pattern, every bullet exists for a reason. Mind-blowing to think about.

I adore CAVE, obviously. But this is the Beethoven to CAVE's Metallica. Pure class all around.

Incredible game, really. It's a damn shame there isn't really anything else like it apart from Radiant Silvergun (and Pawarumi, if we're being generous).


UBUSUNA WHEN

[hazeredmist]

Ikaruga is absolutely stunning, bang on the money there. Clearly a divisive game but there’s a reason there is passion both sides of the fence with this one. It’s got something.

I’d love to play Radiant Silvergun for the history lesson actually... is it available anywhere?

[KSubzero1000]

I’d love to play Radiant Silvergun for the history lesson actually... is it available anywhere?

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the only official port is on the Xbox 360. That's where I have it.

Technically speaking, it would be so easy to throw it on every modern digital store, but hey. Add it to the loooong list of all the amazing classics that the industry at large appears to have no interest in preserving properly.

[ratsoalbion]

360 Radiant Silvergun is backwards compatible, so you can buy it and play it on Xbox One.

[Alex79]

I’d love to play Radiant Silvergun for the history lesson actually... is it available anywhere?

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the only official port is on the Xbox 360. That's where I have it.

Wasn't it available for Sega Saturn too?

[KSubzero1000]

I’d love to play Radiant Silvergun for the history lesson actually... is it available anywhere?

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the only official port is on the Xbox 360. That's where I have it.

Wasn't it available for Sega Saturn too?

Yes, but only in Japan as far as I can tell. I meant localized port that would be somewhat accessible to international players.

[ratsoalbion]

Yeah, I had the Saturn version back at the time, and for a decade or more until the 360 version came out.

It’s not a difficult game to play from a Japanese disc, most of it’s in English apart from the anime intro.

[Stanshall]

I bought Ikaruga on the PS4 this afternoon and got S+ on my second and third go. It feels much easier compared to the Switch because the D-pad isn't made out of plasticine. Unfortunately my cat came in the room during the boss so I fucked my chance at S++ and I died so I channeled my inner Ninja and smashed up my controller and that's the end of Ikaruga.

[Stanshall]

Sartre called it 'le regard d' autrui ', an objectification and denial of our self-perception and self-essentialisation through the eyes of another. In the moment that I try to create my own essence through shooting three white spaceships followed by three black spaceships and so on until I reach the arbitrary goal of S++ which will satisfy my ego, my bored, peckish cat looks at me for entertainment and sustenance and the illusion shatters like my Dualshock 4.

I don't have the words to express how much I hate this game.

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, like, subscribe, ring that fuckin bell and despair.