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Ikaruga

Started by The Boston Crab, July 03, 2018, 08:03:04 AM

Previous topic - Next topic
I think it's about time.


For me, the past twelve months in gaming has been very much a deeper and deeper love affair with shmups. I can partly attribute this to getting a One S last year and finding quite a few big names and assorted corkers either on backwards compatibility or on regular release. Mostly the former. I also started to visit Arcade Club in Bury semi-regularly and was thoroughly amazed by Ketsui, Armed Police Batrider and - more than anything I'd played in a long long time - Dodonpachi DaiOuJou (not that I knew what any of them were until six months ago). I would look forward to playing these strange intense impossible overwhelming shoot em ups, all in Japanese, without any idea of how to play them or even how the danmaku genre worked. Every visit, I would credit feed my way through at least one of them and feel like an absolute champ, despite the utter pointlessness of doing this.


At home, I started to get into Guwange (not knowing it was a Cave game, too) and I put in a few hours into both Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun. Honestly, I thought the idea was simply to get to the end of the game and while I was aware of the Ikaruga chain system, I was not used to playing for score and found the idea quite boring. This is genuinely shocking to me now, like when an album really gets under your skin but you couldn't possibly understand it the first twenty times and now you can't remember how you ever even felt like that, or how your mind was so closed. That's how I feel about shmups, and very specifically how I feel about Ikaruga. But more in a moment.


Meanwhile, I started to pick up anything and everything STG on the Switch. We're talking Gunbird, Samurai Aces, Zero Gunner 2, Blazing Star, Strikers 1945, Tengai, and even the largely shit curios like Sol Divide. I was becoming quite obsessed with the genre, and the Psikyo games in particular were really floating my boat. I think it was the relative simplicity - blow everything up, clear the screen. While I'm sure they have their own complex scoring systems, they are more straightforward examples of the genre. Dodge the bullets, send a hell of a lot more back. My Switch became a shoot em up machine for a good while and I felt like I had a glorious arcade in my hands. Not long after, I decided to investigate emulation and Steam and was surprised to find that my creaking laptop could run Dodonpachi DaiOuJou, Mushihimesama, Ketsui, Crimzon Clover and much more and I dove deeper into the genre and started to ruin my sleep patterns watching superplays in bed, sneaking into the spare room so as not to wake my wife and being unable to fall asleep, my mind dancing with the cascading 'curtains' of bullet patterns being herded this way and that. It was a glorious few weeks - until my laptop died of exhaustion during the April heatwave.


I had few fond memories of Ikaruga. I had played it on my mate's Dreamcast way back on release, along with Radiant Silvergun, and I had found it weird, confusing and disorienting. It was also bloody hard. I preferred Radiant Silvergun because the weapon synergies were pretty cool. That was the limit of my appreciation. Fast forward to last year's XBox BC playthrough and while I was enjoying the genre, Ikaruga did relatively very little for me. It seemed like a puzzle game, even playing pure survival and ignoring the scoring mechanics. It was just absurdly difficult and I kept dying to the bullets I generated by killing enemies. It seemed much easier to just not shoot anything!


I didn't especially anticipate the Switch release then but I did realise that if I were ever to give the game a fair crack, it would be on this system. Playing in bed or on the couch, having a quick bash at a level and then sleep. Yep, it all seemed more promising and more palatable. And I did soon enjoy it much more than I had ever done before. I beat the first boss on my first go! I got up to the second a few goes later. Yes, I was getting into it. 600k high score. I'm making progress. 800k. Huh, getting better. Quick check of the leaderboards...


Four million?


On the first level?!


I don't really know why I suddenly cared. Even when I was learning DaiOuJou, I wasn't really playing for score as much as enjoying clearing the screen and increasing my chances of staying alive. I'd heard things about Ikaruga though which made me question my experience of the game, I'd heard about the chains and the puzzle elements of the scoring not just the survival. It had put me off, to be honest, as I say. Suddenly, though, I had a glimpse of what the game really was, and what the potential was, what my potential might be. I checked the Friends leaderboard and saw that quite a few of my Switch friends were comfortably ahead of me. Maybe that was it, the old competitive spirit. I wanted to at least break a million.


So I started to experiment with the scoring systems. I knew I could study some superplays (and I had seen at least one on Ikaruga, it just hadn't made much of an impression besides switching polarity to stay alive) but I wanted to see what I could figure out for myself:


Off we go. Hmm. Bollocks. Dead. OK, again. Just watch. Six whites, six blacks, six whites, six blacks. Ah, OK. Start right, go left, then right again...I see. Heh. Clever. It's like a rhythm game. Now try to shoot them with the same colour and...charge up the energy bar. Nice. What the hell is this now? Forget it. Three columns on each side, white and black, how am I meant to get all them before they go? Impossible. Ugh, this is infuriating. Oh, err, the energy bar. Hmm. If I can take out the whites fast enough. Maybe...Shit, that actually worked. Take out the whites in black polarity, missile the blacks. Quality. That actually works. And hold on, I can scoop up the black bullets which burst across the screen and recharge and...fuck me...I can missile the next wave without even shooting...and...scoop up those bullets, too...


And that's how it started. I am now obsessed with Ikaruga. What an incredibly elegant, beautiful anomaly it is. I finally got the 1 million on the first chapter and I've been chipping away ever since, linking sections together, thinking about my route when I'm in work or driving or before bed, on the bog, when cooking. It's such a delicate intricate puzzle to gently unlock, trying to eke an extra chain out of your strategy before realising the entire strategy is doomed to fail and heading back for a more ambitious pass at a familiar wave. I can't tell you how thrilled I was to get a B++ with 1.6m on the first chapter, and I was stuck there for a good while. I started to feel I was going backwards, in fact.


This past couple of weeks, I've been playing every night, locking some easier sections into muscle memory and being able to experiment and practise and practise and fail and fail but sometimes see some potential. I still have a long long way to go. Some sections I largely ignore for fear of destroying my chain. Last night, I finally made the next little step up. 1.987 million. Painfully close. I played for another hour before bed and just slid further and further backwards. Tonight, finally, I did it. The 4+2 white, then 4+2 black, then straight into the B/W mini bosses with the satellite ships rotating around them. Chain, chain, chain, chain. The big ships with the little columns of descending ships to jink in and out of. I'll skip them for now, just take down the big bastards, keep this chain going, I knew it was a good run. Bang, down. Bang, down. One more, down. Mad rush, chain the turrets and...not quite. Still, I'm onto the boss with nearly 1.5m on the board already. Max energy bar, missile, instant phase two. Black, sit on that shield, absorb absorb absorb, bang, full missile. Phase three. Switch, switch, switch, missile. White homing beams, absorb absorb absorb, black, missile.


Holy shit.


2,152,960.


Max 62 Chain.


Grade A.


Now, this is nothing. It doesn't even place me at the top of my friend list for the chapter, but it is a real gaming achievement for me. And the best thing is that I have so so much more to learn about this game. In a year, I will likely look back on this and chuckle. At least, I really hope I do. It's been extraordinarily satisfying and I can't wait to peel back the next layer. For context, I think the maximum chain for the first chapter is roughly double what I've got there and that says it all. I'll very likely never ever achieve that. I might have already hit my limit. I also acknowledge that this thread is tragically self-indulgent but I have cherished the experience of falling in love with this game so much, I just wanted to put it into words. If anyone is doubtful of the beauty of Ikaruga, please do have another look because it has so much to give. I was wrong. I was a fool. It is glorious.


Kelvin

It's fucking hard, innit? First stage is a piece of piss, 2nd is doable, but by the time you reach the boss of level 3, the game has an insane number of things flying around, all of which you not only have to avoid, but constantly shift back and forth at the right time to pass through.

I do really like it, though. I just stick it on freeplay and easy, and see if I can lose less than 50 lives in the last two levels. There're something really beautiful about the way the beams are patterned and co-ordinated. Nothing is just "there", for the sake of it. It's all been placed very, very deliberately. 

And that's playing for survival. First stage is a piece of piss but to play for score, it honestly becomes a whole other thing and you really see the beauty and elegance of how it's constructed. There's 'a way to play' and relatively little deviation from that but it's having the timing, spacing, execution, nerve and understanding to execute which is the real challenge and pleasure. I can't even imagine how people play to score from even the start of stage 2. I've figured out much of the moving crate section but there's so much more before and after that is simply mind boggling, and the first chapter is hard enough already from that perspective.

Hecate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vAO6akjqdg

Love shmups, loathe ikaruga.

If you're after something ikaruga-esque IRO hero might be up your street, that's out now on the switch I think.
and Exceed 2nd has the same mechanic.
There's another colour switching game coming out soon but I've forgotten the name of it. I'll post again if I remember.

Judging by the way you were talking about pc gamers in that other thread, I'm assuming you're console only?
If not, there's a steam sale on at the minute if you want some recommendations.

They were having a score competition on the shmups subreddit just last month, you could have won a 10 dollar steam voucher!!!

ASFTSN

I don't know if this counts in this thread and I might have mentioned them in the Lumines thread, but did you like Every Extend (Extra)?

Z

I hate shmups and always have, Ikaruga conceptually always seemed cool as fuck though.


Weird Canada fixated wikipedia article on another game by the Ikaruga guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuga

Hecate

Quote from: Z on July 06, 2018, 12:32:51 AM
I hate shmups and always have

Aw, it saddens me whenever I hear that. All shmups, all subgenres? Is your opinion formed from a few duff games you played maybe?
Can you fire up mame and stick something like progear on for 5 minutes to see if that changes your mind?

Z

Quote from: Hecate on July 06, 2018, 01:19:04 AM
Aw, it saddens me whenever I hear that. All shmups, all subgenres? Is your opinion formed from a few duff games you played maybe?
Can you fire up mame and stick something like progear on for 5 minutes to see if that changes your mind?
They just stress the hell out of me.
I'm terrible at games that rely on instincts and muscle memory in general (unless it's stripped down to a super hexagon level), it's very much a case of it being my fault as opposed to the games themselves.

Hecate

Quote from: Z on July 06, 2018, 01:30:43 AM
They just stress the hell out of me.

Yeah, that's fair. There's a nice quote from nerd-spanker Shinobu Yagawa that chimes with that

QuoteTo relieve stress, it may be that people prefer music games and fighting games to shooting games. You know, when you play a shooting game, you actually get more stressed out. When you can say you love shooting games, I get the sense you're no longer a normal person. (laughs) And of course I include myself in that. Everyone around me who likes shooting is a weirdo.

I finally beat my score above, managed to improve my execution on a few sections and slowly but surely added those 'best bits' to a pretty consistent series of runs, and finally did 'the best I can do' with what I've learned so far. I also squeezed a few more bonus rows because I was clearing the screen faster and got these down. Finally, I learned the timing on the shrinking spinning ring, just before the large black and white ships with the tricky central columns of little ships. And here's where I'm up to:



For all the leaps in consistency and so on, and I've put probably five or ten hours in this week just on this first stage, it's not that much of an improvement in terms of score. Still A class. I also couldn't have done the boss much faster at all. To make the next leap forward, I'm going to have to develop some newer, bolder, more aggressive tactics. And the beauty of the game is that I can feel that I'll be able to do that. It really is a series of intricate little puzzles. At first, certain sections seem unattainable and too complex but you can get there by breaking it down further and further. It's like *klaxon* Dark Souls, in that respect. Every little encounter requires separate planning, timing, order and execution, and once you master it, muscle memory locks everything in and you're playing without thinking.

I have three key sections to improve now. There's a short series of four mini bosses, each with two rotating ships. That makes for four chains. If you switch polarity you can destroy them pretty easily and quickly. Black on the right hand white ships, switch to the other side and fire white on the black, rinse and repeat. It's consistent and pretty easy. But to really improve the speed, my next move must be white on white, fire missiles, absorb and immediately missile (white) on the black to the left. Switch polarity to black, finish them off, absorb and then immediately missile black to the next white boss. Switch to white and finish it off quickly, absorb then fire white missiles, switch to black, finish the final mini boss and absorb. That will then trigger a good few more bonus rows, which require some pretty tricky timing, spacing and execution. I reckon I can probably get another eight or so chains there as well as all the bonus points for shots absorbed. It is bloody hard, though! It's my next goal, nevertheless. And after that, I'll have to really step it up with the large rotating turret ships, and the columns which move in and out, and then maybe I can trigger the final bonus rows which are worth a shitload, probably another quarter of a million or more. It might take me months, it might be years but I'll hit that S class. "Even though the ideal is high, I never give in."

And that's just chapter one.

Kelvin

Have you been watching runs on YouTube for tips?

fflip

Love the original post, and that question is partly answered:

Quote from: The Boston CrabI knew I could study some superplays (and I had seen at least one on Ikaruga, it just hadn't made much of an impression besides switching polarity to stay alive) but I wanted to see what I could figure out for myself:

I want to commend that approach; considering myself a shmup fan I was consuming superplay videos of Ikaruga pretty much from the same day I first played the game, and there's a trap one can fall into of trying to copy mechanically advanced moves from the video; it's not always obvious which moves are the most difficult from just watching, nor whether those moves even have the biggest effect on your score anyway rather than being the small, personal refinements of an already high-performing player, and I remember a certain amount of frustration during my time with Ikaruga even while I got pretty good at chaining the first two levels. It sounds like the appreciation of how tightly assembled the game is all the sweeter for personally puzzling most of it out. I do feel like going back to it now, it's been some years.

Having said that Ikaruga superplays are great to watch nonetheless because the game's aesthetics are so strong; it's just beautiful to watch and listen to. This section of Chapter 4 where the action happens around a rotating central hub is particularly majestic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z38pIN8_n3E (from around 12:35)

And no linking of Ikaruga superplays is complete without recalling the mindboggling "double play" videos, where one guy controls both ships of a two-player game at the same time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5jeXQonsV4

Thanks for the post (and for answering that question). I have seen a few more playthroughs but more significant has been reading a guide on GameFAQs which breaks down each new wave. That's meant I've been able to visualise it and try to figure out my own strategy a bit more. Obviously, as I am now working on the hardest sections of the stage and I've hit a bit of a wall, I'll probably have to seek inspiration from/copy (!) the pros. The other amazing thing though is that despite it being a memory based puzzle game in many ways, there's plenty of room for different execution and strategy.

A+, baby. Probably the greatest achievement of my life so far. I really thought I was on a downhill slope to the grave but turns out I'm becoming a refined machine, on course for immortality and exponential success and joy. Decent.



remedial_gash

Hey boston think you might enjoy the shmups forum, they put a ton of effort into a niche genre - and their youtube channel stg weekly is cool if you like the games.

https://shmups.system11.org/viewforum.php?f=1

Cheers, gash. I've popped in there before and love the STG Weekly shows. My shmupping is consigned to the Switch at the moment until I get a new computer. I'm not even sure whether I will, though, as I hadn't touched my laptop in about two years, tried a few emulated games recently and shortly after it well and truly carked it. Anyway, this is incredibly dull but thanks for the tip, definitely a good one.

Hecate

The shmups forum can get a bit ... cunty.

Are you on resetera? There are all nice, cuddly people in the shmup thread - https://www.resetera.com/threads/shmups-shoot-em-ups-ot-the-full-extent-of-the-jam.1752/page-23

Cheers. I'm not on there because I only have freebie email but I've had a peek occasionally. Shmups forum did seem a bit beyond my level of understanding or dedication so I didn't stick around.

Hecate

I sent them an email saying that I was lovely and I'd just talk about shooting aliens and sit at the back on my best behaviour all nice and not even bother anyone and they were very polite and gave me an account through gmail.

The shmups subreddit is nice but it can be a bit slow, I wish it was laid out like a forum where you could go into a thread and see the new replies.

remedial_gash

Quote from: Hecate on July 12, 2018, 06:57:08 PM
The shmups forum can get a bit ... cunty.

Are you on resetera? There are all nice, cuddly people in the shmup thread - https://www.resetera.com/threads/shmups-shoot-em-ups-ot-the-full-extent-of-the-jam.1752/page-23


I don't really contribute but do know what you're on about, yes some members can be dicks, but their game guides are really awesome - the complete shmup guide  to do don pachi is brilliant - the full extent of the jam - https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=34497 plus you can find guides to the Raizing games, most of cave and perhaps of interest to BC the psikio games. Think there is a sub forum for guides, plus the search works, cough cough.

greenman

I'v never put serious effort into getting very good at it but I always put Ikaruga well ahead of most bullet hell kind of games, it me it actually seems more like the successor to R-type style games even if its vertical rather than horizontal, much more in the way of "landscape" based puzzles and the polarity shifts mean you having to move very rapidly rather than just making tiny movements though clouds of bullets.

remedial_gash

Quote from: greenman on July 13, 2018, 07:13:38 AM
I'v never put serious effort into getting very good at it but I always put Ikaruga well ahead of most bullet hell kind of games, it me it actually seems more like the successor to R-type style games even if its vertical rather than horizontal, much more in the way of "landscape" based puzzles and the polarity shifts mean you having to move very rapidly rather than just making tiny movements though clouds of bullets.

I'm rubbish at it but I think of it more as a puzzle game than a proper shooter, I'm also shit at R-type which although Jap developed I think is more akin to Euro-shmups hated by the hardcore It's a pure memoriser. Err, I flipped completely in the space of a post - it's not like a Euro-shup with health bars etc, I just don't think that I like a single Irem game, though they are beautiful.

I just prefer the ballet of a bullet hell where you can sheppard direct shots from one side of the screen to the other, mainly thinking Cave and espgaluda 1 and 2 and dai ou jou.

Quite remarkable how many times I've woken up and first go beaten my previous high score on the this. It's like once the strategy clicks conceptually, your brain (or, my brain) needs a rest to lock it in and then you wake up (I wake up) and it's at your fingertips. Very strange. Right, off to work. Might have a nap at lunch and see if that helps.

A++ now on chapter one. 2.88m so very close to S rank. It's just getting so hard to chain the entire level, plus the jinking at the end. I've done the last section as perfectly as I may ever do a few times but I've buggered up earlier whenever I've been in that position. It's so intense. I've got the perfect run in me but it'll probably involve a chunk of luck at this point. Played about three hours straight today and not quite got over the line so I'll have a break and see whether my brain will lock it into muscle memory before I have another push.

#25


The most mentally and physically difficult thing I've ever done in a game, as well as the most satisfying. #81 in the world. I'm done.



Kelvin

Does the game upload a replay online? I have the game on Switch and I'd love to watch it.

greenman

Quote from: remedial_gash on July 13, 2018, 07:27:33 AM
I'm rubbish at it but I think of it more as a puzzle game than a proper shooter, I'm also shit at R-type which although Jap developed I think is more akin to Euro-shmups hated by the hardcore It's a pure memoriser. Err, I flipped completely in the space of a post - it's not like a Euro-shup with health bars etc, I just don't think that I like a single Irem game, though they are beautiful.

I just prefer the ballet of a bullet hell where you can sheppard direct shots from one side of the screen to the other, mainly thinking Cave and espgaluda 1 and 2 and dai ou jou.

The biggest issue many have I'd guess is that such games don't have a skill set that's so easily transferable from one to another, you get good at one Cave game you get good at them all. Again though I find the limitations of small movements though clouds of bullets and overpowered weaponry that doesn't need to be aimed/timed very well rather dull.

When you get to the higher levels I'd gues spretty much every shoot em up becomes more a memory test.

Quote from: Kelvin on July 14, 2018, 02:06:12 AM
Does the game upload a replay online? I have the game on Switch and I'd love to watch it.

Cheers, I'd be delighted! If you go to the leaderboard, click R to switch to friends high score list, then you can click on my name to download the replay. There's an on screen prompt. At my funeral  I'll just ask them to play the vid and then catapult my body at the side of a cliff.

remedial_gash

Quote from: greenman on July 14, 2018, 03:06:01 AM
The biggest issue many have I'd guess is that such games don't have a skill set that's so easily transferable from one to another, you get good at one Cave game you get good at them all. Again though I find the limitations of small movements though clouds of bullets and overpowered weaponry that doesn't need to be aimed/timed very well rather dull.

No, I couldn't disagree with you more on that - can anyone off the top of their head explain the scoring mechanics of mushihimesama? And the later don pachi games are rubbish, the earlier chaining mechanic was perfected in dai ou jou - daifukkatsu is rubbish. No power ups, turning on the powerful mode at the touch of a button, it doesn't have the risk/reward system of saving up the medals hanging out of your arse like a goldfish until you decide to unleash hell.

Sorry, I am agreeing with you to certain extent and think later cave stuff can be a bit shit but up to 1998 they were great.