(Note: This was written months ago, but never finished and published. I figured considering this happened almost 6 months ago, it was about time to finish it.)



Well, as you might be able top figure out from my title, I finally finished the shmup classic Ikaruga tonight. After months of playing, I've finally managed to somehow shoot, dodge, and holyshitididntdiethattime my way through five levels of absolute hell/bliss. More so than other games, I actually felt proud of myself for being able to complete Ikaruga than I did any other game in a long time. Each of the levels had a completely different feel and style behind them, which I only realized months later (almost 6 months after beating the game. Yes, procrastination, I know.). Each stage began to evoke different emotions when I would think more and more about them. Now, to be fair, I don't know what the text says in the game. I played a Japanese Dreamcast version of Ikaruga, and never understood what the text said. But I honestly prefer it that way, it allows me to interpret the game as I feel, not bound by what the text dictates, it allows me to open up my mind a bit more and think.



Imagine, if you will, the first stage in Ikaruga. If, for some reason you've never played the game, view the video above (You'd be surprised how hard it was to find a video with someone that moved slow enough for someone to tell what was going on if they've never played the game before). Think of the way and order in which the black and white ships show themselves. It's a very simple, calming, left to right motion. For me, the first stage is calming, at least as calming as a shmup can be. After playing the game so many times, the mixture of easy, simple, movement from left to right combined with the obvious familiarity of the stage make it feel like it's not even a stage, and I don't mean that in a cocky, "I'm so fucking amazing at this game haw haw haw" way, because I'm not. For a starting level in a shmup, the level has an amazing difficulty curve, but due to the points system, you can practically make the level, and respectively, the entire game, as hard as you'd like it to be.

Part 2, coming soon. Hopefully much sooner than the amount of time it took to write this, at least.