Thomas Wilde reports:
''The thing about Ikaruga that's hard to get when you first see it is how deep it is.
On the surface, it's a relatively short, extremely challenging shoot-'em-up, and is one of the last of its kind to have anything resembling a high concept. Most of the schmup genre these days are content to be purely based around bullet hell, where you're constantly ducking and weaving to try and find that one decimillimeter of screen space that isn't currently occupied by an enemy bullet. They're reflex tests for the obsessed and the young.
Ikaruga, conversely, is a puzzle game, albeit one in a weird sort of way. Your ship is always surrounded by a shield that's either white or black, and with a touch of a button, you can change its color. All the bullets, beams, and lasers that are fired at you throughout the game are either white or black, and your shields can absorb any bullet that strikes it as long as it's of the same color the shield is. Absorbing bullets is how you charge the game's "bomb," a series of homing lasers that can sweep the screen clear.''
