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Sometimes, the quirks and
innovations Treasure brings to a genre of games are welcome...
and sometimes, they're not. Take, for example, the
Genesis classic Gunstar Heroes. It was a brilliant
evolution of the play mechanics in Contra, with close-quarters
fighting and weapon combinations that made the game a whole
lot of rock 'em, sock 'em fun. On the other hand, Light
Crusader was a complete failure as an RPG... the isometric
round designs were confusing, and you could actually push
non-player characters around the screen as if they were
inanimate blocks!
 Well, I'm happy to say that in the case of Radiant
Silvergun, Treasure's unique approach to game design paid off
in a big way. Radiant Silvergun is so inspired and
innovative that it revived the shooter genre, which had been
dormant for years after players had been subjected to one too
many generic Raiden clones.
Radiant Silvergun is perhaps the
most complete vertically scrolling shooter ever made. It
offers players a wide selection of powerful weapons right from
the beginning, and even lets them create hybrid firearms by
holding down combinations of buttons. Each attack is
best suited to different situations, but because you're given
them all at once, you'll never be stuck with the wrong weapon
at the wrong time.
This leads us to the game's
ultimate weapon, the Radiant Silversword. Unlike other
shooters, which give you a handful of screen-clearing bombs
which quickly become a crutch in tough situations, RS forces
you to work for your way out. You'll notice that some
enemies attack with globular pink bullets. These are
every bit as deadly as the other shots they'll throw at you,
but they can be put to good use... catch them with your ship's
plasma sword and you'll store their energy in a gauge at the
top of the screen. Once the gauge is full, pressing the
sword button unleashes a devastating sword clap that cuts
through enemies like a sharp blade through butter. It
won't just blow away the bad guys, either... the first time
you see this spectacular attack, your jaw with drop through
the floor and land in the basement of your house!
 Perhaps the best of the many great things about
Radiant Silvergun is that the rounds are imaginatively
designed. The game's constant rain of bullets will keep
you on your toes, but you'll rarely be left without a way to
survive the assault. In addition to that, the enemies
never run out of ways to attack you... if taking potshots at
you from behind the safety of a protective laser wall doesn't
work, they'll try launching dozens of enormous missiles at
you, or sending you to a virtual world to face off against a
battleship constructed entirely of vector graphics.
It's hard enough just to survive
in Radiant Silvergun, but if you want even more of a
challenge, it's there for you. You can try hitting
chains of like-colored enemies to amass huge bonuses, or use
your homing laser to uncover digital dogs hidden throughout
each stage. There are even rewards for sticking with the
same weapon and flying dangerously close to walls. Sure,
it'll ruin your paint job, but your score will go through the
roof!
Radiant Silvergun never fails to
surpass your expectations. You'll not only be amazed by
what Treasure has done with the Saturn's hardware, but by how
far they've expanded the once rigid boundaries that define
shooters. |
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Radiant
Silvergun
ESP/Treasure
Vertically Scrolling
Shooter
Having trouble beating the Saturn
mode? Keep playing to unlock more credits... every hour
is worth another quarter in your pocket.
The plot and (sometimes spoken)
dialogue is in Japanese, but everything else is in
English.
It takes about five seconds to
load each stage... but those stages are pretty
long.
The Dreamcast, GameCube, and Xbox
360 release Ikaruga was originally titled RS Project 2,
suggesting that the game was designed as a sequel to Radiant
Silvergun.
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