|¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯| ||¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯|| || |¯¯/ || || __.____/'\. | | ________/¯\_ || || '--- .---' | | '--'\ ,-----' || || | | ----' '-'¯¯'.| | || || | | '----'\ ,'¯ | | || || | |,.\'. | | | | || || ,--' '' \\ '.| ,'___| | ,-. || || ¯¯' '¯¯' '. '(___ ¯ \ || || | | ) ' | |¯¯¯¯ || || | | _. / , \ | | || || | '.'_//,' \ \ | | || || .-'¯ .,-',',' \,' | | _ || || \_.'¯ ,',' _____,| |_/ '. || || /,' (______________| || ||________________________________|| |,--------------------------------.| || ,--. || || |'¯' ,-._| ,/___,-. || || | | | ,-------. .' || || __| |_,. | '-------' | || || (__, ,_ ) | .-------. | || || | /| | | '-------' | || || | || | | ,-------.,',. || || | /| | ,.| '---------' ' || || / | | |.||| (¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯,¯.¯ || || ,' / | '_/| ) .¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯. .' || || / / \___/ ¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯/ | || || / / .- /\ ¯¯\ \¯\ | | || || /,' )| | \ \_\ ¯¯ / / || || ' ,' / |_| ,---' / || || ¯ ¯¯'._,' || ||________________________________|| |__________________________________| I K A R U G A Treasure/Infrogames/Nintendo Nintendo Gamecube FAQ/Walkthrough Created By: BlueWizard13 E-mail: BlueWzrd13@aol.com Version 1.3 8/14/03 ======================= ---Table Of Contents--- ======================= 1. Version History 2. Game Information 3. Introduction 4. Game Basics A. Controls B. Polarity Changing C. Power Gauge D. Chains E. Strategies/Tactics F. Battle Ranking 5. Game Modes A. Difficulties B. Start C. Practice D. Conquest E. Challenge 6. Storyline 7. Walkthrough A. Chapter 01: Ideal a. Stage 1-1 b. Stage 1-2 c. Stage 1-3 d. Stage 1-4 e. Stage 1-5 B. Chapter 02: Trial a. Stage 2-1 b. Stage 2-2 c. Stage 2-3 C. Chapter 03: Faith a. Stage 3-1 b. Stage 3-2 c. Stage 3-3 D. Chapter 04: Reality a. Stage 4-1 b. Stage 4-2 c. Stage 4-3 d. Stage 4-4 E. Final Chapter: Metempsychosis a. Stage 5-1 b. Stage 5-2 c. Stage 5-3 8. Boss Guide 9. Enemies 10. Secrets/Unlocks 11. Frequently Asked Questions 12. In-Game Texts and Voices A. In-Game Texts B. Removed Texts C. Voice Translations 13. Credits 14. Copyright Information ======================== ---1. Version History--- ======================== Ver. 1.3 (8/14/03)- Out of my interest in yet bettering the FAQ I am still thinking of things to add, and hence this version of the FAQ has come. I've added an entire In-game Text and Voice section for those interested in what all of the texts in the game and what that voice actually says at certain parts of the game, however, due to time constraints, I was unable to finish this section. I updated the FAQ to add my first ASCII art to the top of the page (not bad for my first time I don't think!) and added the Voice that talks at the end of the Final Chapter contributed to me by Khaascp. **I'm still looking for Max Chains for each stage, Rank score requirements, Enemy names that I couldn't find, and extra questions for my Frequently Asked Questions section if you think I need to add some. If someone could contribute these or anything else I may need to improve my FAQ, I would greatly appreciate it and add you to the credits.** Ver. 1.2 (7/17/03)- I've finished the Walkthrough section, added the names to the boss sections and finished it, put in the sound test menu by the unlock, and put in questions and answers for the Frequently Asked Questions section. Although the guide itself is finished, It would still be nice to put in some extra information such as max chains, ranks score requirements, etc. see just below for list. **I still need Max Chains for each stage, Rank Score Requirements, Enemy names that I couldn't find, extra questions for my Frequently Asked Questions part of the guide if you have them, even some in-game texts that the robot-voice says or that appear in other versions that I may have missed. If someone could contribute these or anything else I may need to improve my FAQ, I would greatly appreciate it and add you to the Credits.** Ver. 1.1 (6/16/03)- Big update on stuff. I finished the Secrets/Unlocks section, continued the Boss Guide, added some information on Chaining, added a short section in Game Basics for Battle Ranking, added some story into each chapter that was removed from the Gamecube English version that I found at http://www.ikaruga-atari.net/en/stage.html, added an enemies section because I found the names of some of them where I found the story, changed some parts of chapter 01's walkthrough to appeal to those looking for higher chains more, and continued in the Walkthrough section through chapter 02. Ver. 1.0 (6/11/03)- First version of FAQ/Walkthrough. Table of Contents, Version History, Game Information, Introduction, Game Basics, Game Modes, Storyline, Chapter 01 boss in Boss guide, "Bullet Eater" in Secrets/Unlocks, and Chapter 01 walkthrough completed. More versions coming to complete the rest of the guide. ========================= ---2. Game Information--- ========================= Title: Ikaruga Genre: Shooting (Action) Platforms: Arcade, Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo Gamecube Players: 1 or 2 players Co-op Memory Card Blocks: 4 Designed By: Treasure Published By: Infrogames Released: Japan- 1/16/2003, N America- 4/16/2003, Europe- 5/23/2003 ===================== ---3. Introduction--- ===================== Ikaruga has previously been released as an arcade game and on the Sega Dreamcast in Japan. Old shooter fans will be delighted with this work of art. This game combines the old 2d overhead shooter idea with a new idea of ship polarity. This game offers 5 levels, but they are enough to keep you wanting to play more and more. It has three difficulties that offer slightly different gameplay. I will warn though that this game is HARD! When I say it's hard, I mean it. It will take you a while to get used to the idea of polarity not used in any former games of this genre. But once you get the hang of it, you'll keep playing and want to unlock the other options this game has to offer. This guide is meant to help you in your gameplay of Ikaruga with strategy, tactics, and the ways to defeat the different bosses along with answering some of those questions you have. Although this game has been made for other platforms, this FAQ focuses on the Gamecube version, controls, and information. However, this guide could still be used as a resource for help in any area of the game on another platform. Note: When this game was ported over to the Gamecube, then to the English version, a lot of the in-game text became difficult to read and/or just not translated. So, a lot of the in-game text you see in the other versions of this game is not in this version. ==================== ---4. Game Basics--- ==================== ---A. Controls--- One of the many good things about this game is that the controls are actually quite simple, the default (and most common) controls are listed below. However, you can change them to your liking in the options menu. Control Pad/Stick- Move Fighter/ Highlight selections in menu A Button- Change Polarity (White/Black)/ Confirm selection in menu B Button- Fire (hold for rapid fire)/Go to previous menu Z Button- Hide/Display Chain Status R Button- Unleash Energy Charge Start/Pause- Pause Game ---B. Polarity Changing--- One of the things that make this game unique to distinguish it between its classic cousins is its use of polarity. Your polarity, in this game, can be either white (with a blue shine, but it's known as white) or black (with a red shine, but it's known as black. When your polarity is white (and it will be evident in your shield and ship which you are), you can absorb white bullets from enemies and they will transfer power into a power gauge to the side of the screen. When you are white, you also do double damage to black ships and take double points for destroying it. This can give you quite an advantage when you are fighting a difficult enemy to be of the opposite polarity. When your polarity is black, you can absorb black bullets, do double damage to white, and take double points from destroying them. It is the same as white, just opposite. You must change your polarity in this game for many reasons. At times there will be huge amounts of black or white bullets around and are nearly impossible to dodge, but are very few of the opposite polarity. In this case you would have to change in order to continue. The bullets will be absorbed and you can move on. Changing your polarity at the right time will be a skill the comes with playing as in several levels, you have to be quick to change your polarity when waves of certain colors are coming at you. NOTE: You also score points from absorbing bullets. ---C. Power Gauge--- Your power gauge is located on the side of your screen (left if you are first player or playing alone, right if you are second player). However, when you are playing on either vertical 1 or vertical 2 for a monitor selection, it is located in the playing area on the side of your screen (or if you are playing on a vertical monitor, the bottom, just in the playing area). The power gauge is very useful and should be something that you keep an eye on while playing. Every time you absorb a bullet of the same polarity, a little is added to the power gauge. At any time above one square full, you can use your energy release with the R button. Every ten bullets you absorb, one square is filled, and for each square filled, one homing missile is fired when you use the energy release. Each missile is ten times more powerful than a regular shot, so these are quite helpful in tough areas or against tough bosses. You can release up to twelve missiles when the energy gauge is full. ---D. Chains--- Chains are scored when you destroy three fighters of the same polarity in a row. For this, you are awarded 100 points. Every time you get another chain after that without breaking it by destroying a ship of another polarity in the middle of one (i.e. black + black + white), you double the bonus. An in-game voice will count the number of chain bonuses in a row you have so far. Your chain counter can be displayed under your chain status by pressing the Z button which toggles it on and off. The chain scores go as follows. 1 Chain ---- 100 points 2 Chains --- 200 points 3 Chains --- 400 points 4 Chains --- 800 points 5 Chains --- 1,600 points 6 Chains --- 3,200 points 7 Chains --- 6,400 points 8 Chains --- 12,800 points Max Chain - 25,600 points After you reach a max chain, every chain from there forward is counted again as 25,600 points until the chain is broken. When the chain is broken, the bonus point value is reset to 100 again. Although this is one of the most difficult parts of the game to master, it is also one of the most important for scoring very high and getting high Battle Rankings. There are a maximum amount of possible chains each Chapter and if you can master these chains, you can get much higher in the Battle Ranking and rack up much higher scores to send in for Arcade Mode. --- E. Strategies/Tactics--- There are many strategies you can use to help you advance through this game that take some time to work on, but when you get them all down, you will become quite good at this game. Bullet Absorbing This strategy is simple. When there are bullets coming at you of a certain polarity, you can switch to that one and absorb them and add the power to your Power Gauge. This builds up power to later be released, and it allows you to pass freely through the area of bullets. However, this should be used with caution in the normal and hard modes because enemies fire back when you destroy them. "Grazing" Many people call this technique grazing. When a bullet comes near you, for it to destroy you, it has to hit the main part of your ship. It will not destroy you if it simply penetrates your shield or wing, but it must actually hit the cab part of the fighter. This can come in handy when you are trying to dodge many bullets that are close together. Chaining As explained above, this can rack up points pretty fast. When you get good at this game, try to pay attention to what you destroy and when. If you do this, you can manage to rack up many chains of points in a row to build up a huge score if that's what you're looking for. This will allow for extra lives, a place on the top score list, and bragging rights to your friends and the score you achieved. Single Shots If you just tap the B button (or other fire button if you've assigned a new one), you will release just one bullet. This can be used for precision when you are trying to keep a chain going for higher points. It can be very useful. ---F. Battle Ranking--- After each chapter, you are shown a screen that gives you your score, max chain amount, and your Battle Rank. The battle ranks are as follows. Lowest ------------------------------- Highest C C+ C++ B B+ B++ A A+ A++ S S+ S++ To reach much of anything above a B, you must not only destroy the boss and mini-bosses, but also obtain a good amount of chains through the level. This will raise your score and bring you much higher rankings. I am not completely sure what score will take you to a certain rank on each chapter, however, I do know that by chaining, you will reach a higher score which will get you your higher battle rank. If someone would like to contribute what scores will give you what ranks on each chapter, I would greatly appreciate it and would obviously put you in the credits. =================== ---5. Game Modes--- =================== ---A. Difficulties--- In many games, different difficulties just mean that some enemies are harder to destroy or there are more of them. This game puts a whole new meaning to difficulty selection. Easy: No enemies fire back at you when you destroy them, some bosses and enemies have less life, and less bullets are released for you to dodge in many cases. Normal: Enemies of your current polarity will fire back at you when you destroy them. You can absorb these bullets for energy as an advantage, but when you need to switch polarity quickly, this can get in the way. Some bosses and enemies have slightly more health, more bullets are released in many cases, and some bosses are made more difficult with what and when they are releasing bullets. Hard: Enemies of both polarities will fir back at you when you destroy them. This causes great difficulty when trying to switch polarities quickly to get by something and trying to survive period. Some bosses and enemies have extra health, more bullets are released during bosses and in many other cases, and some bosses are made more difficult with what and when they are releasing bullets. ---B. Start--- This is the first selection on the menu. By selecting this, a normal or trial game is allowed for playing (if trial is turned on in options). You can select your difficulty (if it is not already preset in the options menu) then whether you want a normal or trial game. A normal game is the full game that gives you all five chapters of play. A trial game gives only 2 chapters of play. ---C. Practice--- This menu shows a list of each of the five chapters on each of the three difficulties. The only ones you can enter, however, are the ones that are shown in white instead of gray. To unlock a chapter for practice, you must reach it without continuing. For example, if you reach the beginning of level three without continuing but die at the very beginning, that entire chapter is still opened up for practice on whatever difficulty you played on. ---D. Conquest--- This works much the same way that Practice mode did, except it allows you to fine-tune your skills using specific stages in each chapter. Chapters 1 through 3 are listed on the first page, clicking next will take you to the second page where chapters 4 and 5 are located. To unlock a stage, you must simply reach the chapter that the stage is in without continuing on any difficulty. So if you are on easy and you reach chapter 4 without continuing but die in stage 2, everything up until chapter five is opened up including the stages you didn't reach without continuing in chapter 4. When you select a stage to practice, it brings up a menu asking whether you want a Demo Play, Slow Play, or Normal Play. Selecting demo play will allow you to see a perfect way of playing the stage on normal. It shows it to you in the same speed as slow play (half normal speed). This can be quite handy in helping you develop better methods of doing things in stages that you are having trouble on. When you view the demo on a level in different monitor settings, you also get different demos. Horizontal 1- Beginning tactics, helpful things just to keep you alive Horizontal 2- Basic play, just slightly more advanced Horizontal 3- This will show you advanced tactics including the Bullet Eater challenge in some cases, and always shows you great chain runs when the bullet eater is not going Vertical 1 or 2- Increased difficulty in some areas When you select slow play, it allows you to play the stage in slow motion. This can help you get the rhythm down for what you need to do to get by without dying. Normal play allows you to play the stage completely normal. You have unlimited credits and can play the stage as you want for practice. This is quite helpful in developing skills to get past the difficult parts of the game without dying. ---E. Challenge--- There are two options in this section. These just offer extended gameplay and fun aside from the typical game. The first is Arcade. This option is here when you buy the game. You enter this mode and start with 3 lives, your first being the one you are using. You also have no credits and are on the Normal difficulty. You begin at the start of the game and just go for as long as you can without losing your two lives. You rack up as many points as you can, and when you finally die (or finish), it gives you a unique password. This password can be entered at www.ikaruga-atari.net as long as you have a name registered in the site. It then goes on an international standings list with other people who have played and entered their score online. The second option is called Prototype Mode. It is unlocked after playing the game for 20 hours or more, or beating Normal mode without continuing. This option allows you to play the game as it was in the early stages of its design. The only difference is that you have a limited number of shots that you can fire. If you select Easy, you get 500 bullets, Normal and you get 300 bullets, on Hard you get 100 bullets to start with. Every time you absorb a bullet, one more is added to your bullet count which can reach a maximum of 999 bullets. To fire an energy release, it costs 120 bullets. When your reserves run out, you can fire a short-range blank shot which is only effective at very close range. ================== ---6. Storyline--- ================== The storyline is not very deep by any means, however, not much storyline is needed for a game like this. The actual story is located on page 6 in your instruction booklet, but I will summarize it for you here. Several years ago in an island nation known as Horai, a powerful man named Tenro Horai found buried the Power of the Gods known as Ubusunagami Okinokai. From this, he recovered great powers and set off with his followers who called themselves the "Divine Ones" and began to conquer other nations. They told people they were "The Chosen People" and they carried out their duties in "the name of peace." After a while, a group known as Tenkaku developed to challenge the Horai. They fought and fought but lost battle after battle and were almost entirely wiped out. Only one man survived, and his name was Shinra. He set off again but was shot down and landed in a village known as Ikaruga. The inhabitants were sent into exile because of Horai's conquests and were sympathetic to his cause. They nursed him back to health and gave him a ship they developed known as the Ikaruga. Kagari, Shinra's new partner, was once a Horai assassin sent to kill Shinra. He was shot down but Shinra rescued him and saved his life. From then on, Kagari has fought with Shinra flying the Ginkei, modified by the Ikaruga people to be like the Ikaruga fighting plane, to help him defeat Horai and save the world. ==================== ---7. Walkthrough--- ==================== Finally to the part that you've all probably come to see this guide for. This section will guide you through each chapter and stage and give strategies to succeeding in them. Although the game does not show that it's switching stages, it is split into them in conquest mode and advertises it on the back of the game box. It is also much easier to cover them in detail by splitting them in a guide, so that is why I have them split even though you do not see it in the game that the stage has switched. I found the storyline that was removed from the Gamecube English version at http://www.ikaruga-atari.net/en/stage.html, so I added it before each chapter. Although I have also found the correct enemy names, because they were removed from this version, most people reading this do not know them. I will still refer to each enemy in this walkthrough by their description instead of making it difficult on people by using their correct names. I know there is a maximum number of chains possible in each stage, but I haven't yet got time to figure out what each is. If someone would like to contribute these, I would be more than happy to put them in the guide and add you to the credits if they are correct. However, if I find reason to believe they are incorrect, I will be more hesitant putting them up. ---A. Chapter 01: Ideal--- Ikaruga are on an eternal journey... They have been expelled from this world... what drives them in the pursuit of hope? It is only their backbone as a survivor. -Story- Horai, fearing "Ikaruga" who rivaled the Butsutekkai of Asami in the trial flight, lays siege to the transfer equipment "Fudo-myoo's Sward". Shinra and his fellows decide to make a sally and start a counterattack. ---a. Stage 1-1 When you begin this stage, you have a cutscene where Shinra's (and if you're playing 2 player, Kagari's) ship coming out of a larger ship called the Sword of Acala. You see it launch off, then it goes into an overhead mode which is where you begin play. Enemies start off coming from the right side, then left, and they continue alternating like this for a little while. Just hold your button down and shoot them moving to their side as you do to build up chains. After this, some guys will come from the top of both polarities. Shoot them all by going back and forth around the screen, then shoot the next guys that come up and you're done with stage 1. None of the guys in this stage shoot, so it's pretty simple. Just be careful what and when you shoot things so that you can maintain a chain throughout this stage. When you complete it, it shows you the Chapter Title in a short cutscene of the ship, and you begin play again in stage 1-2. ---b. Stage 1-2 When this stage begins, six guys of each polarity will go across the screen in groups of three. They, again, will not shoot, but the next guys do. More of the same guys will come to the top of the screen and start shooting if you do not kill them fast enough, still pretty easy, just fire at them and they'll die. Now they'll come across the screen firing at you, both polarities. If you don't kill them on their way across, they go back to the other side still firing. Just kill them all, if you let a few by, its not a big deal. Remember to dodge the shots of the opposite polarity though and if you're looking for chains, be careful what you shoot and when, this is the easiest chapter to maintain a chain on. ---c. Stage 1-3 Right away, some little guys from the left come, followed by some black ones on the right. Kill them, they don't fire, then move ahead to a large group that forms at the top of the screen. These ones will rotate around each other and fire at you. Their shots are easy to dodge, fire at them as you move across the screen unless you are keeping a chain going. In this case, I recommend not killing them all as it is extremely difficult to kill them all without screwing up your chain. Kill a few of them with precision single shots, and leave it at that, you'll have a higher score in the end unless you can manage to kill them all without messing up your chain. From here, move on to some more little ones. They are immediately followed by one large black and one large white enemy. These guys will fire groups of shots at you in a spread fashion. Dodge these while firing at the one opposite of the polarity you are. They also let out streams of their color, just get out of the way or switch to that polarity to avoid getting hurt by them. Go back and forth between the two of them for a while until they are finally dead and gone. This will put an end to stage 1-3. ---d. Stage 1-4 This section starts with a group of 3 black followed by 2 white enemies that fire at you. Be quick to dodge their shots, you probably won't kill them all, but that's alright. Directly after them is a large white bot that fires a powerful white beam. I recommend filling your energy bar with this beam then killing the enemy. Stay in the middle then because if you kill him, a group of guys will circle you, keep your fire going and kill them all. They are followed by two large enemies of each polarity on both sides of the screen. Start with the white one on the right. Switch to black and kill him off. As you go above the black one coming at you from the left, kill the small ships coming down in two rows from the middle top. Rotate around under the black one and turn white to get double damage destroying the black one. While you are doing this, another white ship will come down on the left. Repeat the same thing killing the small ships from the top as you go over the white one, stay white until you get past his fire and go black to kill him while another black one comes down. If you are looking to maintain a chain, I recommend trying to ignore the middle guys, and just focus on the big guys and their side shooters. These can rack up nice chains because each side shooter (and there are several on each bot) will give you another kill going towards a chain. When they are gone, you have completed this stage with a nice "Warning: No Refuge" sign to greet you in to stage 1-5. ---e. Stage 1-5 This stage begins with a "Warning: No Refuge" sign and the in-game voice babbling something hard to understand. The boss comes down from the top of the screen. His first attack will be his white sword. It will come about half way down the screen, so stay back and make sure you're polarity is white. He will fire out many white bullets with a few black ones from things on the sides. Just stay right under his sword dodging the black bullets and keep firing at the sword until it's gone. He then pulls out his black shield. Make your polarity black. He will start firing a wall of black bullets out along with a few white ones from the sides of the screen. Keep firing at his shield dodging the white bullets until the shield is gone. He will then start laying out little grenades of the two polarities starting with white. Stay black and fire at him, unleash any energy you have too, until his white grenades blow up. Turn white then black again because it does more damage to him and his next grenades are black. Keep doing this until he quits dropping grenades and turn white. He will shoot out large balls of energy that are white. Absorb these and fire them back at him in energy unleashes. When he is done doing this, he'll go back to his grenade dropping. Continue this until he is dead. It will then give you your battle statistics and move on to the next chapter. ---B. Chapter 02: Trial--- The harder his will is, the more trials he faces. You can evade trials or run away from them. The true meaning of trials is to overcome such weakness in your heart. -Story- "Country of Agi", which used to oppose Horai, have been defeated and is now under their control. Shinra and his fellows make a surprise attack on an underground military foothold, which is under construction, in order to recapture the Country of Agi. ---a. Stage 2-1 This starts off with some of the round guys coming down from the top. Start from the right with the white ones, then move left to the black ones. Chaining is not too difficult here, just stay close to them and avoid hitting the other color when shooting one. When these are gone, the triangular planes come in from both sides at the top and circle to the bottom and back around. This is very hard to chain in, I recommend staying in the middle as one color and just avoiding the other color while continually shooting at all of the guys circling around you. This goes on for about a minute of circling. When they are gone, some black guys on the left and white on the right come in and stay there without shooting, they are easy to kill for a chain. Some guys at the top will also come in and shoot a white beam down, you can kill them if you want, or leave them for later. Stay in the middle now and toward the bottom because two lines of ships will come in of one polarity for a while, then switch to the other. They cross each other toward the bottom, if you hit them at the bottom, you can kill them both at the same time and manage to get good chains from this part. When they are gone, some white guys will come in on the side, kill them all using your energy unleash to keep a chain going if you've got one, then this stage is over. ---b. Stage 2-2 When you begin this very lengthy stage, you fire off from the chapter 02: Trial title screen. Immediately, you are circled by three rows of the round, one-hit-kill guys that alternate in polarity. If you are big into chains, precision hit them with single shots to get them to build your chain up, when you finally kill them all, you probably won't have another group of guys coming at you and will instead face the next challenge. However, if you are just in for the survival now and want to kill them all fast, do so, but you'll have another group of guys to fight as well. There will be groups of single polarities coming at you in a circle around you. Slip by each group to the bottom and kill them all as you go. Just keep away from them and shoot them as they come to the center, its not too tough. Now you'll enter your first "obstacle course." You start with five rows of boxes. The first is stationary, kill one of the boxes and go by. The next has boxes going from right to left, kill one or ease your way by to the following row of stationary boxes. Kill a box there, another side to side row, then a stationary row. Easy, just kill a box and make your way by. The next row has two black boxes, the rest red that you can't destroy. Turn black so you're not damaged by the black bullets and destroy a box, but immediately turn white because a white box behind the black one shoots white. Kill the black enemies that come your way and don't shoot. Kill this entire row of white boxes, turn black, the unleash everything when the door opens so you can kill the white box coming at you and the 2 white boxes on both sides. NOTE: In the section of stage 2-2 covered just above, it is possible to squeeze between the boxes. You must be exactly between them and you can go through the rows of boxes without shooting. It is using this method that you can get the Dot Eater! Rank on this chapter. Now, pick a side. There are six rows of alternating colors of fire that you'll have to adapt to while guys come down your side as well. Just keep firing and always be the polarity of the next box shooter's fire is. I recommend filling your Power Gauge in here because you'll need it in the next section. Keep inching your way down the six shooters, and at the end there's a machine that spits out little guys. They go down to the center row and continue down that way. You can go into the middle, kill the guys for chains, and squeeze between them to enter the next section after the door opens. Or, you can kill the machine shooting the guys out on either side, or just one, and get your way by on the emphasis of survival only. After you go through the closed door, you reach an area with boxes on the sides that shoot out lines of fire in alternating colors. Keep inching your way through here killing the guys that come through the middle but don't fire. You have to change your polarity to keep alive through the lines of fire, just go forward and backward in this section to make sure only one polarity touches you at a time. When you get in this area, just past the first box a large white enemy on the right will come across to shoot a white beam at you. I recommend turning black and destroying this enemy with an energy unleash because he won't fire back at you with the opposite polarity (if you are playing normal or easy) and you do more damage to him. Just past the next row of boxes, a large guy on either side of you will show up, both are black. They will fire black beams at you but won't go into the center, just stay on their sides. You can ignore them to stay alive, or you can go over to absorb their energy when you can and destroy them with your energy unleash. Either way is fine. Advance from here still absorbing the lines of energy coming at you and just past the next set of boxes is a large black enemy on the left that comes to the center firing a black beam at you. Absorb some of his energy, turn white if you can and destroy him. Otherwise just wait until he hits the center and he'll go away. Now you enter the next section of this obstacle course in stage 2-2. You can choose either side here, but I will walk you through the left side as it is the one I always choose. It is just opposite when you go to the right side. Turn black and kill the enemies you see on the left side, and absorb the remaining lines of fire at you from the bottom. Turn white and destroy the 6 black boxes that block your way into the left side. Enter to find a white box firing out white bullets in lines. Inch by it and go directly to the upper left side of the box above it to destroy 6 more black enemies that come in from the left. When you get a chance, turn black quickly and get through the line of black fire, then turn white again so you can avoid dying from the fire of the white box just above this black line. Go past this white box to destroy 6 more black boxes that block your exit. Then kill 3 shooters on the left firing out white enemies, then if you want, the 3 shooters on the right firing out black enemies. Stay in the small opening in the wall and kill all of the enemies that are circling above the entrance, then go through this opening when they are gone. Now, 2 large enemies enter the screen, the left one black and the right one white. I recommend first focusing on the black enemy and destroying him with your polarity white. This way, the beam that the right one fires, you can absorb and can kill the black enemy at the same time. When you destroy it, another one will come up. Destroy it as well. Then, you probably still have time. If you are brave, turn black past the white beam coming at you and destroy the white one that way, if you are not brave yet, stay white and hope you destroy the white enemy on the right. However, don't use the energy you've accumulated in this area, you'll need it for the boss that comes soon. When you destroy these enemies, rows and rows of enemies from the top will appear and make their way down the screen. They are the small ones and don't fire at you. This section will be extremely hard to maintain a chain in, but if you think you can do it, try to fire precision shots at the alternating enemies and be sure not to hit the rows behind where you're firing. If you are not looking for chains, kill them all by going back and forth on the screen. When they are all gone, you will enter stage 2-3. ---c. Stage 2-3 A boss alarm will greet you to the second boss you have met in this game. He appears from the top and look rather intimidating, but is not all too difficult. When you begin fighting this boss, you should probably have a full Power Gauge because of all of the things previously in this level to fill it up. If you don't, it's no big deal, just continue the battle as normal. To begin, start with the left/white side and make your polarity white to fire at the red cap guarding his weak point. This should open the cap all of the way after a small time shooting it, then turn black and unleash any energy you might have. Get in there quickly, dodging any bullets that might be coming your way from the guns above, and shoot at the white weak point while in the black polarity because it does double damage. You might be able to destroy it before he starts to attack, if not, back out and absorb his attacks. His attacks will begin with white spread from the left side, then a black one from the right, another from the left, and another from the right. Switch your polarity for each to stay alive. After this, stay down, don't attack yet. Go to the left side of the screen with your polarity white and absorb his flood of white bullets. When he starts with his black ones, go black and move all the way right absorbing these. When those are done, turn white and go back to the left side, then go back to the right as black when that is done. Unleash anything you may have as the opposite polarity of the weak point you are shooting at and by now the white weak point should be gone. If it's not, keep going, otherwise, move on to the black side. Shoot at the cap with black until its out all the way, unleash anything you may have as white, then go in there and start shooting at it with white while still dodging his bullets from above. Many people will be able to kill him before he continues shooting, but if not, here's how to get by his next section of attacks. His next attacks will start from the left with a few lines of white bullets. Be white for this and move left. When those are gone, go black and go to the right through the black bullets. Go left through the white after this, then right through the black again. Now he will shoot both at the same time. On easy, you can go to a bottom corner of the screen and turn the opposite polarity of the shooter closest to you to absorb the other side's bullets that will hit you, however, on normal and hard a laser from above will destroy you here. On normal and hard, do your best to stay close to one of them being that color, then as soon as you can, move up and back in the opposite color to stay alive through that. When all of this is done, open up the side you have left and unleash what you've got on it as the opposite polarity. From here, just go in and shoot away at it with the opposite polarity while dodging the bullets from above. He should die. If not, he'll repeat his first set of attacks, then the second set, and the time will run out if you haven't killed him by then. When you finally destroy him, your Battle Results will come up and tell you how you did and enter you into chapter 03. ---C. Chapter 03: Faith--- There is nothing absolute in this world. You may sometimes be at a loss knowing that this world is unreasonable. To break the impasse, you must hold an unshakable belief and insight as well as a certain amount of vitality. -Story- The military situation is very uncertain. Shinra and his fellows manage to infiltrate the "Country of Horai" so as to avoid perishing in an attrition war. They reach the border and see a fortified artificial ravine. ---a. Stage 3-1 This chapter starts with some ships of each polarity coming down the sides. Switch back and forth and try to kill them off. If you go fast enough back and forth, you can get them all, and you will be able to keep a relatively easy chain for a few seconds. The guys on the sides that you don't get will crash into the wall at the horizontal level you are at, so make sure you go up and down periodically to dodge the ones you let by. As these continue down the sides, there will also be rotating enemies in the center of both polarities, when it reaches this point it will be quite difficult to maintain a chain. Continue going back and forth until the enemies stop coming and a large machine comes down the left side. There will be several of these in this stage, they fire black beams on the left and right sides, and white beams from the top and bottom. Here, you'll want to be black and wait until it goes low enough for you to get to the left of the screen and get by it. Unleash whatever you've got to kill the three black shooters, and enter the white beam. You can kill the enemies on the right quick, or stay where you are and kill the 6 guys (3 of each polarity) that come from the far left bottom of the screen and circle up and back down. Then enter the white beam to the left and unleash whatever you've got to kill what's up ahead to allow easier access into this area. When you get a chance, turn black and go by the black beam on the left and continue upward past the new machine. Enter its white beam as it makes its way right, then go left to the other white beam when you get a chance and continue upward. From here there are two things you can do. You can go left through the white beam, turn black and go up and fit yourself between the two at the very left of the screen, you won't get damaged between them, then turn white while the two beams go together. Or, you can stay on the right and kill the guys that come from the far bottom right. Then make your way past the right black beam and into where the two white beams collide. From there, head all the way right quickly and go above the right black beam. Kill the black shooters on the right side then unleash to kill some whites on the left and the enemies in the middle, there are several so unleash whenever you can. Then just avoid go where ever needed to survive the beams of the machine, and make your way through the entrance at the top when you can. You see some enemies in the background, but just fit yourself in the center of them. Let these enemies circle you while you shoot at them as they go around, or single shoot to try to maintain a chain, either way is perfectly safe. This ends stage 3-1. ---b. Stage 3-2 After the title screen passes, you meet three large white enemies on either side, followed by three black enemies on either side, then followed by alternating polarities of guys 3 on either side. These enemies will go to the bottom, then wing up to the center firing at you and go back down the other side. Try to be the opposite polarity of whatever you're firing at in this one, you can usually get the enemy destroyed before it gets to where you are firing if you stay just ahead of it. But, always be safe first, and switch polarities to theirs if you're about to get hit. This section is kind of tough, but after a little practice, you can kill all of the guys pretty simply. If you absolutely cannot beat this section and die almost every time, you're probably better staying out of it... How? Well, if you stay off to either side right up against the wall, the guys coming down the side won't hit you, and none of their fire will hit you either, you're perfectly safe down either side right up against the wall. When this section is over, different patterns of round guys will show up at the top while beams of alternating polarities will fire from the sides in clusters. Always switch to the beam polarity firing at you and absorb the energy. If you want to chain this section, don't unleash your energy, and pick and choose single guys to fire at, though this section's difficult to chain in with the speed this all moves at. If you're looking just to get through it, go side to side firing and unleash everything you get. The enemies will die in a flash and this section will be easy for you. After four clusters of beams fire at you and four clusters of guys are gone, you enter a thinner section where white enemies will come from the top, and black enemies will come from the bottom. Focus on the black enemies and stay low in them while they collide at the top and destroy themselves. You can pinpoint guys to shoot at while you are switching back and forth between rows to maintain a chain. When this section is over with, you'll need to stay toward the bottom of the screen, because the walls on the sides move, and you have to stay in a certain area of the screen while shooting guys in the passage. The first one's easy. Stay at the bottom, stay one polarity, and make your way through. When the first one's done, go near the top because you have to be up there to get by the closing walls, but keep shooting the guys so you don't get killed. As you go through these closing walls, the chapter 03 mini-boss busts his way through the walls and follows you through the next section of side to side moving to get past the walls. In this section, stay mid screen and move back and forth shooting to get by through the passage the walls make for you. Make sure you stay high enough not to be killed by the chapter 03 mini-boss, and keep alert to passage changes. When this section's over, move to the side and let the mini-boss (named Shigi) pass by you. Kill the 6 round guys that pass by him, 3 from either side, and prepare for battle with a very difficult enemy. Shigi will begin with four beam shooters that rotate around his metallic body. Reds will be in the middle first, absorb these beams, always shooting, and then switch when white comes in the middle. Easy right? Wrong, because now he starts shooting little dots from his center for you to dodge as well. Keep shooting and unleash whenever you get a chance, the faster you kill his beams and shooter, the better. Keep switching colors and dodging his opposite colored dots from the middle, you should have a couple of the beams gone by the time his middle shooter starts firing a stream of the little dots. Go from one side to the other carefully as needed of his middle shooter and keep firing at the beams. They should be dead by the time his middle shooter is completely concentrated in alternating polarities. Try to get through it safely while taking risky shots at the center, then unleash when you can until it is finally gone. Shigi will blow up, and following him will be more of the round enemies (or hitekkai, actually) that you can go back and forth to shoot. When they are all gone, the Chapter 03 Boss will come up in the background immediately following the boss alarm. ---c. Stage 3-3 You fight this guy from the inside. He has 7 black shooters and 7 white shooters. You have to destroy them all. To boot, he has these things that look like crates that are spread out across four radii cutting the battle area into quarters that are somewhat difficult to navigate through. When the battle begins, you'll be in the bottom left quarter of the battle area. It won't be this way for long though because the crate-like things will rotate. Start off the same polarity as the shooter you're next to because they will all shoot off their color. Stay this and keep shooting to the ones above you while being the same polarity as the one you are absorbing the bullets of. You must move from shooter to shooter because the crate-like things rotate, so switch your polarity moving shooter to shooter always holding your fire button in. Make sure you keep moving along the shooters without running into the crates and holding the fire button in killing as many of the shooters as you can. Unleash your energy every so often as you move your way around the boss destroying as many shooters as you can. After a while of doing this, he will start shooting beams from the middle. This is where it gets tough if you haven't destroyed very many shooters. Keep your eye on the beams and shooters and do your best to always be the color of the beam that's coming and suck in as much energy as you can from them. Unleash the energy as you get it and destroy the shooters all the way. After a short while of this, you will have destroyed all of the shooters just using your energy unleash. This boss is very tough and takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of him, you won't have much trouble beating him on any difficulty. When he finally blows up, you'll get battle results and you'll be on your way to chapter 04. ---D. Chapter 04: Reality--- Thus the reality reveals itself. What did you seek... What did you see... What did you hear... What did you think... What did you do... -Story- Crossing the ravine, Shinra sees large troops headed by the military commander "Kira" and the gigantic and overpowering Butsutekkai "Misago". Tennai reaches the strategy that they assault in a melee combat and destroy the several weaknesses of the enemy. ---a. Stage 4-1 This is a very short stage. It starts with several small enemies in two clusters, one cluster of each polarity. Kill them off, one cluster at a time for a chain, then they are followed by 2 white shooters and a white energy ball shooter at the top. Kill them (its much easier as the opposite polarity), then they are followed by 2 black shooters and a black energy ball shooter just below them. Kill them off and 3 white shooters come from the bottom while 3 black shooters come from the top. Stay white and absorb the white beams from the bottom while dodging the black from the top and destroying the black shooters. Then turn black because the opposite happens. 3 black shooters come from the bottom while 3 white shooters come from the top. Go black and absorb the bottom shots while killing the white shooters at the top. Then, a white energy ball shooter comes at the top left corner of the screen joined by a black one at the bottom right. Absorb the white balls while killing the white enemy at the top left, then unleash to kill the black one at the bottom right. This ends the short stage of 4-1. ---b. Stage 4-2 Even though stage 4-1 is one of the shortest stages in the game, stage 4-2 is one of the longest. As the title screen comes up, you see in the background what looks like a satellite. You'll be fighting one of the hardest battles of the game in the center of that. When the center of the satellite comes up, enter it from the bottom if you are on normal, this will be the easiest way to complete it. If you are a beginner and are on Easy mode, stay on the outside as much as you can (don't do this on normal, enemies come on the outside). Guys will come from either side in the center. If you are on normal fire at them and beware of the beams that will start up anytime now. These form an interesting pattern for you to dodge black going left and white going right. Keep alternating polarities to stay alive as needed and keep killing the guys. It will take some practice to become good at this section. If you are staying on the outside in easy, safely make your way around the outside of the walls away from the beams and the enemies. Keep doing what you've been doing, it's a lot of the same hard stuff in this area. However, you will come to a point where the satellite's center is so far left on the screen, that you cannot stay outside of the walls anymore on easy. So, beginners will have to enter here and dodge the beams as much as you can as you make your way up, killing enemies in the center. Then, suddenly, the beams will stop and enemies will stop coming. Loads of white ships will start coming from both directions outside the walls now as the walls close in, but still enough room for you to stay safely inside. This section offers an easy chain for anyone, stay right by a hole in the wall and shoot all the white enemies you can for a high chain. Then, they start coming as both polarities from either side, then turning back the other way repeatedly. This is slightly harder to maintain a chain in, but if you're risking it, go outside and shoot the enemies, otherwise stay inside. These enemies will soon be gone and the beams and enemies will start back up on the inside. Beginners get to the left and upper area outside the wall for safety. Normal players, stay on the inside and keep dodging the beams and killing the enemies on the inside. Soon it will get too high up on the screen for beginners to stay outside anymore and they will have to make their way through the beams to the bottom where they can again take refuge behind the walls. Here, even normal players can retreat outside the walls and shoot enemies on the inside. The beams will stop shortly, enemies will stop coming, the outside walls will explode, and you have to fight the center of the satellite as one of a few mini-bosses in this chapter. (for quite a show on the last section, go to Horizontal 3 mode, and view stage 4-2 demo, it can also show you some pointers on chaining in this section) Beams will begin with black going left and white going right again, you must dodge back and forth sucking up these beams. It's not too difficult if you just don't panic, and keep inside the little diamonds that it's safe to be in. Shortly, little shooters will emerge from the satellite and shoot little dots at you to dodge. Fortunately, these are destroyable, and you must destroy them all to beat this mini-boss. Unleash when you can and keep firing at them, shortly the mini-boss will be dead. That will end stage 4-2. ---c. Stage 4-3 To start this stage, round enemies will come from the bottom and top of both sides and wrap their way around into a second row if you don't destroy them. Go back and forth from one side to the other, destroying them, then ships will come from the top center. Nothing in this section fires at you, but it all moves quite fast, so it is difficult to kill them all, all the time. Continue killing them and dodge the ones on the side as they wrap around if you don't get there quick enough. Shortly these enemies will be gone, and you will have a new mini-boss already to fight. Little round enemies that fire single shots at a time will come from both sides on a rail. If these enemies reach each other in the center, they will collide and explode, but it's much easier to kill them all off yourself. They will start off coming in an order of 2 of one polarity, 1 of the other, continuing, and opposite on both sides, always firing their bullets in different directions. If you want to maintain a chain, pick and choose the ones you shoot, this is slightly more difficult as there will be more for you to dodge, but nevertheless, if you're a chain fanatic, this is the way to go. Shortly, they will start coming all white from the right side and all black from the left side, stay one polarity and shoot them all from the side of opposite polarity, when they start alternating, go to the other side and kill all of the ones you just let live. Now they will be coming from both sides always alternating in color, you can pick and choose for chains, but for beginners, I recommend just shooting them all. After a little while of doing this, they will stop coming and it will transform revealing a white spread shooter on the top right, a black one on the top left, 1 white and 1 black shooter on the bottom right, and 1 white and 1 black shooter on the bottom left. Stay to the top left and turn black. Get in between white spread shots and in one of the black ones while you fire at the black spread shooter. Inch your way to the bottom and when it explodes, fire your charge at the two bottom left shooters. Then do the same for the white spread shooter. Get under it dodging the black dots that come up at you while absorbing the white energy and shooting at the white spread shooter. When it's gone, unleash at the bottom right shooters. If any of them are left alive, go under them and shoot them. This will end stage 4-3. ---d. Stage 4-4 To begin this stage, groups of 3 guys at a time all of the same polarity will fly at you. These groups of 3 will rotate their way around the screen, alternating polarities. Rotate your way around the screen shooting only 1 cluster at a time, and you can maintain quite a chain in this section. They will rotate around the screen 2 or 3 times, and then when the white ones fly at you their last time from the top right. Get in the middle, and several white enemies will surround you. They'll start flying at you, and work your way between a couple at the bottom and you can shoot them all. If you're quick enough, get back into the center again and the same group, only black, will do the same thing. Again, get between a couple near the bottom and shoot them all. When this is done, the boss alarm will go off and you'll meet the chapter 04 boss: Misago. You fight this boss from the inside just like the third boss. You get inside and see the center guarded by a wall, and 3 white gates. Behind each gate is a black gate, another white gate, then one more black gate. Around the outside are 14 shooters to wind your way through carefully. On easy, each shooter has a specific polarity, on normal, they shoot alternating polarities in one straight beam making it much harder to navigate through. Begin fighting this boss by shooting at the white gates on the outside as black polarity whenever possible, they will be defeated faster if attacked by the opposite polarity just like any other enemy. Keep carefully fitting yourself through these outside shooters and shooting at the gates. Every so often, the center will switch directions that it is spinning, and you will catch a gate stopping at the bottom, then switching directions at the bottom. When this happens, you get double time to shoot at it. Shortly after this, 6 beams from the wall guarding the core will go off much like those on the satellite in stage 4-2. You also have to be careful of these now as you make your way around destroying the gates. When you finally get a gate open, either stay at the bottom and shoot through the gate unleashing whatever you have at it, or, if you're a risk-taker, fit your way inside the gate and shoot at it as it makes its way around. You can survive in there, but it is difficult. On easy, you can just keep making your way around shooting at the center when you can from inside the gate area, but on normal, a large, powerful, white beam will shoot out at you. Be careful and keep pressing toward the center when this beam shoots out at you, and use it to your advantage unleashing your energy at the center whenever you can. If you shoot the gates out quickly, and get inside one of the gates' areas (this way is much faster), you can kill this boss within a decent amount of time and get quite a bonus to your score for this chapter. A little practice weaving your way in and out of the outside shooters and inside wall beams, and you'll be well set for battle with this boss in the future. When he's finally gone, you'll come out and see the satellite explode off in the distance. The battle results will come up and show you how you did, then you'll be ready for the final chapter: Metempsychosis. ---E. Final Chapter: Metempsychosis--- A fate brings its will back to the original place and awakens the first conscience engraved on the deep valley of memory. This is what drives Ikaruga... -Story- Perhaps Shinra himself is aware that his days are numbered. "I have never accomplished anything properly. But this time, may God hear my prayer once and for all." Shinra breaks into the underground mainstay of the Country of Horai and confronts "Horai Tenro." Original words are repeated in vain. Meanwhile, Shinra hears the voice of a spiritual being he encountered in his dream. Shinra exerts all his remaining strength to defeat Horai and sees... ---a. Stage 5-1 This stage begins with an uncountable number of small white enemies. Try to circle around and dodge them all while shooting them, anyone, including people playing this stage for their first time should be able to achieve quite a high max chain in this area. When these enemies stop coming, three white shooters will come from the top right and make their way left. They are quickly followed by 6 white enemies from the top left, quickly followed by 6 black shooters from the top right. Try to stay opposite polarities here when you can, and shoot them quickly, but when there are six of them, its probably best to be their polarity because there are a lot of bullets for you to dodge there if you were opposite them. When this is done, several white enemies will begin circling you. They will all shoot a ton at you, absorb as much as you want, unleash to kill them all, and absorb the leftover bullets and turn black. Now several black enemies will circle you. Unleash your leftovers at them and absorb their leftovers. Again, uncountable white enemies will begin flying at you, but this time, in a spiraling pattern. Keep shooting at them and circling around and obtain a high chain in this section. They will stop coming shortly and be followed by three white energy ball shooters from the top left. Turn black and shoot at them dodging their energy balls. When they are dead, shoot at the black ones while you are white and absorbing the leftover white energy balls. The black ones should die before they even get a shot off. These enemies will be followed by 3 white enemies at the top and 3 black enemies at the bottom the same as you just fought. Turn black and absorb the black energy balls while you shoot the white ones at the top. When the white ones are dead, unleash your energy with white polarity to quickly kill the enemies at the bottom. Now a gigantic white enemy will come from the right and move to the center top of the screen. Get your shots as black while you can, then turn white and absorb its energy, unleash when you can and kill it. It will be followed by several circling white enemies where it died. Kill them off while you absorb the leftover white bullets. Another will come from the right. Turn black and shoot at it and unleash before the bullets get to you and it should die. Turn white and absorb the bullets killing the circling enemies that appear where it died. Keep doing this until these enemies stop coming. If you are extremely quick, you can get up to, I think, 5 of these enemies. When they are all gone, stage 5-1 will end. ---b. Stage 5-2 This entire stage is the Final Chapter Boss: Tageri. This boss has 3 forms. Its first form has 4 heads and 2 shooters. From left to right, there is a shooter, black head, white head, white head, black head, and a shooter. These shooters form a grid of opposite polarity bullets. You'll have to fit yourself in one with 2 white lines crossing, and fire at the left black head. Dots will be flooding from the top, so dodge them while you keep where you are in the grid, and keep shooting at the black head, unleashing whenever you get a chance. These heads die relatively quickly when you are the opposite polarity. When it's dead, carefully switch over to be in front of the white head and in a black crossing black grid spot. Absorb these bullets and keep firing at the white head. This should be relatively simple to keep going across shooting at each of the heads, dodging the dots from the top, dodging the occasional energy balls that will fire at you, and making sure you're in a grid spot that's alright. Keep moving your way across until they are all dead and he'll reveal to you his second form. His second form has only 2 heads. Easier right? Wrong. This second has a black head on the left, and a white head on the right. They will both unleash snakelike heads that go around the screen leaving an energy trail of their polarity. Start with the black one and circle away from the snake whenever you can. Fire at it with white whenever possible because it kills it faster. About now, two shooters will emerge and fire clusters of their polarity into the battle area. Do whatever you can to stay alive, dodge all of the dots, and make your way through all of the energy trails. When one head dies, the screen will be cleared and only the other head will be released. This is much easier now because you can stay the polarity of the head remaining, and keep firing at it. Just dodge the opposite polarity bullets and the snake head, absorbing the trail it leaves and unleash at the remaining head whenever possible. This should be quite simple. When it is finally gone, he will reveal his third form. The Final Chapter's boss's third form, is my favorite enemy in the game. It is difficult, but very fun to fight if you do it correctly. He'll appear at the top of the screen like a very large yin yang. He starts the battle with 2 white energy strands swinging around at you. You can follow where they cross and absorb a bunch of energy for free right here. He will then begin with a white unleash at you, much like yours. Absorb this as white, quickly unleash all of your energy and switch polarities because he will immediately follow this with a black unleash. If you do this correctly, one cycle will go as follows. He unleashes You absorb the energy He switches polarities You unleash the energy hitting him with opposite his polarity You switch polarities He unleashes The cycle continues from there repeatedly going like that over and over again until he is dead. Once you get the rhythm down, it is quite fun to repeatedly do this, because you are unleashing maximum damage to him every time you hit him. While you continue at him with the cycle, you have to be dodging dots that appear on the screen from above. There are a lot of them, but nothing too much to worry about. If you die, it will take two turns of his unleashes until they start to follow you, then you can get back into the cycle of killing him. And, if the battle takes too long, a large amount of dots will come down from above and create a grid of them for you to dodge and absorb making it much more difficult. It's much easier to try to kill him before this, but, if you die when this grid starts up, it will take a while for it to start again allowing you to kill him before you have to deal with it again hopefully. When he finally dies, he will explode and you will get a glimpse of the final boss before the battle results come up. Then, you will move on to stage 5-3. ---c. Stage 5-3 When this final stage begins, you see the final boss, Ubusunagami Okinokai (The Power of the Gods), a giant gem with an incomplete ring around it, and on that ring, 7 orange glowing lights, emerge from far below. It comes up through a closing gate, and the game shows you a message saying "Warning! You cannot fire." This is where the "battle" begins. It starts out with him shooting off short lines of energy of opposite polarities. This seems to be quite random where he's firing them off, but it will soon form to be a pattern. In the meantime, make left with the white lines and right to pass black, keep going like that because the lines will form a grid. When they do, just go back and forth switching polarities to go back and forth between the different colors. While doing this, small energy balls will dart their way at you, dodge them within your grid square and cross when safe, remember that they can only hit you to make you explode in the direct center of your ship, or right near where the cockpit would be. After a while of this, he will reveal his second "form." He'll start this part out with alternating polarity beams fired out away from him in all directions, then it will fire out rings of energy, 1 of each polarity at a time, at you. You'll see two emerge from him, one of each polarity, and though it looks like the one closest to you will hit you first, the one in back always speeds its way up to you first. So be the color of the second emerged beam, as it will hit you first. Dodge in and out of the straight beams out toward you while switching colors to keep alive when the rings are going. The little energy balls are still out there darting at you, so be wary of them on the battlefield as well. This part is rather simple, it will go on for a while, where he will finally reveal his third, final, and most difficult "form." Here, he will start rotating his straight beams at varying speeds circling counter-clockwise around him. While this is going on, he will have balls of energy going in opposite directions in a circle around him, while spreading out toward you. While all this is going on, at least you don't have to worry about darting energy balls coming at you anymore though. The best way to get through the rings of energy balls is to find the spots where the ones of the same polarity call come together. At times, the rings will have balls of white, then a cluster of black ones, alternating all along it. That is the best time to go through as it is the safest. Remember to focus on the beams spinning around the boss, as those are more likely to kill you than the balls in rings. Keep going with this for a short period, and he will finally stop firing completely. You've defeated him without firing a single shot. At this point, you will get 500,000 points for each of your remaining lives. After that, the robot voice will say "Release the restrain device. Using the released power may result the possibility of destruction of the ship. You did your best. Was I helpful to you? I am deeply grateful to you." What it comes down to is that Shinra in his ship, the Ikaruga, fires all of his remaining energy at the Ubusunagami Okinokai to destroy it, but destroys his ship in the process. It is quite a tragic ending of Shinra giving his life to save the world, to an otherwise bland storyline removed from this version unfortunately. I guess, it's the story that could have been. From here, you will get to put your initials in if you've made a high score on your game, you will see the credits while you view mountains with doves flying over them. Congratulations on beating the game, keep working for a higher score! =================== ---8. Boss Guide--- =================== ---a. Boss Alarm--- As stated in the Introduction, most of the dialogue was rushed into this game and either removed or simply not translated. Interestingly, this was translated, but it's very hard to read. Before you read, know that "Butsutekkai" their word for a Boss in this game. This is the alarm that is shown before the first four chapter bosses (I don't know why it isn't shown before the fifth). W A R N I N G ---------------------------- On-Marishiei-Sowaka The big enemy is approaching at full throttle. According to the data it is identified as "Butsutekkai" ---------------------------- N O R E F U G E I was wrong before, the text above "the big enemy is approaching" is not Japanese Kanji as many assume. I have found what it actually is here: http://www2.incl.ne.jp/~mo2/ikaruga_en/alarm.html. On-Marishiei-Sowaka is actually a Sanskrit word. It is a spell of Marishiten, the goddess of shimmering air. The spell has the power to escape disasters. ---b. Chapter Bosses--- This section will cover all of the bosses and strategies to beat them. Though I do not have their names, as they are not included in the Gamecube version, the bosses are still the same and are still described in full detail to how to defeat them. If anyone else has strategies they would like to write up, I would be happy to put them in here if I think they offer a good alternative strategy giving credit to the writer of course. Chapter 01 Boss: Eboshidori This boss is white and looks like a mech warrior of some kind. He has a white sword, black shield, and is ready for battle with you. Thankfully, being the first boss, he is not too tough. His first attack will be his white sword. It will come about half way down the screen, so stay back and make sure you're polarity is white. He will fire out many white bullets with a few black ones from things on the sides. Just stay right under his sword dodging the black bullets and keep firing at the sword until it's gone. He then pulls out his black shield. Make your polarity black. He will start firing a wall of black bullets out along with a few white ones from the sides of the screen. Keep firing at his shield dodging the white bullets until the shield is gone. He will then start laying out little grenades of the two polarities starting with white. Stay black and fire at him, unleash any energy you have too, until his white grenades blow up. Turn white then black again because it does more damage to him and his next grenades are black. Keep doing this until he quits dropping grenades and turn white. He will shoot out large balls of energy that are white. Absorb these and fire them back at him in energy unleashes. When he is done doing this, he'll go back to his grenade dropping. Continue this until he is dead. There are not many differences between difficulties with this boss. He fires more grenades and opposite polarity bullets at you though to dodge, he's pretty easy all the way around though when you get the hang of fighting him. Chapter 02 Boss: Buppousou This boss has two large gunners on his left and right side, then his weak points will be pointed out to you in his center portion. When you begin fighting this boss, you should probably have a full Power Gauge because of all of the things previously in this level to fill it up. If you don't it's no big deal, just continue the battle as normal. To begin, start with the left/white side and make your polarity white to fire at the red cap guarding his weak point. This should open the cap all of the way after a small time shooting it, then turn black and unleash any energy you might have. Get in there quickly, dodging any bullets that might be coming your way from the guns above, and shoot at the white weak point while in the black polarity because it does double damage. You might be able to destroy it before he starts to attack, if not, back out and absorb his attacks. His attacks will begin with white spread from the left side, then a black one from the right, another from the left, and another from the right. Switch your polarity for each to stay alive. After this, stay down, don't attack yet. Go to the left side of the screen with your polarity white and absorb his flood of white bullets. When he starts with his black ones, go black and move all the way right absorbing these. When those are done, turn white and go back to the left side, then go back to the right as black when that is done. Unleash anything you may have as the opposite polarity of the weak point you are shooting at and by now the white weak point should be gone. If it's not, keep going, otherwise, move on to the black side. Shoot at the cap with black until its out all the way, unleash anything you may have as white, then go in there and start shooting at it with white while still dodging his bullets from above. Many people will be able to kill him before he continues shooting, but if not, here's how to get by his next section of attacks. His next attacks will start from the left with a few lines of white bullets. Be white for this and move left. When those are gone, go black and go to the right through the black bullets. Go left through the white after this, then right through the black again. Now he will shoot both at the same time. On easy, you can go to a bottom corner of the screen and turn the opposite polarity of the shooter closest to you to absorb the other side's bullets that will hit you, however, on normal and hard a laser from above will destroy you here. On normal and hard, do your best to stay close to one of them being that color, then as soon as you can, move up and back in the opposite color to stay alive through that. When all of this is done, open up the side you have left and unleash what you've got on it as the opposite polarity. From here, just go in and shoot away at it with the opposite polarity while dodging the bullets from above. He should die. If not, he'll repeat his first set of attacks, then the second set, and the time will run out if you haven't killed him by then. Chapter 03 Boss: Uzura When you get to this boss, you see a circular guy coming from the distance which comes around you. You fight this guy from the inside. He has 7 black shooters and 7 white shooters. You have to destroy them all. To boot, he has these things that look like crates that are spread out across four radii cutting the battle area into quarters that are somewhat difficult to navigate through. When the battle begins, you'll be in the bottom left quarter of the battle area. It won't be this way for long though because the crate-like things will rotate. Start off the same polarity as the shooter you're next to because they will all shoot off their color. Stay this and keep shooting to the ones above you while being the same polarity as the one you are absorbing the bullets of. You must move from shooter to shooter because the crate-like things rotate, so switch your polarity moving shooter to shooter always holding your fire button in. Make sure you keep moving along the shooters without running into the crates and holding the fire button in killing as many of the shooters as you can. Unleash your energy every so often as you move your way around the boss destroying as many shooters as you can. After a while of doing this, he will start shooting beams from the middle. This is where it gets tough if you haven't destroyed very many shooters. Keep your eye on the beams and shooters and do your best to always be the color of the beam that's coming and suck in as much energy as you can from them. Unleash the energy as you get it and destroy the shooters all the way. After a short while of this, you will have destroyed all of the shooters just using your energy unleash. This boss is very tough and takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of him, you won't have much trouble beating him on any difficulty. Chapter 04 Boss: Misago You fight this boss from the inside just like the third boss. You get inside and see the center guarded by a wall, and 3 white gates. Behind each gate is a black gate, another white gate, then one more black gate. Around the outside are 14 shooters to wind your way through carefully. On easy, each shooter has a specific polarity, on normal, they shoot alternating polarities in one straight beam making it much harder to navigate through. Begin fighting this boss by shooting at the white gates on the outside as black polarity whenever possible, they will be defeated faster if attacked by the opposite polarity just like any other enemy. Keep carefully fitting yourself through these outside shooters and shooting at the gates. Every so often, the center will switch directions that it is spinning, and you will catch a gate stopping at the bottom, then switching directions at the bottom. When this happens, you get double time to shoot at it. Shortly after this, 6 beams from the wall guarding the core will go off much like those on the satellite in stage 4-2. You also have to be careful of these now as you make your way around destroying the gates. When you finally get a gate open, either stay at the bottom and shoot through the gate unleashing whatever you have at it, or, if you're a risk-taker, fit your way inside the gate and shoot at it as it makes its way around. You can survive in there, but it is difficult. On easy, you can just keep making your way around shooting at the center when you can from inside the gate area, but on normal, a large, powerful, white beam will shoot out at you. Be careful and keep pressing toward the center when this beam shoots out at you, and use it to your advantage unleashing your energy at the center whenever you can. If you shoot the gates out quickly, and get inside one of the gates' areas (this way is much faster), you can kill this boss within a decent amount of time and get quite a bonus to your score for this chapter. A little practice weaving your way in and out of the outside shooters and inside wall beams, and you'll be well set for battle with this boss in the future. Final Chapter Boss: Tageri This boss has 3 forms. Its first form has 4 heads and 2 shooters. From left to right, there is a shooter, black head, white head, white head, black head, and a shooter. These shooters form a grid of opposite polarity bullets. You'll have to fit yourself in one with 2 white lines crossing, and fire at the left black head. Dots will be flooding from the top, so dodge them while you keep where you are in the grid, and keep shooting at the black head, unleashing whenever you get a chance. These heads die relatively quickly when you are the opposite polarity. When it's dead, carefully switch over to be in front of the white head and in a black crossing black grid spot. Absorb these bullets and keep firing at the white head. This should be relatively simple to keep going across shooting at each of the heads, dodging the dots from the top, dodging the occasional energy balls that will fire at you, and making sure you're in a grid spot that's alright. Keep moving your way across until they are all dead and he'll reveal to you his second form. His second form has only 2 heads. Easier right? Wrong. This second has a black head on the left, and a white head on the right. They will both unleash snakelike heads that go around the screen leaving an energy trail of their polarity. Start with the black one and circle away from the snake whenever you can. Fire at it with white whenever possible because it kills it faster. About now, two shooters will emerge and fire clusters of their polarity into the battle area. Do whatever you can to stay alive, dodge all of the dots, and make your way through all of the energy trails. When one head dies, the screen will be cleared and only the other head will be released. This is much easier now because you can stay the polarity of the head remaining, and keep firing at it. Just dodge the opposite polarity bullets and the snake head, absorbing the trail it leaves and unleash at the remaining head whenever possible. This should be quite simple. When it is finally gone, he will reveal his third form. The Final Chapter's boss's third form, is my favorite enemy in the game. It is difficult, but very fun to fight if you do it correctly. He'll appear at the top of the screen like a very large yin yang. He starts the battle with 2 white energy strands swinging around at you. You can follow where they cross and absorb a bunch of energy for free right here. He will then begin with a white unleash at you, much like yours. Absorb this as white, quickly unleash all of your energy and switch polarities because he will immediately follow this with a black unleash. If you do this correctly, one cycle will go as follows. He unleashes You absorb the energy He switches polarities You unleash the energy hitting him with opposite his polarity You switch polarities He unleashes The cycle continues from there repeatedly going like that over and over again until he is dead. Once you get the rhythm down, it is quite fun to repeatedly do this, because you are unleashing maximum damage to him every time you hit him. While you continue at him with the cycle, you have to be dodging dots that appear on the screen from above. There are a lot of them, but nothing too much to worry about. If you die, it will take two turns of his unleashes until they start to follow you, then you can get back into the cycle of killing him. And, if the battle takes too long, a large amount of dots will come down from above and create a grid of them for you to dodge and absorb making it much more difficult. It's much easier to try to kill him before this, but, if you die when this grid starts up, it will take a while for it to start again allowing you to kill him before you have to deal with it again hopefully. Final Boss: Ubusunagami Okinokai (The Power of the Gods) The final boss, Ubusunagami Okinokai (The Power of the Gods), a giant gem with an incomplete ring around it, and on that ring, 7 orange glowing lights, emerges from far below. It comes up through a closing gate, and the game shows you a message saying "Warning! You cannot fire." This is where the "battle" begins. It starts out with him shooting off short lines of energy of opposite polarities. This seems to be quite random where he's firing them off, but it will soon form to be a pattern. In the meantime, make left with the white lines and right to pass black, keep going like that because the lines will form a grid. When they do, just go back and forth switching polarities to go back and forth between the different colors. While doing this, small energy balls will dart their way at you, dodge them within your grid square and cross when safe, remember that they can only hit you to make you explode in the direct center of your ship, or right near where the cockpit would be. After a while of this, he will reveal his second "form." He'll start this part out with alternating polarity beams fired out away from him in all directions, then it will fire out rings of energy, 1 of each polarity at a time, at you. You'll see two emerge from him, one of each polarity, and though it looks like the one closest to you will hit you first, the one in back always speeds its way up to you first. So be the color of the second emerged beam, as it will hit you first. Dodge in and out of the straight beams out toward you while switching colors to keep alive when the rings are going. The little energy balls are still out there darting at you, so be wary of them on the battlefield as well. This part is rather simple, it will go on for a while, where he will finally reveal his third, final, and most difficult "form." Here, he will start rotating his straight beams at varying speeds circling counter-clockwise around him. While this is going on, he will have balls of energy going in opposite directions in a circle around him, while spreading out toward you. While all this is going on, at least you don't have to worry about darting energy balls coming at you anymore though. The best way to get through the rings of energy balls is to find the spots where the ones of the same polarity call come together. At times, the rings will have balls of white, then a cluster of black ones, alternating all along it. That is the best time to go through as it is the safest. Remember to focus on the beams spinning around the boss, as those are more likely to kill you than the balls in rings. Keep going with this for a short period, and he will finally stop firing completely. You've defeated him without firing a single shot. ================ ---9. Enemies--- ================ Even though the names of the enemies are not included in the Gamecube English version nor in the instruction booklet, I found their names all at http://www.ikaruga-atari.net/en/stage.html and decided to post them for anyone who's interested and it also allows me to give specific strategies on how to defeat each enemy. I'm using the word "enemy" even though in Ikaruga they are more correctly known as "Hitekkai" just as bosses in Ikaruga are more correctly known as "Butsutekkai." Each Hitekkai and Butsutekkai is given the name of a bird. I know this is not quite all of the enemies, it is most of them, but I could not find the rest of their names. If someone would like to contribute the names for the rest of the enemies, I would appreciate it and would obviously add you to the credits. Utatsugumi These enemies are the first enemies you see in this game. They are kind of round and shoot one bullet at a time. They are killed in one shot no matter what polarity you are. They're pretty easy, not much of a threat. Toratsugumi These are the smallest enemies in the game. They usually come in groups and they don't fire at you at all. One shot from either polarity will kill them, again, these guys are not much of a threat. Renjaku These are the first enemies you see in stage 1-2. They are usually followed by a few others of their kind and sometimes fire, sometimes don't. When you are their polarity they take about 10 bullets to kill, when you are opposite, about 5. In groups these can be dangerous, just make sure to keep dodging their lines of shots or kill them quickly. Torafuzuku These are the large enemies that shoot either beams or groups of bullets at you. They are first seen at the end of stage 1-3 and are usually circled by a couple of Utatsugumi. They always come with another of the opposite polarity. I recommend being opposite polarity of the one you are firing at so it dies faster and you have both polarities of bullets coming at you anyway when you are fighting one, so it makes no difference against you. Agisashi These enemies are only seen in stage 1-4 to my memory just before you enter stage 1-5. They come with another of the opposite polarity and have several destroyable shooters on their sides that shoot to the side. I recommend being the opposite polarity when fighting them so that they die faster. You can also (this is just a little trick to help you when fighting them) be save going about an Ikaruga ship's length onto the guy from the bottom and you are not destroyed. This can be helpful when getting by them while they rotate. Isuka These enemies are very small, but slightly bigger than the Toratsugumi, and are first seen in stage 1-2. It is quite difficult to tell the difference between these and Toratsugumi because they are just slightly bigger, but look much the same, are also killed in one shot regardless of polarity, and never fire either. They also come in large groups and aren't much of a threat. Misosazai These enemies are kind of triangular shaped planes that never fire, but often move quickly at you in groups of both polarities to try to ram into you. They are quite common in chapter three. They are killed in one shot regardless of polarity, but are a threat because they move so quickly in large groups and you must be quick to dodge them and avoid being killed. Toki These enemies first appear in stage 3-2. They are quite large and come in groups with both polarities. They move quickly and if you don't kill them quickly, they will fire a huge stream of bullets at you. They are killed much quicker with the opposite polarity and that is probably the best choice as they usually come in groups of both polarities, however, if you end up in a jam where you are in their line of fire, change to their color and hope that you can kill them before the next guy in line starts firing at you with the opposite polarity. These guys can be tough, but aren't too common throughout the game and can be a fun challenge. Shigi This is the mini-boss in chapter three. He is quite large and difficult to beat. He has 5 shooters, 1 of which does not start firing for about the first 30 seconds of fighting him. He will bring shooters of the same polarity to the middle where you must be and you have to change to that color to suck up his energy. Unleash it before he switches the color in the middle, and then switch to his new middle color. Suck up that energy and unleash it. You can do this safely for a while and kill hopefully a couple of the shooters before he starts his third head firing. This head fires 3 bullets of one polarity immediately followed by 3 of the other. This strand repeats itself for the rest of the battle. Continue dodging the middle section and sucking up the outside energy and unleashing it until either he is completely dead, or all that is left is the middle shooter. If the middle shooter still remains, fire at it while the bullets are curving around then cross over as it completes its wave firing the other way as well. Keep shooting at the bullets' source until it is gone and you have beaten this difficult mini-boss. ========================= ---10. Secrets/Unlocks--- ========================= There are many different secrets in this game, as well as many things that you can unlock to enhance your gameplay options. This section lists them all. For all of the unlocks that you must clock time on the game for, time is only added to your total when you are actually playing the game, not in the menu. So you cannot just leave the game on to clock time. You can check the time you have on the game so far in the Save/Load menu at the bottom of the screen. "Bullet Eater" This is a challenging way of playing the game that unlocks a new rank: "Dot Eater!" Simply go through any chapter without firing or using your energy unleash. This means not defeating any enemies including the boss. You will then be awarded the "Dot Eater!" rank. It opens up nothing in the game, but is fun to try to get this rank on different difficulties and chapters. Extra Credits For every hour that you play, you get an extra credit to the total you are allowed to use in the regular game mode. -1 Hour ---- 4 Credits -2 Hours --- 5 Credits -3 Hours --- 6 Credits -4 Hours --- 7 Credits -5 Hours --- 8 Credits -6 Hours --- 9 Credits -7 Hours --- Free Play When you reach 7 hours you have unlimited continues and won't have to worry about running out on hard mode for those new to the game. Unlock Gallery 1 Play the game for 5 hours or complete the Trial Mode without continuing to unlock Gallery 1 in the Extras menu. It just has some extra pictures of some of the characters and things in the game that you wouldn't normally get to see. Unlock Gallery 2 Play the game for 10 hours or complete the game on any difficulty setting using as many credits as you want. Doing so unlocks Gallery 2 in the Extras menu. This is an extension of Gallery 1 with just a few extra pictures to look at of the characters and whatnot. Unlock Sound Test Play the game for 15 hours or complete a regular game on easy difficulty without continuing. This just gives you a menu of songs to go through and listen to, nothing major. The songs are listed below. 1. Prologue - Cirrus 2. Chapter : 01 - Ideal 3. Boss : 01 - Butsutekkai 4. Chapter : 02 - Trial 5. Boss : 02 - Recapture 6. Chapter : 03 - Faith 7. Chapter : 04 - Reality 8. Final Chapter - Metempsychosis 9. Final Chapter - The Stone-Like 10. Epilogue - Spirit Being Unlock Prototype Mode Play the game for 20 hours or complete a regular game on Normal difficulty without continuing. This opens up a new mode of play explained better in the Challenge section of this FAQ. Extra Conquest Mode Stages To open up more stages in conquest mode, on any difficulty, just play a normal game and get to the chapter of the stage you want open without continuing. So if you want stage 4-3 open, just reach chapter 4 without continuing, you don't actually have to get to 4-3 without continuing to get it open. Extra Conquest Mode Demos To view different demos in the Demo Mode selection in a conquest stage, just pick a different Monitor Type setting. This is what each type of setting displays in the Demo Mode. Horizontal 1- Beginning tactics, helpful things just to keep you alive Horizontal 2- Basic play, just slightly more advanced Horizontal 3- This will show you advanced tactics including the Bullet Eater challenge in some cases. Vertical 1 or 2- Increased difficulty in some areas See Behind the Pause Menu When you pause the game, if you hold X and Y, it will vanish for as long as you are holding the two buttons. Screen Saver If you pause your game or leave it in a menu for exactly three minutes, the screen will fade to very dark. This saves your screen some power it takes to show the game, and helps the picture from burning on the screen. So, if you leave your game and come back later to find your screen very dark, don't worry, it's just another bonus in an excellent game. ==================================== ---11. Frequently Asked Questions--- ==================================== This section will simply list common questions that people have about this game, and I will try to provide answers sufficient enough to give you a thorough idea of the answer. If anyone has any other questions they would like me to answer and list in here, I would be happy to answer them if I feel that others have the same question. ---What do the symbols on the front of the box mean, you know, the ones right above where it says "Ikaruga"? Those symbols can be translated to several different meanings all roughly the same. In Japanese, these two symbols together are pronounced Ikaruga, obviously, the title of the game. They mean roughly "spotted bird" or several other different twists of the name by different translators. These other possible meanings from different translators include "mottled dove" or "speckled pigeon" all quite close together in meaning. This was put on the cover because "Ikaruga" is both the name of a town the main character took refuge at before his journey, and his ship that he flies. I assume they named it that because it means somewhat like "spotted bird" as in the flying machine that Shinra uses and maybe its ability to change polarities making it "spotted." ---Ok, well there are also symbols above the chapter titles whenever you get to the beginning of a chapter. What do all of those symbols mean? Though I have not gone into research on these symbols, I have heard from many sources that they translate roughly to the title of the actual title of the chapter. For example, chapter 04 is called "Reality." In this case, the symbols above that chapter title would also mean "Reality." This follows suit for the rest of the symbols above their corresponding chapter titles as well. ---What modes of gameplay actually contribute to your time clock? All modes where you are actually playing including Regular, Conquest, Practice, Trial, Arcade, and Prototype Modes. However, the Auto-Save (if you have it on) only kicks in when you finish a regular, trial, arcade, or prototype game. So, if you don't save manually after spending an hour in Practice mode, none of that time will be clocked. ---What is this "Ikaruga Appreciation DVD" I've seen people talk about? It is a DVD that runs 172 minutes showing an almost perfect run through the game on Easy, Normal, and Hard mode. They never lose lives and get very very high chains, let alone scores. It will play on any DVD player and gives you very good strategies for your own use. The only downside is that it costs roughly $60 US. ---I want to play on Vertical 1 mode because the side bars distract me and I like to play Full Screen. However, I do not own a monitor that allows you to rotate the screen around 90 degrees. Would It hurt my TV to turn it on its side? It really depends. I am no TV expert, but I can tell you that in pretty much any TV's manual, it will say something about NEVER turning your TV on its side. There are supports that hold everything the way they are in your television the way it is on your TV when it is right side up. When you turn it on its side, these supports are not as strong because the TV wasn't meant to be turned on its side. Needless to say, there are exceptions and smaller TVs are less at risk than larger TVs, but I would personally recommend not turning your television on its side. Get a monitor that allows you to turn it 90 degrees and hook your Gamecube up through that if you want to play like that. Or, you could just lay on your side like I do sometimes, lol. ---On one of the beginning screens, toward the bottom, it says Project RS-2. Does this game have anything to do with Radiant Silvergun? Technically, no. There is no sequel to Radiant Silvergun, just a "like" sequel or as many call it, a "spiritual sequel." Both games feature basically the same final boss, a large gem as "the power of the gods." So, if you want it to be the sequel, it is, but it was technically not meant to be the sequel. ---On the back of the box it advertises 18 levels, but I only got 5! What's going on? You actually got everything you were supposed to get. There are 5 chapters that hold different stages within them. This is actually what they are talking about, if you add up the stages this game has, you get 18. ---When I finish arcade mode, I get a password. What is that for? It is so that you can submit your scores online to a worldwide ranking board on the internet. Go here: http://www.ikaruga-atari.net and register a name with them. You may then enter the password you were given at the end of your round to be possibly put in the online rankings. ================================== ---12. In-Game Texts and Voices--- ================================== I've dedicated this new section to all of the texts in this game, and in other versions of this game. I've done my best to track them all down, but I'm not about to guarantee that there aren't still texts left in the game that I didn't find. If you find some that I don't have in here, please email me about it. Thanks. ---A. In-Game Texts--- These texts are all found in the Gamecube version of the game. None of these were removed. When you enter the Gamecube menu with Ikaruga in, and you go to the Game screen. The description it offers for Ikaruga is: "Don't relax now! Your goal is to clear all of the stages." As the game loads up, you see different screens before it reaches the menu. These screens read as follows. ***To be completed in later versions*** ---B. Removed Texts--- ***To be completed in later versions*** ---C. Voice Phrases--- ***To be completed in later versions*** ================= ---13. Credits--- ================= I would like to thank Treasure for designing this game, Infrogames for publishing it, and obviously Nintendo for hosting it on their excellent system, the Gamecube. I would like to thank http://www.ikaruga-atari.net/en/stage.html for most of the correct enemy (hitekkai) names and chapter dialogue that were unfortunately removed from the English Gamecube version. I would like to thank http://www16.brinkster.com/greng/birds/ for the correct Boss (Butsutekkai) names. I would like to thank http://www2.incl.ne.jp/~mo2/ikaruga_en/alarm.html for the correct "sanskrit" word (not japanese kanji) that is in the boss alarm and its meaning. I would like to thank Khaascp for contributing what the voice actually says at the end of the Final Chapter. I would like to thank CJayC for hosting this on the best gaming site on the internet, www.gamefaqs.com. =============================== ---14. Copyright Information--- =============================== If there is anything I may have missed or you think should be changed, you may e-mail me about it at BlueWzrd13@aol.com. I will try to fit it in my FAQ if I think it would be a good addition. With this FAQ, you may print it for your own personal reference, and you may post it on your website ONLY with my permission by e-mail, giving me the URL address, and giving me, BlueWizard13, full credit for the writing of the FAQ. You may NOT use this FAQ for any commercial use (selling it for a profit, in a magazine, etc.). The only site currently allowed to host this FAQ is www.gamefaqs.com. If you see this guide on any other site, please notify me immediately by email. This Guide Copyright (c) 2003 BlueWizard13