page_title: Ikaruga
section_title: Release
hierarchical_section_title: Ikaruga / Release
caption_attribution_description: English&#x3a;&#32; The Sega Dreamcast, a video game console released on September 9th, 1999 in North America. The last console by Sega, the Dreamcast was well received at launch but many factors like Sega's financial troubles and the extreme popularity of Sony's PlayStation 2 led to the system being discontinued in early 2001. After dropping out of manufacturing hardware, Sega focused on publishing and developing software for other gaming platforms.Español&#x202f;&#x3a;&#32; La Sega&#160;Dreamcast, una consola de videojuegos lanzada el 9 de septiembre de 1999 en América del Norte y la última que crearía Sega. La Dreamcast obtuvo una buena recepción al momento de su lanzamiento, pero diversos factores, como los problemas financieros de Sega y la extrema popularidad de la PlayStation&#160;2 de Sony, contribuyeron a su retiro en 2001. Tras cesar su participación en la fabricación de hardware, Sega se dedicó a distribuir y desarrollar software para otras plataformas de juego.
context_page_description: Ikaruga is a shoot 'em up developed by Treasure. It is the spiritual sequel to Radiant Silvergun and was originally released in Japanese arcades in December 2001. The story follows a rebel pilot named Shinra as he battles an enemy nation using a specially designed fighter called the Ikaruga which can flip between two polarities, black and white. This polarity mechanism is the game's key feature and the foundation for its stage and enemy design. All enemies and bullets in the game are either black or white. Bullets which are the same color as the player are absorbed while the others will kill the player. The game features both single-player and cooperative modes.
  Development on Ikaruga began during director Hiroshi Iuchi's off-hours while Treasure was busy developing Sin and Punishment. The game began as a sequel to Radiant Silvergun, and borrows many elements from it as well as the polarity mechanism from Treasure's Silhouette Mirage. During the game's prototype stages, the player's ammo was limited. The bullet absorption mechanism was used as a means to refill ammo, however, this was found to be weak as it created too many breaks in the action.
context_section_description: Ikaruga was targeted to Treasure's core fanbase, as pleasing them was the team's first priority. Although the game was primarily being developed for the Sega NAOMI arcade platform, it was standard for NAOMI games to be ported to the Dreamcast, and so the development team had this in mind. The NAOMI version was bug checked on a Dreamcast, so porting was very easy. Ikaruga was first released in arcades in Japan on 20 December 2001. A Dreamcast port was released exclusively in Japan on 5 September 2002. Although not yet published in the West, Ikaruga began to garner a cult following in North America among import gamers. On 16 January 2003, Infogrames published Ikaruga for the GameCube in Japan under their Atari label. Later that month Infogrames confirmed the GameCube version of Ikaruga would come to North America and Europe, with Infogrames representatives citing the popularity of Ikaruga in Japan and growing fan base around the world. The game was finally released on 15 April 2003 In North America and 9 May 2003 in Europe.
  On 12 September 2007, Microsoft announced they were planning on releasing Ikaruga on Xbox Live Arcade for the Xbox 360. It was released on 9 April 2008, and included new features such as leaderboards, achievements, and the ability to record and replay playthroughs. Treasure later released Ikaruga on the arcade distribution platform, NESiCAxLive, on 8 August 2013. In October 2013, Treasure placed the title into the Steam Greenlight process to bring the game (based on the Xbox 360 version) to Microsoft Windows, with hopes to bring their other titles to the platform later. The game was released on Steam on 18 February 2014. It was also published by Nicalis for the Nintendo Switch on 29 May 2018, supporting both horizontal and vertical screen orientations. In June 2018, Ikaruga was also released on the PlayStation 4. On 22 November 2019 Nicalis announced that physical copies were in production for both the Nintendo Switch and the PlayStation 4.
caption: The Dreamcast port of Ikaruga was imported by gamers worldwide and gained a cult following before its official western release.
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