Radiant Silvergun Review
Radiant Silvergun Review
By Transient Nova
The double-barreled game titles are always the sexiest ones.
Fun fact: ever since Treasure’s Ikaruga effectively turned me on to Japanese shoot-‘em-ups ten years ago and made me the avid fan of the genre that I am today, it has been one of my greatest gaming pursuits to play that game’s spiritual predecessor, Radiant Silvergun. The game has achieved something of a legendary status of sorts, thanks in no small part to the high prices the Sega Saturn original often commanded on auction sites and the positive word-of-mouth that was going around at the time. Now at long last, I finally have an opportunity to play it thanks to the company’s recent re-release on Xbox Live Arcade. Now all I need to do is hunt down Cave’s Ketsui and Raizing’s Battle Garegga in one form or another and then I’ll have the holy shoot-‘em-up trinity to my name.
There were many reasons behind the interest generated in the game, not least the kind of weight that Treasure’s name brings to it. It was willing to do things a little bit differently at a time when players were starting to feel burnt out on the genre after one too many releases over the 16-bit era. Doing away with collectable power ups, it gave players a basic three weapon types to use from the offset, each of which can be levelled up through use and be combined at will into a further three shot types alongside a bullet cancelling sword attack. It’s actually quite impressive how far the developer actually manages to take the concept.
The game has two main modes: Arcade and Story (formerly referred to as the Saturn mode). Arcade mode is arguably where the meat of the game really lies, offering a well paced half an hour or so of tightly designed, score-chasing bliss. You should be able to pick up the scoring basics if you’ve played the company’s later Ikaruga: shoot three enemies of the same colour to get yourself a tidy chain bonus. The difference here is that where that’s all you need to do in Ikaruga to perform well, the scoring system behind Radiant Silvergun generally asks considerably more of you, soon showing itself to be a much more complex beast.
In an unusual rarity for a shoot-‘em-up, scoring is intricately linked to your very survival. The more points you accumulate with a specific shot type, the more it levels up, increasing the amount of damage you can do and how flexible you can be with it. Therefore, players who don’t make some effort to learn the game and chain properly will find their arsenal too underpowered to effectively combat the later bosses. Though initially daunting, when it all clicks Radiant SIlvergun becomes frequently exciting, often cerebral and pleasingly varied (thanks in no small part to some clever level design on display). There is just so much to discover score-wise, with possible avenues of bounty including the sniffing out the secret dog tags with a specific weapon or successfully figuring out how to start up a ‘secret chain’ and keep it going. Genre veterans will relish this for sure, but even so the lofty requirements asked of the player will undoubtedly be quite off-putting to newcomers (so here’s a starting tip to help them on their way: focus on chaining red-coloured enemies and ONLY red-coloured enemies. Significant bonuses can be had in doing this).
For said newcomers or for people who just want to ‘get to the end’ so to speak, we have that Story mode. Unlike Arcade, it lets players carry over their weapon levels between games while also throwing in a few additional bosses to the mix and a plot that, while admirably tackling such heavy themes as loss and desperate vengeance with its end of the world scenario, feels a little antiquated and tame these days. Accessibility and an epic sense of adventure are added at the expense of sound pacing, with your standard run now running at over an hour and an increased likelihood of fatigue through repetition as a result. As I’ve expressed in an earlier review, the genre generally does not benefit from long runtimes, doubly so here when you eventually have enough firepower to wipe out half of Scotland with a squeeze of the trigger and effectively remove most of the challenge.
Speaking of challenge, let’s move on to those glorious, glorious boss fights. Always an admirable trait running through their development history; Treasure are one of the few companies that truly understands the fine art of the boss battle. An energetic warning flashes up on the screen as a large war machine makes its entrance, making sure that its presence is felt with plenty of spectacle and a few lines of awesomely peculiar engrish before proceeding with an intimate bullet ballet. The bosses here are a captivating lot, varied enough to grab players’ interests while dynamic enough to keep them engaged. Score bonuses are also provided based on exactly how much of them you destroy, rewarding players who go through the trouble of taking them apart piece by piece instead of going for the easier option of just drilling into their vulnerable cores.
One new addition to this port is the inclusion of online multiplayer over Xbox Live, but it’s difficult to muster the enthusiasm for it when it simply isn’t fun, being as it is too strict with its credits for casual blasting and too dependent on the leveling up system for more professional runs. The leaderboards on the other hand work fine, which is good considering how much the genre generally thrives on them. They’re robust and practical, if not quite graceful in their application. The ability to download replays from other players is always welcome as well.
Graphically, this isn’t a drastic remake. The sprites have been redrawn, the screen resolution has been increased to take advantage of HD televisions and a slightly blinding amount of bloom lighting has been added just because. Radiant Silvergun still retains a distinctive look and an atmospheric vibe, although Treasure’s signature character designs seem at odds with the rest of the game’s style. There are options to lower the screen resolutions and alter the transparencies to bring the visuals in line with the original versions for those who so wish to do so, though a lack of proper support for 4:3 CRT monitors will probably irk a few purists. It’s also worth pointing out the excellent soundtrack as well, with variations of a single theme that manage to sound suitably epic while adding a sense of coherency to the game.
In many ways, this is like a dream come true for me. Here I am, controller in hand, actually playing the shoot-‘em-up that preceded my favorite game of all time, and it’s as stunning and intelligent as I was led to believe. After sinking lots of time into it however there is still one overriding thought running through my head that has put the whole ‘legendary status’ thing in check: the genre has moved on from this now.
Over the past thirteen or so years since Radiant Silvergun’s release, we’ve seen the likes of Cave take scoring systems to feverish, exciting extremes with titles such as Deathsmiles and the recent European release of Dodonpachi Resurrection. We’ve seen G.Rev attempt to make shooters more approachable in the well-produced Strania on Xbox Live Arcade and the underrated shooter/fighter hybrid Senko No Ronde. Even Treasure themselves opted to streamline their two subsequent shooters with the graceful, focused Ikaruga and their take on the Gradius series.
This is a bold and unique experiment in the genre; one of the most meticulous, intricately designed, even exploratory shoot-‘em-ups out there and absolutely required playing for any dedicated genre fan who hasn’t yet given it a go. There will rightfully be people who love the game for the very reasons I’ve just summarised a sentence ago but, as much as I like it, I’m personally glad that its contemporaries didn’t completely follow the path it laid out to the letter back in 1998.
For better or for worse there has never been, nor will there ever be, another shooter quite like Radiant Silvergun.
Overall:
8/10
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Developer: Treasure Co. Ltd.
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Players: 1-2 (offline and online multiplayer)
Release: 14th September, 2011
Initial Price: 1200 Microsoft points
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