Otherwise, the game is pretty well-balanced – along with utilizing regular old power-up items your weapons will “level up” after you’ve destroyed enough stuff, and henceforth never dip below that level if you die, which helps to prevent you from being left with inadequate weaponry at an inopportune time. The copious weapon fire isn’t the only thing that looks great – the detailed, colorful spritework here is some of the company’s best, though along with your uber-powered weaponry it can sometimes make it tricky to spot enemy bullets (and their arsenal is almost as ‘roided up as yours).
In a historical context, many shmuppers credit it as the title which bridges the gap between “oldschool” and “modern” shooters.
The final shmup release of iconic developer Toaplan, Batsugun set a new bar for just how much havoc players were allowed to wreak onscreen, and it’s still quite the display of pixilated pyrotechnics 15 years after its initial arcade release. If the ability to wield fictional weapons of mass destruction (hopefully without being preemptively invaded) is your primary motivation for playing a shooter, then boy is Batsugun the game for you. That said, if you’re a shooter fan you still need to track down Radiant Silvergun, just to see what it’s all about – after all, the only way to know for sure whether it’s for you is to play it yourself. Be that as it may, however, some shooter fans will still be turned off by the undeniably overbearing nature of Silvergun’s scope, ambition, and challenge – this is understandable, as it’s definitely not intended to appeal to everyone to begin with. The Saturn port, aside from being pretty much arcade-perfect (the unusual graphical blend of sprites and polygons, by the way, still impresses), adds a handful of nice extras, most notably a “Saturn Mode,” which not only further(!) lengthens the game and includes additional dialogue and opening/ending anime sequences, but allows you to save your powered-up weapon levels between runs if you’d rather just blast through everything without worrying too much about chaining enemies. Since your weapons power up based on how well you score, you’ll need to learn the game inside and out – playing it “casually” is NOT an option if you’re looking for “legitimate” one-credit clear. This tone extends past its trimmings right into the core gameplay – Silvergun is challenging (though mostly fair, thanks to precise control and a small hitbox) even when played with a “just try not to die” mindset, but if you want to really get anywhere in it you’ll have to devote yourself to mastering its scoring system, which primarily involves only shooting enemies of a certain color, and a lot of memorization. More than perhaps any other game of its ilk, Radiant Silvergun embodies an “epic” spirit – from its relatively lengthy structure (an hour or more per complete run-through) to its grandiose and pretentious story (accompanied by a symphonic classical soundtrack, to boot) to its seven-simultaneous-weapons setup to its bevies of bosses, and their impeccable ability to make you exclaim “you want me to steer my ship WHERE, and do WHAT?”, this game does its darndest to make you feel like you’re doing something more important than just pressing buttons in front of a screen. Not only was it the first scrolling shooter to come forth from cult developer Treasure (better-known in the West for Silvergun’s pseudo-sequel, Ikaruga), but down to this day there’s simply no other shmup quite like it. One of the few Japan-only shooters that even non-shmuppers might have heard of, Radiant Silvergun is best known for the high sale prices it attracts on eBay, but the relative few who have actually experienced it can tell you that there are many other reasons why shooter fans ought to make it their mission to try this title at some point in their lives.
BEST VERSION OF TWINBEE PS2
Shmup Libraries: TG16/PC Engine | Genesis/Megadrive | SNES | PS1 | Saturn | Dreamcast | PS2 | GCN | GBA Radiant Silvergun Shmups 101 | Beginner Shmups | Defining Shmups | Hidden Gem Shmups Racketboy’s newest contributor, BulletMagnet, walks us through the Saturn’s impressive shooter lineup from the excellent all the way to the mediocre.
For fans of the shmup genre, the Sega Saturn is a must-own console due to its excellent exclusives, a healthy dose of high-quality cross-platform ports, and plenty of 2D processing power. Two-dimensional shooters are some of the most intense old-school games out there due to the precision, reflexes, and memorization needed to survive these adrenaline rushes. The Sega Saturn’s Explosive Shmups Library