IKARUGA Is Cleared For Take Off In New Launch Trailer For The Nintendo Switch

Ikargua is a shoot-em up that was released in Japanese Arcades in 2001. The game was developed by Treasure and published by Sega as a spiritual successor to Radiant Silvergun—released for Arcades in 1998. The game was later localised to the West and made available for the Nintendo Gamecube in 2003 and now Nicalis has ported the game, once again, to another Nintendo console—the Nintendo Switch.

The game will have players going through 5 challenging, and thumb-busting stages by using the game's main gameplay mechanic that allows the ship to shift its polarity to either avoid attacks or make its attacks even more powerful. Ikaruga featurews three difficulty settings, as well as including a chapter-selection in Arcade mode and Prototype mode—which ramps up the difficulty by limiting the ship's ammunition.

Thanks to the nature of the Nintendo Switch, players will be able to play with the screen set to vertical whilst in handheld mode, as well as being able to play Co-op mode with their friends by simply dettaching the Joy-Cons from their Switch.

As of today, the game is available at the Nintendo Switch eShop and Nicalis have not yet announced that a physical copy is on its way. That said, Nicalis is probably testing the waters with Ikaruga and seeing if it is viable to make sequels, and offer physical copies of the game. So, if players want physical copies for Ikaruga, they better start supporting the game that is available for purchase right now.

Ikaruga's revolutionary polarity-switching and point multiplier systems transform intense "bullet-hell" shooter gameplay into something more like a strategic action game with puzzle-like elements.