Radiant Silvergun

Treasure's goal with Project RS was to shift the shooter paradigm from mindless shooting and dodging action to strategy. Radiant Silvergun was the first game Treasure released in the Project RS series.

Originally launched in 1998 for the arcades, Radiant Silvergun's most famous iteration is the Sega Saturn port. Even though the game was never released outside of Japan, nearly ten years after the death of Segata Sanshiro there is still a huge global demand for the game causing the price to top $200 for a used copy.

Radiant Silvergun is lauded as the pinnacle of the maximalist school of shooter design. It features an innovative weapons system with seven weapons available at any time. The key to success is an efficient and strategic use of various weapons. Given the level design and the enemy patterns, reliance on a single weapon is folly.

Unlike the standard shooter fare, there are no power ups in Radiant Silvergun. Instead, the player can level up each of his seven weapons systems by gracefully executing chains. A chain is performed by consecutively exploding enemies of like colors (red, blue or yellow) and the chain is broken if you destroy an enemy of a different color or get shot down. Treasure is so confident in its level design that they have included a save feature that allows you to preserve your leveled up weapons for your next game.

The spine card contains a cryptic message in Japanese, which can be loosely translated as "We should all reconsider one more time. This should be understood by all." What exactly should we reconsider? The meaning of life? Sega's decision to kill off Segata Sanshiro? Treasure's superiority in the shooting genre, perhaps?

Simply stated, Radiant Silvergun is one of the greatest shooters ever made, if not the greatest. It's definitely worth the money if you can track down a copy.

Ikaruga

Although Ikaruga is the second game in Project RS series it is not really a sequel per se in either story or game play. In fact, the only connection between the two games is the retention of the chain system and the expansion of the bullet absorption mechanic. While Radiant Silvergun is a high octane adrenalin buffet, Ikaruga is tranquility in chaos. Radiant Silvergun is a Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine double bill, while Ikaruga is a day of Zen meditation at Ginkaku-ji in Kyoto.

Ikaruga is a vertical shooter developed primarily for the arcades and then later ported to the Dreamcast and Gamecube. Like Radiant Silvergun, there are no power ups to collect in Ikaruga. Unlike Radiant Silvergun, however, you don't have seven weapons at your finger tips - just one. The strength of your single weapon depends entirely on matching its polarity to the color of the enemies. Black enemies are particularly prone to damage from black bullets while white enemies are soft against white bullets.

For most shooters the complete lack of complex weapons systems and power ups would plummet the fun factor to negative five. But unlike most shooters, the focus in Ikaruga is not on offense but on defense. "Ute! Nigero! Soshite...Atare!" - "Shoot! Dodge! And...get hit!" states the spine card on the Dreamcast version. Just like in boxing, success in Ikaruga is more dependent on your ability to take a hit as opposed to delivering one. Often times, the screen floods with white and black bullets and the only way to survive is to change the polarity of your ship so as to create a path by absorbing bullets of the same color.

While skillful defensive play will keep you in the game, you will need to do some shooting if you expect to score big. Similar to Radiant Silvergun, in Ikaruga you can execute chains to rack up big points. A chain occurs when you take out three or more enemies of the same polarity in succession.

Ikaruga was designed by dedicated fans of shooters and their love of the genre is exhibited throughout the game as they paid homage to many of the great classics. For instance, stage 1, stage 3 and stage 5 contain tributes to Xevious, Salamander and Battle Galegga respectively.

Although not part of the official Project RS series, if you are a fan of Ikaruga you should check out Border Down for the Dreamcast. Developer G.rev took the knowledge and experience they gained in helping Treasure with Ikaruga and applied it in spades to Border Down.

Watch the video below to take in Ikaruga's spiritual glory.

Judgment Silversword

Unfortunately, Treasure has made no announcements with respect to the third and final game of the Project RS trilogy. Surely the legendary designers at Treasure haven't run out of innovative ideas for the shooting genre have they?

In the meantime, Pink Godzilla has decided to annoint Judgement Silversword with the title of honorary member of the Project RS brotherhood. (Judgement Silversword shall hold this title until Treasure releases the final game of the series, if ever). Judgement Silversword is not a Treasure game but rather a homebrew Wonderswan game that was inspired by Treasure's Radiant Silvergun. It was developed on the Wonder Witch, an official hobbyist development kit for Bandai's hand held.

Winner of the WWGP 2001 WonderWitch programming contest, Judgement Silversword saw a limited production run of a few thousand pieces and sold in retail stores in Japan. The retail edition of the game is called Judgement Silversword - Rebirth Edition. The first print run quickly sold out and used copies of the game quickly fetched prices of over $200 in Akihabara. A second print run by publisher HFP caused the price to temporarily dip, but as the legend of Judgement Silversword has grown so has the price.

Collector's Alert: There is an easy way to distinguish between the first and second print runs of Judgement Silversword - Rebirth Edition. The second edition bears the HFP logo on the front of the box.

Judgement Silversword is a technical marvel. Spanning a whopping 30 levels, Judgement Silversword pushes the diminutive Wonderswan's processing power to the max as it often handles more than 100 particles on the screen. Although said to be inspired by Radiant Silvergun, Judgement Silversword strikes a strong resemblence to Recca Summer Carnival '92 in both game mechanics, presentation and audio.

Judgement Silversword might very well be the greatest shooter ever released on a hand held. If you own a Wonderswan or are a fan of the shooting genre then you owe it to yourself to pick up this game.

Behold! Judgment Silversword in action.