Last month, Nicalis dropped a new port of classic shoot-em-up Ikaruga on the Nintendo Switch. Today, legendary developer Treasure confirmed an Ikaruga PS4 release is on the horizon as well, with an official announcement coming next week.
Treasure tweeted the news by confirming Ikaruga is running on the PS4, with a cute image of a bunch of PlayStation consoles lined up, some sick Ikaruga merchandise, and of course the game itself running in vertical mode on a slick monitor setup. There’s also a nice bottle of celebratory champagne, wrapped in a lovely ribbon.
Ikaruga has resurfaced several times since its Japan-only arcade and Dreamcast releases in 2001 and 2002 respectively. It launched worldwide for the first time in 2003 on the Gamecube, then Xbox 360 in 2008. It finally resurfaced again on Steam in 2014, and of course just landed on the Switch in May 2018.
Ikaruga has long been one of Treasure’s most popular (therefore accessible) shoot-em-ups, due to its high production value and unique gameplay hook. Bullets, enemies, and the player’s ship are all either black or white, and the player can swap at the press of a button. Matching the “polarity” of a bullet lets players absorb the hit, then release a special homing shot when enough power is built up. This mechanic also figures into score chains, making the leaderboards an intense competition.
[Source: Gematsu]
