Shoot’ em ups are a genre that has been around since the early days of gaming, when Space Invaders first kickstarted the Golden Age of Video Games. The genre has been through many forms, beyond just shifting from horizontal oriented or vertical oriented. More and more experimentation was done, and Treasure took things to an interesting place when it came to 1998’s Radiant Silvergun. Radiant Silvergun was an intense shooter that had a unique setup for gameplay. Right at the start, players were given an arsenal of weapons that make up three primary weapons. These include a standard forward firing shot, homing projectiles, and a spread gun attack that sends out two lasers at an angle. These are not the only weapons though, since players could combine one weapon with another to create 3 potential new weapons. a rear attack, a targeted missile attacks, as well as a long range targeted electrical attack.
The game was well known for its scoring system that made use of enemy color, since all enemies are either red, blue, or yellow. If you destroyed three enemies of the same color in a row, you would get a scoring bonus and this could be built on by continuing to chain combinations of attacks. The more you did this, the more powerful your weapon used will be. As such, there was a clear motivation to do so. The later Xbox 360 port would give the option of using the scoring system from Treasure’s later follow-up Ikaruga. That being said, there was a requirement of having already had an achievement from Ikaruga on the system.
Radiant Silvergun bucked trends by having a deep story that resonated on an emotional level as well. The story could be depressing but also helped expand the game by giving more depth than one would expect from a shoot’ em up. The game had tightly designed level and excellent boss fights, and almost every part of it seemed polished to perfection. Initially released in the arcades, before receiving a Sega Saturn port in Japan, before coming west only in the last decade and then the aforementioned Xbox 360 Port,(which is backwards compatible on Xbox One). The game is legendary for good reason, and Treasure have teased that they would love to bring the game to Switch as well. If you have not played this one yet, you really need to do so.
In addition, for access to an extensive variety of active retro gaming groups on Facebook, visit Retro Gamers Hub.