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Iconic bullet-hell shooter Ikaruga blasts its way onto Google Play

More pew pew! for your money

Iconic bullet-hell shooter Ikaruga blasts its way onto Google Play
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| Ikaruga

Back before the holidays, we reported that the beloved bullet-hell shooter Ikaruga launched on Google Play in Japan and we set about shaking our fists towards the east in envy.

Now, five weeks after its Japanese release, we can finally stop shaking our fists: Ikaruga is available for fans across the world to enjoy.

Ikaruga has a well-deserved reputation for being one of the best and most challenging shmups ever created and now it's once again poised to test your dexterity, patience, and ability to memorize enemy attack patterns.

Bi-Polarity

While undeniably an arcade-style action shooter, Ikaruga stood out from the numerous shmups of its age by introducing an innovative polarity-based system.

Players can freely switch their weapons and shields between red and blue polarities, and their ships will only be vulnerable to bullets of an opposite polarity. The same goes for enemy ships, so if they're blue you'll want to switch your polarity to red so that you can damage them.

Of course, if you switch to an opposing polarity to attack an enemy ship, you'll leave yourself vulnerable to a damaging counterattack from their bullets. But that's all part of the fun, right?

For those looking to put their shmup skills to the test, Ikaruga is now available on Google Play and can be downloaded for £6.00 / $9.00.

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Matthew Diener
Matthew Diener
Representing the former colonies, Matt keeps the Pocket Gamer news feed updated when sleepy Europeans are sleeping. As a frustrated journalist, diehard gamer and recovering MMO addict, this is pretty much his dream job.