Bashes head against the wall. Replace a few 360 controllers; respectively.

Still....I can't wait for this to come out to XBLA....

When is it coming out btw?

Ikaruga? Achievements? Don't even contemplate it. Just top yourself now.

I guess clearing a chapter without using a bullet would be a little harder than the pacifist acheivement in Geometry Wars?

Arcade game Achievements are usually pretty tough. I have around 35 arcade titles and I don't think I have the full 200 on any of them.

Ever check the achievements for Exelica? There's a "no continue on hard difficulty" and "no miss at all" on normal or higher. Both are impossible w/o at the very least memorizing the stages, and then getting some insane fucking human reflexes to avoid enemy fire.

Considering that you can do the no-continue on easy mode (since it says any) I think Ikaruga's is far more approachable.

It's called bullet eater D:

It's rather easy the first stage of course, but then it gets slightly ridiculous D:

But really, not firing anything makes some parts much easier, since 50% of all bullet fire in the game is a counter to your fire. D:

Clearing the game without a single continue, while this is clearly out of my range of skill, there are definitely people who can do it, and people whom I've seen do it. D:

@strobefx: Understatement of the century.

Do people really have that much trouble with Ikaruga? It's fairly easy by most shooter standards. It's a bullethell game but you can reduce bullets significantly by not actually shooting (as said, most fire is countering your own), and a large amount of that can be absorbed.

I guess most people try to play it as a "must kill everything!!!" game, which is pretty counter-productive.

@Dioxen: Knew somebody would say it.

To a shooter fan, no, its not hard. It's probably easy. Thing is, most people aren't shooter fans, and have the devil's time trying to play one. So yes, a lot of people really do have that much trouble with it.

Am I the only one that doesn't like "pacifism" achievements where you don't fire at all in a level?

I'm actually surprised though. I was expecting something like "beat hard mode without using a continue" achievement. I'm actually kinda glad they didn't make an achievement like that. At least with Unstoppable you can do it on easy mode.

I dont get how you can beat a stage without shooting unless it considers the "bomb" move not a shot.

I wasn't expect less from Ikaruga's achievements.

@Witzbold: Iirc if you don't kill a boss in a certain amount of time the level ends.

@kojirodensetsu: Correct.

@Luke Plunkett: To a shooter fan, no, its not hard. It's probably easy.

I consider myself a Shmup fan and it's not easy by any stretch. Maybe I'm just a casual shooter fan who pours quarters into Raiden Fighters at the arcade.

If/when the whole RROD ever stops for the 360 and the machine becomes somewhat reliable, I would jump all over it for the Raiden collection and Ikaruga.

Maybe a game I FINNALY will be able to get 200/200 ^^ will see about the continue once :) done it once but wasn't exactly easy. Most of the time I always get blown up by the last boss with my last continue....

I have the game for the GC, but I'll still buy it again for XBLA. I love it.

@kojirodensetsu: Interesting. Ive never done that in the arcades before. It was either got killed or killed the boss.

When I get my lcd with rotating display it going to be pure joy.

Not shooting a single bullet? o.O Yeah, I think I'd give that achievement a pass as well. And there's no way in heck I'd earn that no continues one either.

@Collapse The Control:
It differs alot from game to game. Among the easier are Pacman (1-2 hours should be enough) and Wik and the Fable of Souls (maybe 4 hours) for the full 200/200. ;)

Can't wait for ikaruga though. :D

I can clear the first level and get to the boss of the second level without firing a shot.
But there's no way I can make it through the game without using a continue!

So...honest question. I'm pretty much NO good at shooters, but only because I rarely play them. I really want to try this out, but I'm wondering...is this going to be worth my money to buy, or is it going to be so head-bangingly frustrating that I give up on it? Better way of putting it--I know this is a good schmup, but is this a good schmup for me to get started on?

As an obsessive compulsive achievement whore, I'm afraid I may have to give the XBLA version of the game a miss. If I can't get all the achievements, then I don't want a bar of it.

N+ is about the limits of my patience.

By far the most enjoyable experience I had getting all the points in a 360 game (arcade or retail) would have to be Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I'd already beaten the game a good hundred times or so, so it was a breeze except for the Richter achievement, which I'd only done once before, so it gave me a challenge and took a couple of hours to complete. I managed to beat the regular castle in about 4 hours, then the inverted in about 4 more hours, then getting the gold and filling in the blank spots on the map took about another hour. So all said, probably took about 13 hours to get all the achievements, but none of them were very challenging, yet some were just challenging enough that if I was not a long-time Castlevania aficionado I'd have likely had some difficulty. Anyway, great great game with well chosen achievements that encourage you to just go explore and do everything. Anybody who hasn't played through it yet on XBLA really should, even if you have recently played it on PSone, Saturn, PSP, PSN, what have you.

@Demaar: And this is precisely the reason that achievements tend to piss me off. They destroy the value of games in a lot of cases. People are starting play games for achievements and that's it. Once they get them all, they're done with the game, regardless of how much fun they would otherwise still get out of it. Sometimes people avoid amazing games entirely because of achievements (you really shouldn't!). And worse yet, sometimes people buy complete SHIT because they want the easy points.

It's fucking sad.

@baked ham: And we can all laugh at them for their silly ways. Just like the ways that killwhores ruin team games since they dont want to raise their death count in stats that no one cares about, or anything else that's insignificant to everyone except him herself or them.

The new idolmaster game has about the easiest fucking 1000achievements possible, and ~20hrs into it I still havent completed it yet. Why? 1) I don't care, and 2) I don't care to use all the characters just for some achievements. Until MS starts selling achievement points for MSPs (let's pretend Avatar was an anomaly) we shouldn't start getting worried about this sort of thing.

@baked ham: I agree that some people's attitudes toward achievements ARE silly. But when used properly, they really do extend the enjoyment and life out of games.

Like Crackdown achievements really helped that game. I never would've thought to try and carry a car up to the top of a building, or try to keep things up in the air with grenades ow whatever. I try not to think about achievements until my second time through a game, and then it really makes you look at the game in a different light many times.

The achievements that are like "collect a bunch of meaningless flags" like in Assassin's Creed? Ummm. Not so much. Ain't doing it.

@baked ham: I'm with you, that's pretty crazy.

Achievements are pretty cool, I think it's a good thing. I'll go back to a game to try to get a challenging achievement- I've been going back to Tomb Raider Anniversary from time to time to try and get through the Obelisk of Khamoon without dying under the time limit. It's fucking hard as hell, and I probably wouldn't give a shit to try if not for the achievement. But I keep pulling TRA out every week or so for another try. So instead of that game collecting dust on the shelf, I'm still enjoying it.

Achievements can be cool, but only if you can handle them psychologically. If not getting an achievement is going to break you one way or another then I would agree, don't get Ikaruga, because some of these will be damn near impossible for the vast majority of players.

lol this game is soo old. i can't believe you're still talking about achievements. i beat it on dreamcast and gamecube years ago.

I still have this game for the Gamecube.

So I'm the only one that finds it highly overrated? Fun, but not joygasm fun.

I have the GC and import DC versions of Ikaruga. And I already think those versions cost way more than they're worth. I'll buy the XBLA version if it costs 400 points. A single point more and I'm not interested.

Setzer IIDX: you are not the only gamer who finds Ikaruga overrated. Let me assure you of that.

Ikaruga is a decent enough game, but not worthy of even half of the praise it receives. It's a scrolling shooter with a partly-interesting mechanic for defense and a DDR-like mechanic for scoring. It's really nothing all that special.

Fanboys need to stop hyping games without good backing reasons. Plenty on the GC, and even on the DC, was much better than Ikaruga at the time it was released on each respective system.

Exactly, nice points everyone. Crackdown was a good example of how achievements can add fun to a game rather than take it away. It definitely works both ways. Some designers definitely make the achievements better than others. Castlevania, as I mentioned above, is a great example. I'd played through the game countless times before, but the achievements gave me a reason to kill drac at the beginning without getting hit, to go and find every sqaure of the map again rather than just rush through, and to go through the game as Richter for the first time in probably 8 years.

@Homard: I think Ikaruga is only over-rated by those who rate it higher than Radiant Silvergun. If Ikaruga is a fantastic shooter, then Radiant Silvergun is off the fucking charts out of the world god-like. And anybody who says Ikaruga is better is a damned fool.

OK, unless they're talking about the arcade versions of each game. Ikaruga is better as an arcade game than RS, but the saturn version of RS is the best shooter of all time. Ikaruga is a fantastic game, and anybody who says it's not worth more than 5 dollars is a bit strange, in my estimation. It'll cost 10 dollars, and itll be well worth every damn penny.

Sadly RS has been played by fewer people than owned a 3D0 on launch day.

It's hard for people to judge. Why on earth RS isn't coming out first I have NO idea.

And Baked Ham is spot on about Crackdown. It added lots of fun to an already great game.

@Salen: Dot eater isn't terribly hard, in Ikaruga you can flip your ship from black to white and from white to black. When your ship is black, you can absorb black bullets, and when it's white you can absorb white bullets.

So basically it's a lot easier than it seems. I'm not terrific at shooters, I don't think I've ever gotten past level three in Ikaruga, but I got dot eater on level one without pulling my hair out.

Never played or even heard of Ikaruga until reading about it on this site. Checked out some vids on you tube, man was I confused until I read up on the game mechanics. Very much looking forward to this game.. only hope the 360 d pad doesn't take away from it.

@baked ham: @RobTheBuilder: Exactly, all the love in the world to Ikaruga, but RS is just so damn ridiculously awesome its impossible to describe to those who haven't ever played it.

I think it must have some type of curse on it, hence the lack of a port so far :(

@Abdar: It worked well on GC so hopefully pad should be fine.

Howsabout a new einhander?

anyone?

Bullet Eater is actually rather easy, especially on the first level. It is somewhat easier to just dodge everything than to dodge, shoot, and dodge splashback bullets.

I was kind of hoping for one massively difficult achievement, similar to the ones in Smash TV. Besting the entire game on easy with one credit is still insane, but it doesn't strike me as quite the same as 13 ship mode in Raystorm.

I think I've already done all of those achievements on the Dreamcast. Part of me says that's enough, while another part needs proof.

Yeah, I checked and I have no 200/200 for any of my 35 arcade titles. I love achievements but I certainly don't go apeshit over getting all of them. I also care more about the Achievements themselves and not so much the points. I have around 1,170 achievements. I like the icons, names, descriptions, but most of all I love the Time Stamp on them. I really like having the ability to go through them and see what date I unlocked it.

Everybody who has commented so far interestingly thinks that the point of Ikaruga is to beat the game. Rather, the point of the game is the scoring and chaining system.

@LX: Yes and yes.
But after a DonPachi DoDonPachi and DoDonPachi 2 collection please.

Yay Ikaruga.

You guys probably know this, but for hardcore shmup fans, one credit clears (no continues!) is the way these games should be played. So that achievement is par for the course. Not saying you shouldn't enjoy them any other way, but for the closest 'arcade' experience, yeah...1CCs are fun - and a challenge.

Have you all seen this:

+ Watch video

talk about achievements!

I think the Achievements are fantastic. Getting A ranks is doable if you practice practice practice, but you do not need Godlike skills (unlike the S ranks and so on). I have and LOVE Ikaruga on the GameCube, just played it this morning in fact, and there is a 95% chance of getting this release for HD visuals, leaderboards, and achievements to motivate me to getting back into it again.

It is a beautiful example of a game where you have to practice to get the most out of the experience, and the achievements suppliment this nicely.