Created in response to the decline of arcade shooters and their perception of too basic games, Radiant Silvergun puts the package on the staging: it begins with a long animated intro sequence in the style of the 80s/90s, and the story mode follows a scenario that regularly interrupts the action with dubbed dialogues. It is, therefore, one of the first truly cinematic shmups, and the result is felt, with results quite impressive for the time, and well-worked animations, like at the arrival of certain bosses.
The gameplay is complex, too complex for its good
Three shots are available: straight, homing, or to the sides; each of these shots, combined with another, creates a variation; and you have to add a “sword” (the Radiant Sword) that allows you to cancel certain enemy shots and charges a gauge that allows you to hit very hard, but at short range. And I’m not even talking about the rest: the weapons that improve as you progress, as well as the scoring based on chains of elimination of enemies of a single color! I hope you’re focused because you’re going to have to count on your reflexes as much as learning how to use the weapons…
Radiant Silvergun offers several game modes: classic arcade, with scoring, without the story part, in which you can increase your number of lives up to 10, but which is limited to 3 continues; and a scenario mode, with only one life and one continues, in which you will grind. Indeed, in this mode, weapons improve when you use them, and keep their level when you lose: save at that point, restart a game from this save, and you will start it with the power level you had. It’s an interesting concept, but unless you are very good, it requires a lot of grinding, and the systematic return to the title screen, with save reload rather than a quick restart, quickly gets on your nerves.
Indeed, the game is difficult, very difficult
it doesn’t wait until the end of the first level to get its claws out, and you immediately get hit in the face. The swarms of complex enemies give way to different bosses that follow one after the other to move on to even more tense situations, and while you’ve barely beaten 4 or 5 bosses, you learn that you’ve only just finished the first level! These bosses range from the banal to the pretty good, and all have pieces to destroy one after the other, which is riskier but gives a score bonus. The most interesting thing about all this is probably the levels, which present situations requiring you to regularly change weapons and tactics but can often be overcome in different ways, and demonstrate that all weapons have a use, although there are so many of them that some are a bit redundant.
On this version, as on the other games published by LiveWire ( Mushihimesama, DoDonPachi, or EspGaluda 2 ), there are no bonuses, no manual, and no information on the gameplay, the game modes, etc.: figure out for yourself that the story mode is played like an RPG, and go see a wiki to learn the scoring system.
