Every hardcore fan of the Sega Saturn knows about Radiant Silvergun. This arcade port was one of the late releases for the system, and came out at a time when the platform was all but dead outside Japan. This is why North America and Europe were deprived of Radiant Silvergun. It’s known for being one of the greatest shoot ’em ups (or shmups) of all time, and it’s also one of the first ever designed by legendary action game developer Treasure. It was unique in that they had never released anything like it before, and for a first effort it’s incredible. The other reason Radiant Silvergun is well known is because of the fact that it’s one of the most rare and expensive retail games for the Sega Saturn. It regularly closes in auction for a few hundred dollars which is pretty crazy for such an old title. It took me years before I was finally willing to pony out the dough for this original version, but I’m glad I did because it’s one of my most prized games.
Normally when I play an import game I will at least look up a summary of the plot so that I have some idea of what is happening. In this case I decided not to bother because Radiant Silvergun is a shooter, and story is not a big emphasis in this genre. The game’s main mode features a lot of voice over work and anime illustrations complete with a long ending sequence. Near as I can tell you play as one of three pilots of special Silvergun ships, and you’re up against a large army of enemies across six different stages. The game itself at first appears to be a traditional vertically scrolling shooter. You can guide your ship in all eight directions using the controller’s directional pad and, unless blocked by an obstacle or enemy, you can move anywhere on the screen. The weapon system is where Radiant Silvergun makes its major departure from the norm. Rather than gathering upgrades for different or more powerful shots you instead start with the only seven weapons in the game. This may sound strange, and admittedly it takes a little time to get used to, but the design accommodates this feature in some very interesting ways that sets it apart from the pack.
For starters there’s absolutely no need to cycle through weapons. Each of your seven weapons is set to one of the face buttons, and using them is as simple as pressing the corresponding one. This system is extremely intuitive because each is useful in specific circumstances. The stages are designed to have you using most of them, and it’s not just due to their placement. In some situations you get point bonuses (which powers up the particular shot) for using a particular weapon. This rewards experimentation, and adds several layers of strategy to the mix. The weapons themselves cover a wide range of styles. You have the standard vulcan laser that simply fires straight ahead, the weaker but useful homing shot, the spread bombs which fire at angles and cause lingering explosions, a similar but slightly weaker homing shot, the backwards vulcan, and homing plasma which uses lightning to damage foes. The most powerful weapon in the game, the radiant sword, is also the most interesting. This is a short range weapon that spins around your ship and at first doesn’t seem all that strong. You can power it up by striking and absorbing pink energy shots from the enemies. When you fill the bar at the top of the screen the resulting attack fills a huge portion of the screen and is devastatingly powerful. Sometimes these pink blobs are hard to hit (especially during boss fights) and the game definitely makes you work for them in the later areas.
The only thing I don’t really like about this game is its scoring system. Normally I wouldn’t care about this all that much, but it is the quickest way to facilitate weapon upgrades. By defeating enemies of specific colors (three or more in a row) you gain extra points. It’s a little convoluted in my opinion, and you’re sort of forced to deal with it because of the upgrade incentives. Unfortunately the game is challenging, and almost impossible without these stronger weapons. The level design is among the craziest across the entire genre. You’ll have narrow play areas lined with enemy fire leaving you only the smallest spot on the screen to dodge attacks. There’s no life bar here, and you lose a life each time you’re hit by an attack. Thankfully you can continue directly from where you left off. The boss encounters are my absolute favorite part of this game. Treasure really broke the mold here with some very unusual conventions for this genre. One encounter has you hiding behind small barriers to avoid a rotating laser attack which is my absolute favorite moment of the game. Others include instances where gigantic missiles are launched at your ship, and even one where the play field is restricted by lasers which block you in to a small section of the screen. These are among the most creative encounters I’ve seen in a scrolling shooter and they’re a real blast.
The Sega Saturn wasn’t a beast with 3D graphics. It was pretty obvious when you stacked its best releases alongside those of the Nintendo 64 and even Sony PlayStation. Fortunately Radiant Silvergun is a beautiful game. Although the gameplay is strictly two dimensional the graphics are completely polygonal. You have backgrounds that rotate like a moving camera (which is unusual and actually really cool for a vertical scrolling shoot ’em up). While your ship and weapons are a little on the simplistic side the enemies look really great. They’re all mechanical, and some of the liberties taken (such as the ships designed after animals in particular) are really neat. The bosses generally take up most of the screen real estate which is really cool. The most impressive part of this game is that, even with rotating 3D backgrounds and tons of enemies on-screen the framerate holds surprisingly steady. I did notice a few drops here and there, but for the most part Radiant Silvergun runs smooth as butter. The soundtrack is also very well done and provides the game a largely epic atmosphere. It’s tough to describe the music; it belongs to the techno genre but there’s a ‘mechanical’ feel to it. This is one soundtrack that I’m definitely on the prowl for.
