It's a testament to the quality and timelessness of "Ikaruga" that I remember reading a review of it for the GameCube at my grandmother's place roughly twenty years ago. Even then it was a port from a generation prior. While now mulitple generations in the future and it's still being released. It was like a swansong for a then dead genre. Shmup's were a juggernaut in the arcade days, but as arcades began dying in the west as the new millennium came around, it took a few genres with them. There are still some released from time to time, but their heyday have long since passed. "Ikaruga" is just facinating to me. One I keep coming back to over the years, because I feel the history for the genre in it. It's also the type of game I gravitate towards, with razor tight mechanics and gameplay that it takes all your being to be able to overcome. The core game is only a few stages long, but the brutality of the developers and the artistry by how they craft the game and implement the polarity system is almost otherworldly. It could take someone a lifetime to master. I also find the bizarrely convoluted narrative placement between stages so strangely appealing. The game is really a marvel to behold. Like a dinosaur fossil, it'll never be lost entirely to history and will live on thru the ages.