Radiant Silvergun #BestOfSaturnGold

By 1998, the Saturn was gasping for life in the West. Releases had slowed to a trickle before drying up for good by year’s end. Game over… but don’t tell Japan, where the situation was completely different. There, the Saturn continued to roar with more than 200 releases that year, including some of the system’s best games, all coming out at a steady pace. Radiant Silvergun, Treasure’s third game for the system, hit store shelves in July of that year.

A shmup from Treasure was a change from the company’s usual action/arcade produce, but what a shock to the senses it was. The game utilizes the Saturn’s high-resolution mode, runs at a full 60 FPS, and employs a gorgeous blend of sprites, polygons, and multiple rotating VDP 2 infinite planes that sometimes shimmer and distort to boot. The orchestrated Sakimoto soundtrack is at once brilliant and mad, and the storyline, dealing with an ancient computer/God destroying all life on earth and sending our heroes on a wild time-travelling ride, is equally insane. Coupled with sensational gameplay and a unique weapon experience system, players had themselves a killer app on their hands.

Initially developed for the ST-V “Titan” arcade board before being ported over to Saturn, the game takes a unique approach in that all weapons are available to the player right from the start — and with continued gameplay, the weapons slowly gain experience and become more and more potent. A color-based chaining system is employed, providing both a straightforward path for novice players and a chain challenge for veterans, who have to selectively shoot only enemies of the same color to maximize their chains and points.

The Saturn port featured added FMV sequences and a special Saturn mode, for extra playability. A bullet hell shooter at heart, the game features frequent polygonal bosses that can be taken down in sections for maximum points and charming mangled English warning messages anytime one of the behemoth bosses came into view.

The game has been ported to modern consoles, but the very first place that you could play this masterpiece at home was, of course, on Saturn. Shame that it never left Japan, as it was supremely playable and routinely showcased an audio-visual punch at framerates and resolutions that competing systems were simply not capable of achieving. The game’s place in the pantheon of Saturn releases cannot be overstated.