Each mode can be played freeplay (with unlimited continues) or as score attack (with no continues), with the latter option the only one that feeds into the online leaderboards. The game is broken into two key modes: arcade and story (which has short in-game cut-scenes, for the first time subtitled for non-Japanese speakers). A decade in, and I can't make it halfway through the second stage on one life. One achievement rewards completion of the arcade mode in a single continue. There are numerous filtering options to smooth out the polygons and eight different wallpapers to use for the borders. These elements can all be switched off and the screen stretched and reconfigured. Since Radian Silvergun was released before the days of widescreen televisions, Treasure has been forced to include screen guttering, where it places extra HUD information such as a move list and an instant readout of the current level of your weapons. Play with an arcade stick or a fight pad (itself based on the Sega Saturn controller) and Radiant Silvergun feels much more comfortable, although there will inevitably be some learning curve for newcomers. As such, the option to completely reconfigure the pad is welcome. For the port, Treasure has mapped each of the weapons to a different button on the Xbox pad, making it too easy to trip over yourself in play. In the arcade, just three buttons are used to control the game, with combinations of those buttons triggering the secondary weapons. However, the game's rich control scheme works poorly with the Xbox controller. The port to Xbox 360 is a good one, Treasure including far more options for players to tinker with under the hood than exist in the dipswitch settings of the original ST-V arcade board, even. Radiant Silvergun instead delivers one of the most memorable journeys not only in the genre, but across the medium, its pacing balancing set-piece fights with lulls in the action to take in the rich, vibrant 3D world that passes below your ship. These systems would mean little if the game they underpinned was lacklustre. Every aspect of the game's design works together in concert. While it's possible to aim for the heart for a fast completion, you earn far more points for defeating every component of an enemy, which in turn levels your weapons more quickly. The skill is in taking these foes apart section by section. These hulking spaceships come in all shapes, sizes and behaviours, from a giant monkey that swings and rolls its way around the screen, through a space eagle that flings bullets like feathers, to the jaw-dropping final boss, a running colossus around which your ship spins and dives (incidentally, the inspiration for the final boss in Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Rez). The final innovation comes in the form of the boss battles that punctuate each of the game's five lengthy stages.
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