I've played video games almost my entire life and Ikaruga is the first game to make me question what video games are supposed to be.

The surface of Ikaruga is a schmup with cool art and mechanics. When you start to delve deeper, the game starts to feel more like an instrument and each level is a song.

Why play a game like this when song and rhythm based games exist?
When you fumble a song in Ikaruga, the "schmup" reemerges and you have to use skills to adapt to emergent gameplay situations.

Schmups and other old school arcade games with tightly designed scopes find ways to evolve into unique experiences if you dedicate a lot of time to them. Short and dense games like arcade classics stand tall as the ocean of interactive media becomes more shallow.