Ikaruga Hints & Cheats

To unlock a stage for Practice mode, it must first be reached without continuing. The stage is only unlocked for the difficulty level it was played on (ie: reaching stage 3 on Easy will not unlock the Normal or Hard versions).

Conquest mode is unlocked the same way, except it doesn\'t matter what difficulty level is used.

In order to receive the "Dot Eater!" ranking upon completing a level, do not fire the Ikaruga even once. This means that you can't kill normal enemies or the boss of the stage, but rather you will have to dodge/absorb enemy fire in order to complete the level. This ranking does nothing but add extra challenge to the game.

For every hour of playing your amount of continues will go up to a maximum of 9 continues/6 hours. After 7 hours, you'll have unlimited continues.

While playing the game, press start and a pause menu will come up. Press and hold X and Y together to make the menu disappear.

In order to see different demos of how a stage is played out in Ikaruga, change the monitor type settings before going into demo mode. The different settings will show these types of demos:

Horizontal 1: This setting will show beginning tactics.
Horiztonal 2: This setting will show more advanced tactics.
Horizontal 3: This setting will show advanced tactics or bullet eater tactics.
Vertical 1&2: These settings will show increased difficulties.

In order to unlock half the unlockables, you need to beat the whole game in one credit. Well, when you're on the last stock of your credit, unplug your controller and put it in the slot for player two. Hit 'start', and then keep going as player 2. The game will think you're still on your first credit.