Released in 1998 in Arcades on the SEGA ST-V Titan hardware, followed by a SEGA Saturn release later that year, Radiant Silvergun is a shmup (shoot’em up) that almost didn’t come to be. According to the diary of Hiroshi Iuchi, the director & producer of Radiant Silvergun, there was a time where the very future of his dream project was in jeopardy. It was back in November of 1996 that the idea for Radiant Silvergun came “echoing” in his head. It would be shortly after this that Iuchi would receive a team for his project. “Thi… Thi… This is my chance! The time for me to make the shooting game of my dreams has come!!” says an ecstatic Iuchi who has been wanting to work on a shmup for the past 9 years. This would only last for a few months as the project disappeared in January of 1997 (the reason is not exactly known as Iuchi’s diary translates to simply state that his “company disappeared…no one survived…).”
Iuchi, not willing to give up on his dream, began shopping his project around to other game companies. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the other game companies Iuchi approached all had a similar response of “Aren’t shooting (shmup) games dead?” It was this response that led to Iuchi stopping his visit to other game companies. In less than a month, Iuchi received a call from Treasure asking him to return to the company. Iuchi, agreed to come back with the simple hope that he will get another chance to make his shmup. March rolled around and thanks to Treasure’s president, Masato Maegawa, Iuchi got his chance and began working as director and producer on Radiant Silvergun.
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