How far have you made it in Ikaruga?

For those of you who have played this amazing shooter.... how far have you made it?

Have any of you beat it, or made it on the laeder board at the Ikaruga site?

I think I made it passed level 3.... I believe..... but after that... it is insanely hard. I cannot seem to get passed certain parts.

Its the stage where you start out and there are energy beams blocking off certain paths... while enemy ships are flying at you and shooting..... and parts of the walls are closing and opening (I believe that is the beginning of stage 3).

Awesome game, but what a challenge!

†B†V† :hat

I'm still after this game. I did see it once, hiding behind a pile of other Gamecube games, but didn't have the money for it. Since then I haven't seen it, it's extremely rare.

its a rare game where you are?

can you play US games?

†B†V† :hat

I've completed it. Clock up 7 hours of gameplay and you unlock infinite continues which is probably the only negative thing I can say about the game. For me, getting infinite continues makes the game lose some of it's edge. I don't get that intense feeling anymore without knowing I only have one life left.

Aside from that, I'm very bad at this game in the grand scheme of things. My highest chain is something like 40 and my highest score is a couple of million - nowhere near the 20 million+ on the scoreboard at the website.

I thought Ikaruga would disappear soon after it's release, so I snapped up a brand new copy for £20. At my local Gamestation they still have a few copies of it, making it appear not so rare to me. There's quite a few copies of it on Ebay too.

I've gotten past level 4 once with intense practice from that ****** satellite. Unfortunatly I didn't unlock level 5 for conquest, which makes that stage all the more tougher.

Highest Chain was in the 70's or early 80's on level 1. You need like 13 million+ to get on the ranking board.