What Radiant Silvergun is
Radiant Silvergun is a top-down shoot 'em up set on Earth and in space on July 14, 2520 A.D. A stone-like object dug out of ancient strata released a light that wiped out humanity, leaving only the four crew of the space cruiser TETRA and one robonoid in orbit. A year later the ship's supplies run out and TETRA has to re-enter the atmosphere, and the fight for its survival begins. The story mode carries that premise through its stages.
The shooting itself is built around planning rather than reflex spam. Stages use varied terrain with crevices and moving containers, and enemies come from every direction. There are 23 bosses spread across six stages. Your weapons level up as you destroy enemies and as your score climbs, so the run changes shape as you play it. Score bonuses come from killing enemies in specific orders, from hidden score items, and from hitting the right targets accurately. Building your own attack pattern around those rules is the core of the game.
Playing it with friends
Radiant Silvergun supports Remote Play Together, so someone who owns the game can stream a session to friends on Discord and everyone joins in from there. On the local side, one keyboard can be driven by two people, and a keyboard can be combined with a controller, so two players can share one machine without extra pads. Controllers from Xbox, Nintendo and PlayStation are supported.
Since the goal is score, a group session works well as a score attack: take turns on a run, watch for the kill-order bonuses and hidden items, and try to beat the previous attempt. The online ranking lets you compare results with players worldwide.
Before you start
Five difficulty levels are available, so a beginner can start low and move up. CLASSIC and MODERN modes give you the Sega Saturn and Xbox Live Arcade presentations, including their aspect ratios, plus a mode using the rules of Ikaruga. Keyboard play is supported.
Two setup notes matter. With a Switch controller, set "Nintendo Button Layout" to OFF. On a PC that only meets the minimum requirements you may see processing delay, so a machine at the recommended specs with a graphics card is the better choice. Expect a difficult game: enemies attack from all sides, and the scoring system rewards knowing the stages well.