Radio Allergy has been out in Japan for a little while, and although it missed its original American release date in February, the game seems to be very close to final localization. This is a vertical shoot-em-up (or just "shmup") game in the style of Star Soldier, Ikaruga, and the developer's previous GameCube effort, Chaos Field. Radio Allergy stands out from those other games thanks to its cel-shaded visual style.

The story is a bizarre affair involving a young lady who is allergic to electromagnetic radiation, e.g. all the radio waves emitted by our mobile phones and Wi-Fi routers. Her father works at a drug company that is close to finding a cure for her ailment, but a terrorist organization has suddenly invaded the facility. Naturally, our heroine jumps into her flying robo-suit to blast through waves of enemies and rescue her father and the vaccine. The upshot of all this weirdness is that the graphics backgrounds in Radio Allergy all look like standard urban and suburban environments, rather than the industrial sci-fi settings usually seen in this type of game.

Anyone who has played Chaos Field will recognize some elements of Radio Allergy, particularly the sword weapon. However, the sword is more balanced in this game, and your ship also has a shield that flips into place if you stop shooting for a couple of seconds. There are definitely some interesting strategies possible with these mechanics. While Chaos Field was a game made of only boss battles, Radio Allergy features complete levels with normal enemies and large cruiser-type ships, and there are still huge bosses with ridiculous firepower at the end of each level.

Radio Allergy has all the trappings of your typical shmup, including three primary weapons (you can't switch mid-game, though), multiple playable ships, limited-use super powers, a small number of levels (just five in all), several difficulty levels and continue options, and enough projectiles filling the screen to make your eyes bleed from not blinking. Despite the friendly visual style, this game is very hardcore and inaccessible to most gamers. But the built-in shmup fan base should feel right at home.

The controls are pretty simple, but you can still configure them as you wish. Both the D-pad and control stick on the GameCube controller work fine for ship movement. Publisher O~3 Entertainment is stressing that Radio Allergy is fully compatible with your shiny new Wii system…but of course, you'll still need some kind of GameCube controller and preferably a memory card to play it.