Silhouette Mirage

Summary

Silhouette Mirage is an Action Game by Treasure, released on the Sega Saturn and the Sony Playstation. The Playstation version was localized by Working Designs.

With run-and-gun elements in which the attribute of attacks, enemies, and other entities plays a central role in gameplay, it could be considered a different-genre analogue of Ikaruga.

Story

Years ago, in the colossal laboratory of Edo, genetic experiments produced the twin attributes of Silhouette and Mirage in a child called Armageddon. The twin attributes were opposite, complementary, and necessary for each other's existence, like yin and yang. Yet due to their very nature, they sundered Armageddon into two beings: Hal, who was all Mirage, and Megido, who was all Silhouette. Once started, this split infected all life on Earth. Many were killed by the transition. The survivors divided into two factions based on attribute, with Hal and Megido as their leaders.

Responding to the devastation, the artificial intelligence Gehena created Shyna Nera Shyna, the Messenger of Justice (although most seem to know her as the Messenger of Destruction), a member of the rare Proteans, beings who combine the attributes of Silhouette and Mirage. Shyna's mission is to repair Edo's computer system and neutralize the two attributes by re-uniting them, effectively reversing the event that created the world as it currently exists.

See Also

• Contra
• Gunstar Heroes, another game from Treasure.
• Ikaruga
• Mega Man and its other incarnations
• The Metal Slug franchise

Tropes

Tropes used in Silhouette Mirage include:

• After the End: The game's setting is after a biological holocaust.
• Dark Is Not Evil and Light Is Not Good: The "dark" Silhouettes and "light" Mirages both include friendly and enemy characters.
• Emergency Weapon: All of your attacks require Spirit. IF you run out of Spirit, your equipped parasite will be consumed to regain 100 points. If it was your last parasite, you will be given a Sloth (basic shot) parasite as well - however, this only happens once; run out of spirit with just a Sloth left and you're screwed. This is considerably more annoying in the American version, where Spirit is your Mana Meter, than in the Japanese, where Spirit was only drained by enemy attacks. Although they did grant a mercy that when you were stuck with the Sloth, you never lost it.
• Evolving Weapon: The seven main weapons are all parasites that inhabit Shyna. Each can be leveled up into something bigger and badder several times over the course of the game.
• Hollywood Science: Bizarre manglings of genetics and cybernetics are part of the game's plot.
• It's a Wonderful Failure
• Magical Computer: For inadequately explored reasons, the world displays Matrix-like properties as if it's all a big computer program, but as far as anyone can tell, it's the real world.
• Multiple Endings: There are four distinct endings, and which one you get hinges on whether you win or lose against certain bosses, and on which path you choose a certain cutscene.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: Marginal example. Ominous Wordless Singing (just "ah", basically) shows up in several music tracks, especially in the track used during Guardian Angel battles.
• Reset Button: The goal of Shyna's quest is essentially this. The game allows you to choose not to do this in some endings, allowing the world to continue to exist in its current state.
• Science Is Bad: Genetic experiments on a human led to the world's current divided state, and Big Bad (one of them) Hal uses Edo as a base of operations.
• Why Am I Ticking?: Gargantuan and Shyna.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Several characters do this. Zohar threatens Bug with this. Then Hal may or may not do this to Zohar him/her-self, depending on several choices you make. THEN, in another alternate turn of events, Hal's own daughter Geluve does this to him. AND THEN Megiddo says something similar to Shyna since she has restored Edo. AND FURTHER STILL Clod/Armageddon says this to Shyna before he attempts to kill her.