this cure for insomnia. This is probably one of the dullest games out for the game boy advance. I was at the video store yesterday wanting to try out some more game for my new gameboy advance. Seeing how my two picks weren’t there (Fzero x and super mario advance) I decided to pick this up. Here is what I thought of it.

Story.
The story isn’t anything new. Aliens have attack earth, now you’re in a space ship trying to blow them up. It's has simple has that.

Graphics.
Now Iridion can be compared to the pilotwings of the GBA. Pilotwings was made to show off the SNES first generation game powers and that is exactly what Iridion does. The game is done in an f-7 mode that gives it a 3d look and feel to it. While you can only move your ship across the front of the screen, Aliens ship come at you from the back of the screen giving it a rather cool look to it. The animation is smooth, and your ship just seems to slide around the screen easily. The colors are great to, being dark when they need to be, and bright when they need to be to. I didn’t have the I am going to be going blind problem like I did with castlevania, but if you got a bright light I would definitely recommend playing under it, especially during a few of the space stages.

Sound.
The sound works in an incredibly old school way, and makes you feel like your playing a flying game. The sound fx could have done better because all you basically hear is the sound of your blaster firing, and ships exploding. I wouldn’t have minded if they had added a jet engine sound effect, and maybe chatter over the radio.

gameplay.
Now if a video game were a building, graphics would be the first few floors, and sound the 2nd. However gameplay would be the foundation, and a building can't stand without a good foundation. And it's this foundation that Iridon lacks.

Basically for the most part all you have to do is hold down the A button and fly your ship around to dodge bullets to win. There are a few areas where it gets more complex then that, but not many. There are no special bombs, missiles, or tricks. It's just the control pad and the A button. Now they could have done more, after all they have 3 more buttons they could have use for the things mention above. Holding down a and moving the control pad gets old after about an hour and this thing will be shelved. While there are special weapons in the game they lack pizzazz, and fire power. I found most enemies died about has quickly has they did with one gun, has they did another.

Is this game challenging.
The challenge is a mixed bag, while the first time thorough I found this game to be semi challenging. While I found myself seeing the game over screen at least once on average in every stage, I quickly beat each stage in about 20 minutes. The challenge goes down a lot after you memorize a stage, because all you have to do is memorize where the enemies are and where to move and fire has so not to get hit.

It's kind of a shame that the gameplay reeks after the people developing it did such a good job on the graphics and sound. I hope there is a sequel coming out for it that will have more moves, better weapons, and better gameplay.

My recommendation.
This is only a renter for gradius fans, and people who are wondering the difference between the GBA and the game boy color. While the game does show the true power of the GBA, it lacks any kind of fun gameplay, this makes it so everyone else should avoid it.


Recommended: No