Iridion II

"Woulda been better if it was longer"

Introduction:
This game is a huge improvement over it's predecessor, Iridion 3D. It goes back to the old classic overhead view instead of the annoying ''3D'' view, where the ship usually blocks your view. The game is exciting and fun, but it's just too short to provide consistent playing time.

Gameplay:
This game is quite easy, actually. An inexperienced flying-shooter gamer can easily beat this without much trouble. The enemies are sometimes hard to kill, because of it's huge numbers, and they're always moving around and stuff. Walls and other obstacles are in your way too. But the enemy's bullets are quite lame. Most are slow, almost stopped in mid-air, and your job is to simply weave through them, while shooting at your target.

Yes, there are bosses. Two bosses on each level. The difficulty of the bosses grows gradually as you play through the story. But it doesn't become like impossibly hard. Still quite easy.

This game is short. There are about 15 levels in the story mode. After you beat it though, you'll get access to the arcade mode, which allows you to rack up as many points you can, and submit your score to a website. You'll also be able to listen to the jukebox, which has all the cool songs that are in the game. I really lost interest in the game after beating the story mode though.

Story:
The story is pretty uninteresting. After you beat each galaxy (a set of 3 planets, or levels), some bald guy comes up and tells you what to do. The same thing as the first time. Go defend the planets. Although it's somewhat hard to put a good story into these type of games, a little bit more effort would have been nice.

Graphics:
The graphics are awesome. It'd 2D, unlike the first Iridion game, but that doesn't matter that much. This game could have easily been one of those graphically-enhanced Super Nintendo games. The explosions are cool, but it's kind of disappointing since there's basically only one kind of explosion throughout the entire game (except for when your bullets hit something). One of the best games graphically for the Game Boy Advance.

Sound:
The music is great, but the actual sound effects are kind of mediocre. Every song in this game is well made. I won't be surprised if they were actually cover songs or something... I mean, they even titled every song. The sound effects aren't as good as the music is, but it'll do.

Replayability:
Well, it depends. If you're one of those competitive people, you might be interested in competing against other players in trying to get the highest score on a certain level. Otherwise, the story mode is just too short for any replay value... unless you're REALLY in love with this game.

What to do?
I say, if you like the online scoring thing, buy it. If that doesn't interest you, rent it (I don't think there are many places you can rent it though). If you're just looking for one those long, story-filled games, skip this one and look for another. This game just doesn't last long enough.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/01/03, Updated 03/21/04