Game Statistics

• 32-megabit cartridge.
• 7 levels.
• 7 bosses.
• Password system.

Game Design
Iridion 3-D is a 3D shooter on rails, in the mould of games such as Starfox. You travel through the enemy laden stages, and at the end of each, you have to fight a boss. After seven levels, you've reached the final boss. The first thing you'll notice in this game (apart from the graphics) is the fairly high difficulty level. There's only normal and hard, but normal is fairly hard from the word go, and hard is just plain cruel. All of your information is handed out at the end of each stage in the form of a password.

Graphics
Wow. Iridion 3-D has excellent graphics. Not so much the sprites, although they aren't ugly, just not up to the standards of the backgrounds. I'd say up to the Playstation's capabilities. The reason that it can do this is that the background is constantly looping, but it still looks damn good, and there's no framerate drops either. Definitely the highlight of the game, the graphics will have your friends buying GBAs in no time. In my opinion, it's the best looking game on the GBA at the moment, though Golden Sun comes close.

Sound
While it's not something to write home about, the sound is still pretty good. The music rocks, and the explosions sound good, but the rest is just your ordinary laser fire sounds effects. Nothing special, but it sounds good and does the job.

Control
In the menu, you've got the basic A and B configuration. If you don't know it by now, try playing a game. But in game there's only the shoot button, which you hold down. No bombs with B or anything, and you can't tilt your ship with L or R, just a simple 'hold A' configuration. The aforementioned buttons would have been quite nice, especially the bomb, but oh well.

Satisfaction
Each of the boss sequences are quite satisfying, because right down the last one, they're all different, and they're not really easy. You need to find the right tactic for each one. But even so, it can still be difficult to do. And of course finishing the game, even on normal difficulty, is quite satisfying, let alone hard.

Replay Value/Game Length
Well, once you've completed it on hard, which should take a while anyway, there isn't really any incentive to keep on playing. There are no secrets within the stages, and the enemies aren't randomly placed (which you wouldn't expect from a GBA game) so it's all the same every time you play.

Overall
As I mentioned in Control, there's only one button, so it can get a bit monotonous, and while a bomb would've been a handy inclusion, it still holds up fairly well, and it's excellent in the graphics department, so there's a definite good point. Just don't expect Starfox, that's all. In spite of the graphical differences, Starfox comes out on top.

Review by Rago

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