The Game Boy Advance might just have been the biggest leap forward we saw in terms of graphics between generations. The original handheld system for the most part seemed sub-NES in terms of hardware capabilities. The GBA was above and beyond what a Super Nintendo could pull off, and in some very noticeable ways. Developers were eager to show off the capabilities of the hardware, and because of that, we have a lot of early games that were pretty but lacked substance. Iridion 3D was one of these such titles. Let’s take a look.
Iridion 3D is a shooter which, as you may have guessed from the title, sets itself apart by using three dimensional graphics. The story opens depicting a futuristic Earth laid siege by a group of enemies called the Iridion. You pilot a lone ship to fight back the attack and save the planet. After you start there’s no story exposition, but really, who cares? Staying true to its name you guide your vessel and view the action from a behind the ship perspective. You can move in all directions except forward and backward. All enemies approach from the front and you take them down with some well placed shots.
There’s also a weapon system in place. You start with a rather typical ‘pew pew pew’ single shot, but this can be changed by collecting colored power-ups. Each weapon can be powered up twice, but if you take a hit you start off with just the basic attack. Speaking of which your ship blows up every time it is touched by an attack. You have your lives at the top of the screen neatly laid out in an easy to see row of ship icons. When these run out you must use a credit to continue. What’s nice is that every time you’re hit you start from just where you left off. This makes the game easier at least.
Let’s start with this game’s problems, and believe me, there are a lot of them. For starters the weapons are incredibly bland. Iridion 3D lacks the basics like a homing shot or even spread. Instead everything fires straightforward. The bullets fire at different rates, and have slightly different trajectories. That’s about it though. Honestly this makes Iridion 3D feel generations behind other shooters of this era. I was very disappointed with the lackluster gameplay options. Clearly it was rushed out of the gate and the focus was on the graphics.
The next, and obviously biggest problem, is with the gameplay engine itself. Iridion 3D uses pre-rendered animated backgrounds and because of this interactivity feels very low. Enemies scroll in from the front and feature very limited movement patterns. Additionally, because of the way the backgrounds were rendered, there are almost no environmental hazards. The ones that are in place animate separately from the background which leads to issues with the way they’re rendered. The screen moves slightly as you do, and these mines/explosions are very choppy when they move. At its best it’s an eyesore, and at its worst it’s distracting.
Because of how the game is designed Iridion 3D feels very limited. It feels like you’re flying through a tiny box which is not something I would hope for in a shooter. Because of this Iridion 3D is just not a fun game to play. Some areas (particularly the deep space zones) are a bit more open but this leads to other issues. When the screen moves about in these instances your projectiles also scroll with it. This means you can fire a shot, move to the left, and as the bullet goes into the distance it will also move left with you. It makes these areas of the game downright infuriating. It’s not that the game is difficult (Iridion 3D is easy as all heck) but this inaccuracy is beyond annoying.
If you can do some mental gymnastics and get past these issues you’re left with a very generic shooting game. The stages offer nothing new (you have themes such as fire planets, water, factories, etc.) and there aren’t any particularly interesting enemies or patterns. The boss encounters are so easy I was left wondering if that was really it just about every time. They have hit zones that are sometimes covered, but dodging incoming attacks is too easy to be honest. Iridion 3D is just bland.
The graphics however are amazing. It’s clear to see that the developers wanted to make a very pretty launch game that stood above the pack in visuals. They succeeded, but I do feel bad for those who picked this one up. The backgrounds are all pre-rendered and loop in such a way that you can’t see where the animation starts or begins. It looks downright gorgeous. The enemies scroll in very smoothly. Seriously, this game looks like something you’d see on the Sony PlayStation or even Nintendo 64. All of that on such a tiny screen and you have an absolutely beautiful title. The soundtrack is also surpisingly great with a lot of bouncy techno notes. In aesthetic terms Iridion 3D is a fantastic game.
Iridion 3D was heralded for the new platform because of its crazy graphics engine. It’s beautiful even today, but I’m sure the effect was significantly more pronounced back when we were used to 8-bit graphics on the go. The gameplay just doesn’t hold up. Iridion 3D feels like it takes place in a cardboard box, and I’ve played few shooters that are as bland as this one. Everything from the enemy patterns to the power-ups is just plain uninspired. You can do a whole lot better than Iridion 3D on just about any platform.
