Iridion II is probably one of the best looking & playing Shoot em' Ups on the GBA. Plot sucks, though.
Iridion II is in the same vein of vertical scrolling shooter as Axelay or Ray Storm in that it focuses on the player ship at a 45° angle and the foreground objects all look like one-dimensional objects sliding over spindle. There's actually no beneficial reason for this angle, it just looks cool… I guess. I've always been neutral about it, really. The game play this time around is fantastic as your armaments are actually effective. In Iridion 3D all you had was a choice from one of four types of laser fire you could upgrade three or four times and even then they just barely worked in combat. In this you get to choose from five different types of weapons, each possessing different attributes and directions, as well as Options, a charge-beam and a bomb weapon. Iridion II keeps you LOADED! The weapons are all quite awesome, especially the tactical Deflector Laser which is kind of like the Crash weapon from Curse or the Splinter Shot from Sigma Star Saga, although the shards it causes can sometimes hit volatile enemies or shots like in the Kazanagan Wasteland mini-boss fight. There's also a weapon ripped straight out of Image Fight with 90° lasers as well as this neat crisscross weapon that can fire behind and around the ship.
Gameplay is pretty fun, but basic. The levels are adequate in length and are filled with plenty of sights, enemies and obstacles, but the background rarely changes and the scrolling speed remains at a slow, easy pace. You'll find yourself flying over the same rock pattern or space area you first saw at the beginning of the stage right up to the final boss fight. Sometimes, objects you would normally pass over stay entirely in place like in the ridiculous Space Mine level: you're stuck in a straight moving floorless, no-roofed corridor with no bends or turns flying over a space station shaped like a roulette wheel that NEVER leaves the screen! I've seen Atari 2600 backgrounds with more consistency.
Much like Iridion 3D, the SHN fighter has a rechargeable energy shield meaning you don't die in one hit, but you'll find the game a bit inconsistent as to what can hurt you and what can't. For instance, your ship can grind harmlessly against a wall or object, the ship isn't hurt at all, but when an enemy ship flies into it takes off half your health. Even worse is in the moon level boss fight near the end where the boss' arms slowly and gently rotate around it and if they brush up against the ship they damage it. The Hell?? There's also a mildly annoying checkpoint system, but it's actually quite tolerable considering the massive firepower and defenses you get.
I always like to highlight the sound department in games, though there's really not a lot to say about it: it either sucks or it doesn't. Iridion II's sounds are excellent, but they won't seem too remarkable. If anything it's actually a slight scoot from the variety of machine noises heard in Iridion 3D. Then there's the soundtrack: The soundtrack is just as good as Iridion 3D's, not just because it was made by the same guy, but because it's a combination of everything you've wanted to hear in a Shmup! It's got all the necessary senses: danger, action, fun, adventure and strength. I will say against it that at times the soundtrack is just a wee bit upbeat for its own good, but it's never repulsively upbeat or out-of-place upbeat like in Galactic Attack. It just gives me the impression that something really happy is going on like there are characters having a good time flying around to the music.
Also, the soundtrack kind of lacks the hardcore epic feel of Iridion 3D, but certain songs make up for this like Megalunania and Citizen Discharged, probably the best goddamn song in the entire soundtrack! The opening theme song even has this awesome option that allows you to change the sound of the music. Manfred Linzner is right up there with Zuntata, Hitoshi Sakimoto and others among the arcade and single console releases as one of the best composers you could get for a Shoot em' Up.
Unfortunately, as great as Iridion II is, it's not without its flaws and I don't mean the little ones I just mentioned above. You remember playing the Thunder Force games and wondering who or what you were constantly fighting and why? Despite the fact they had a name (the ORN Empire), there never seemed to be a history or simple logic behind them, you were just playing as alien humans fighting bad guys. Were the bad guys aliens? Were they robots? Were they alien robots?? The Iridion series is almost exactly like that only worse…
The plot to Iridion II is almost insultingly bad. It takes place a century after Iridion 3D (yes, a 3 before the 2); after the Irdion people got their butts whupped and their main attack computer destroyed on their home planet Iridion Prime, the Iridion suddenly just leave the entire galaxy they lived in for years without a single reason. This brainless exodus of theirs suddenly prompts mankind to literally jump the space technology gun from developing a single space fighter to entire space colonies. They travel to the Iridion home galaxy and colonize every single planet within their reach even though some of these planets look so bizarre I couldn't even imagine robots living on them. They do this for one hundred years straight whereupon the Iridion people suddenly reappear and start invading mankind again this time for the actual motivation of retaking their home planets.
This is universally stupid!! Why did the Iridion leave their entire galaxy? Why'd they even attack mankind in the first place if their only solution to losing was to just up and leave? They didn't believe in surrender or post-war collaboration or stay on their own planet and whip up a new line of attack or come up with better, original invasion plans? What makes even less sense is why mankind would want to colonize an entire alien galaxy after the people they fought there left it. Okay, scientifically I understand that in regards to obtaining minerals and other resources, but seriously, the ENTIRE Iridion galaxy? Not just one planet, whole solar systems?? And seriously, we're supposed to be rooting for the colonists who blatantly stole planets from this race of hostile alien people who now want the planets back. We're rooting for the kids who stole our lunch box and ate all the contents when all we did to them was wreck their sandcastle. There's not even a point to Story Mode with its narrative and progression because neither of them go anywhere!*
Take some time and think about what I'm about to say here: the plot to Iridion II is actually WORSE than the plot to Iridion 3D forgiving the fact that they actually tried this time. What floors me is why every level needs to be represented as a planet. We're attacking separate areas on three different planets per solar system; the first six levels could have easily taken place on various locations of a single planet. We don't even get to know these planets by name; just the location we're attacking and sometimes we don't even visit the featured planet! The Space Mine field level was bad enough, but it's represented by a planet with dark blue and black storm clouds that looks like it would be an awesome level to explore, but it's just a corridor in space. That's just cheap! And lazy! And ill-planned! But all right, if you can look past the plot hole within a plot hole that comprises the game's plot, then you'll find you've got a fantastic and entertaining little Shmup on your hands you'll constantly enjoy. *: Also, why is the General using a '90s PC monitor if this is taking place one hundred years in the future?