Hard to believe this was a first wave title!
Iridion 3D is a shump in..well 3D, well 2.5D from a technical standpoint.
Right off the bat you are going to notice some amazing graphics, granted the 3D effect is done via sprite scaling, it still looks great, and it's all so vibrant! Truely this is the prettiest of the first wave of GBA games, there's some huge bosses as well, and the enviroments are breathtaking, it runs at a smooth framerate as well!
Sound and Music is standard Shump fare, a techno-ish soundtrack, with your standard "pyuu pyuu!" laser sounds, and lots of explosions.
Gameplay is pretty damned good! You play from a 'behind the ship' view, and you blast oncoming enemies, and dodge oncoming obstacles, collecting weapon and energy powerups along the way, at the end of each of the game's seven stages there's a boss to destroy. The game doesn't have a save system, instead it works off passwords, and you aren't given a very generous helping of lives, this is helped by the use of a special password, but even then the game is quite hard. The game's not the best Shump, and it's not the worst. It's pretty solid!