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Iridion 3D is a quasi-3D rail shooter game for the Game Boy Advance developed by Shin'en. A launch title for the Game Boy Advance, it was released in North America on May 29, 2001 and in Europe on September 21, 2001. While praised for beautiful graphics and rich sound, the game was derided by critics and gamers for repetitive gameplay.
Iridion began development as a shooter for the Game Boy Color; when Shin'en decided to drop development and shift their focus to the Game Boy Advance, Iridion was the first game by the developer to appear on the system. Though billed as a 3D game, Shin'en used realtime encoding and resizing to manipulate the size of 2D sprites instead of creating a true 3D environment.
Influenced by the Commodore 64 game Uridium, Iridion features a single starship waging war against the alien Iridion that have attacked Earth. The game spans seven levels from Earth to the alien's home planet, each with a fixed linear path that ends with a boss. Despite lukewarm reception to the title upon release, Iridion 3D influenced future Shin'en shooters such as Iridion II and Nanostray. (more...)