Iro Hero 
Developed by Artax Games
Published by Eastasiasoft Limited
Released for Xbox One (12/18/2019)
Also on Linux/Mac/PC/PS4/Switch
Preface
Developed by Artax Games, a small indie studio based out of Madrid, Iro Hero is the first of many shmups that would be published to the Xbox One via Eastasiasoft Limited. Iro Hero takes heavy inspiration from genre classic Ikaruga, featuring a 2-color (blue/red) shot system which you'll have to alternate between on the fly to kill enemies of the respective color. Similar to the classic it was inspired by, Iro Hero plays like a mix of the puzzle and shoot 'em up genres, which can be a tough duo to mix while maintaining a good fun-factor. Without further ado, let's take a look at the strangely named Iro Hero and see if it's worth your time and money...
Presentation
Iro Hero is a shmup of the vertical-scroller variety, featuring some nice-looking 2D sprites. The enemy projectiles all clearly stand out amidst the backgrounds. While the sprites are well-drawn, the ship design tends to be a bit bland and forgettable. The opening stage, which takes place over a sprawling city, looks promising but is easily the coolest of all the backgrounds featured in the game (at least out of the ones I witnessed, more on that in a bit...). The player ship is quite large, making it difficult to dodge enemy bullets, though you can switch the color of your ship to match the bullets and absorb them. This takes some quick timing and gets tough on some of the more crowded screens later in the game. Another positive aspect to note regarding the presentation is the excellent soundtrack, featuring some groovy upbeat techno music that helps make the game more enjoyable. There is some weird volume adjustment that happens with the in-game music, where it suddenly gets louder or quieter for some reason. It's not a game-breaking issue by any means, though it is slightly annoying.
There's an impressive amount of story in Iro Hero, at least when
compared to your traditional shoot 'em up. Before each stage, there's
some text explaining the story along with some nice-looking artwork.
These are short, but it's a nice touch for those who like some story
with their shooting action. There's also story delivered during
gameplay, with dialogue sequences popping up on both of the sidebars.
This is a cool idea in principle, but I found it near impossible to read
these fast enough and not crash my ship into something at the same
time. Due to this, most players will quickly give up on trying to read
these dialogue sequences. Some spoken dialogue would have really helped
with this issue or make it so we could unlock these dialogue sections to
read from an extras menu. The story is interesting from the bits I
could gather, involving futuristic sinister enterprises that are
harvesting humans as an energy source. After witnessing the death of his
mother, our pilot becomes part of the resistance force and attempts to
put an end to the human slaughter.
Gameplay/Features
There isn't a proper difficulty setting in Iro Hero, but instead there
are 4 different game modes to choose from: story, normal, arcade &
1cc. Story mode allows you to select any level you've progressed to,
allowing you 3 lives to make it through a stage. There are no checkpoints throughout the levels, so using a continue means you'll have to restart the current stage from the beginning, even on the lowest difficulty (story mode). Normal mode gives you 3
credits to beat the game with, while arcade mode only gives you a
single credit. Since you have to clear arcade mode to unlock 1cc mode,
I'm not 100% certain what this is but I'm assuming it must be asking you
to clear the game in a single life since arcade mode already has the
single credit thing going on. Arcade and 1cc are the only modes that
will post scores to the leaderboards.
The main menu screen features
the previously mentioned 4 game modes to select from, but no sign of any options menu
anywhere. The options can only be accessed during gameplay from the
pause menu, which only include the ability to toggle the sound and
music. The game modes do a decent job to fill-in for the lack of a
difficulty setting, but it would have been nice if the developer gave us
a bit more in the way of options (at least a music/sound test!) and
make it accessible from the main menu.
When it comes to actual gameplay in Iro Hero, it's basically an Ikaruga-inspired shooter presented with pixel-art rather than 3D graphics, though the level and ship design is nowhere near as interesting as the Treasure title that inspired it and the overall pacing/movement makes the action feel dull. The controls work well and the game looks/sounds nice, but the gameplay itself holds it back from being as good as it could have been.
About the Publisher/Easy Achievements/Game Difficulty
Eastasiasoft
Limited has begun to gain a reputation similar to Ratalaika Games due to the fact that the games they put out tend to have easy achievement lists that
can be completed in a very short time. Iro Hero can be easily completed in 10-20 minutes and in the course of this
time you'll only have to play through the first few levels. While
obtaining all of the achievements for Iro Hero is not much of a feat,
completing the 9 levels will present a stiff challenge. Just
running a quick search on YouTube will reveal a slew of videos
demonstrating how to quickly unlock all of the trophies/achievements,
but not a single video of an actual playthrough of the complete game (at the time of this writing in 2022 at least).
This suggests that the game is either too tough or not popular/good
enough for anybody to warrant dedicating the time to it for a full playthrough.
It's a rare occasion when I don't finish a game that I review, but Iro Hero made me give up 5 stages in. I played and failed at that 5th stage several times before finally giving up and moving on to something else; I surely could have eventually completed it but it was simply reaching that point where it just wasn't fun anymore. The 3 lives per attempt provided just isn't enough for anybody but the most skilled and quick reflexed, making this title a real tough sell for casual fans of the genre unless you just want some easy gamerscore. It would have been nice if the easy mode allowed you to continue from where you died or granted the player a few more ships, but as it stands Iro Hero is going to be too difficult for most of us to see through to the end.
Closing
Iro Hero is a mixed bag, it's got some well-drawn pixel-art, controls well and has an awesome soundtrack but the difficulty makes this a tough one to recommend to anybody but the most hardcore Ikaruga fans. The stage design didn't motivate me to continuously play the levels over and over again, which is a problem when it comes to a shooter that forces you to restart so frequently. If you're a huge fan of Ikaruga and wish that there were more polarity-switching shmups out there, then perhaps you will enjoy Iro Hero. To everybody else, there are quite a large number of shooters that are far more worthy of your dollar and time before downloading this one.
Final Verdict: Iro Hero is a shooter that draws heavy inspiration from Ikaruga, borrowing that games polarity-switching mechanic. The sprite artwork looks nice, the soundtrack is excellent and the controls work fine, but everything else about this game is quite mediocre. An easy miss unless you're looking for some easy achievements.
Purchase Links:
Purchase Links:
Related Reviews:
Related Links:
Iro Hero Official Trailer (Steam Version)
No comments:
Post a Comment