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While there are a few mode variants it all boils down to the same gameplay and stages, you can just play through it as a story, an arcade mode, or with a single life if you’re really being daring. In all cases you’ll be playing through the same 9 challenging stages with the same enemy layouts. The most obvious element that Iro borrows from Ikaruga is the concept of controlling your polarity back and forth, in this case between red and blue, so that you can take out oppositely-colored enemies. There are, on occasion, power-ups you can get but sadly these don’t last long and are few and far between. This makes for a lot of stretches that simply aren’t terribly exciting or interesting, they’re just there to be beaten. Make no mistake, this is a challenging shmup title and you won’t beat it easily or quickly, just where the best titles in the genre keep you on your toes and are relentless Iro feels like some really tough sequences mixed with a whole lot of dull filler. Your ship is a bit on the big and beefy side, rare power-ups mean that much of the time you honestly don’t feel that powerful (there’s something to be said for bells and whistles in presentation, especially in this genre), and the polarity switching works but generally isn’t as inspired in its implementation as the title it’s trying to ride the coattails of. Throw in the fact that it’s a vertical shooter but doesn’t support a rotated screen to make the most of that fact and it’s just lacking on multiple fronts. Iro Hero isn’t a particularly bad shmup, it’s just a thoroughly uninspiring one. Given the abundance of classic Neo Geo shooters, Ikaruga itself, and a hodge podge of others on the Switch already it really doesn’t distinguish itself. If you’re a genre fan you’ll no doubt be able to get some hours out of trying to get through its increasingly-challenging stages. Unfortunately, for anyone who isn’t intent on proving their chops on every shooter possible there’s no compelling reason to recommend Iro Hero over its competition
Justin Nation, Score:Bad [5.5]