Iron Disco is a lewd sidescroller-shooter about Driply and Lika’s mission to defeat Captain Juan in the name of evil!
At-a-glance
(Adult) Content?
(F, FxF, FxM) Sexual content.
Censorship?
No. Woot! Woot!
Hours of Gameplay?
Three or four hours.
Modding Support?
No.
Patch Available?
No, not necessary.
Gameplay
Collect game cartridges, shoot baddies, and watch hentai between missions. The goal of the game is to reach the end of each stage and beat the big-baddie, until you reach the last stage and face off the biggest baddie of them all! To aid in your quest are a selection of unlockable weapons, which are carried inside impromptu, destructible drones and hidden areas — while scrounging for improved gear, be on the look-out for hidden game cartridges, which contain minigames and CGs! When you die, you lose your equipped weapon and a life; thankfully, Iron Disco is generous with extra lives and weapons, even allowing you to hold as many as five weapons at once!
But still don’t die — because respawns are bullshit!
Whenever you’re killed, you respawn exactly where you died — this is a big problem when you die by falling off a ledge, or jumping onto a stationary enemy. The player should only be spawned in “safe areas”, were there are no enemies or kill-zones. That, or players should be spawned before their place of death, as it would be reasonable to assume that the player has defeated the enemies behind them — enemies don’t spawn behind the player very often. Though I appreciate the temporary invulnerability, I’ve been screwed by the respawn physics too many times! On a sort of related note, after spawning into a level, if you go backwards you die — that seems a bit silly.
Now a word about selecting levels!
You can’t complete all levels during a single playthrough, and there is no level-select screen. Also, after beating the game you save is deleted. This. Blows. So hard.
But let’s talk about something cool — guns! Guns! Guns!
The starting gun is outclassed by every other weapon, and should be avoided it at all costs. All weapons are fired with every key press, with the exception of the machine gun (which is full-auto.) There’s some-sort of plasma launcher, which is functionally the starting gun but with higher damage. The flamethrower looks cool, but it only spits fire (and its real damage comes from its ranged smoke-attack.) In other words, it’s also just a fancier version of the starting weapon (but with higher damage and bigger projectiles). The missile launcher fires explosive bullets, which are effective at crowd-control and decimating aerial foes. You can find a gimmicky lightning gun, which shooters projectiles in a predefined wave — this weapon is great for filling-out the screen with your projectiles.
The only thing better is the shotgun, which is the best weapon in the game and the only weapon you should use.
I think the starting gun should be buffed. Not only does it have the worst spread, the damage it deals measly. Considering enemies attack the player from every direction (when the player isn’t able to do the same), not having bullet spread is a massive disadvantage in itself. The machine gun suffers a similar problem, but as a rapid-fire weapon it’s fine as-is. The “plasma gun” could be distanced from the starting weapon with a slower fire rate, or perhaps with an enemy-penetrating effect. The flamethrower should actually be a flamethrower, a short-ranged powerhouse to capitalize on risk vs reward. As the shotgun is undeniably the best weapon in the game, I think the spread and/or need to be dramatically reduced. All weapons (including the base gun) should have a chance to shine, or some role to excel in.
Because if you’re not using the shotgun, you’re playing the game wrong.
Story
Lead by Signalman Chelsea, Captain Driply and Lieutenant Lika have been employed by the Dark Lord to defeat his enemy, Captain Juan. Juan wants to rule the world (per every paper-thin villain’s scheme), and he is joined by his advisor, Doctor Lee and his general, Cyclops. Following the Dark Lord’s invasion, a strange green meteorite crashes on the planet’s surface. When the Doctor experiments on its contents, he finds that he is able to transform Juan’s men into grotesque, biomechanical killing machines. Chelsea’s mercenary duo are faced with newfound challenges as Lee joins forces with Cyclops, forming a powerful synergy of man and monster. As Driply unravels Juan’s fortifications, so do Lee’s inhumane experiments — ultimately surmounting to a badass (albeit anticlimactic) turn of events!
Visuals
The main menu is visually cluttered, but I enjoyed the busty heroines and the nearly-nostalgic font; “nostalgia” is a common theme for the visual elements, though the modern art style somewhat clashes with what I think is a parody of the NES/SNES Contra games. From “Setting”, you may adjust audio preferences and remap the controls. The in-game visuals are generally nice, but they seemed pretty rough around the edges. It’s clear that Iron Disco isn’t exactly a “triple-AAA” release. You view unlocked CGs from the “Gallery”, but you have no control of them (and they must be played from start-to-finish.)
Unfortunately, Iron Disco isn’t very “WASD” friendly.
Though you can remap the your keys, there are some keys that will cause problems if mapped, such as “Q” (for entering cheats) and “S” (for exiting menus). You can map the “S” key (if you prefer a “WASD” control scheme), but you’ll have to navigate menus a little differently. When navigating menus where “S” is “go back”, you you just use “W” to loop your selection from top-to-bottom. On a side note, having “New Game” be the first selection (versus “Load Game”) is terrible — an overexcited player could easily overwrite their current playthrough in seconds’ time!
I. . . almost did it, but I carefully backed-out before destroying my save game.
The Goods
There are eighteen animated cutscenes, which showcase the story and a variety of sex-scenes. The number of sex-scenes and amount of quality hentai is nothing short of impressive! In addition, there are also eleven animated CGs associated with collectable, hidden game cartridges. The bulk of the sexual content revolves around the main protagonists, Driply and Lika, typically having intercourse with each other or being raped by their enemies (which include machines, soldiers and tentacles.) Most of the CGs would be more appropriate as “game over” screens, though they are generally seen before entering a level. Unfortunately, you have no control over the CGs — worse of all, you can’t “skip” animations you’re not interested in (such cinematic helicopter scenes.) In addition, the CGs are heavily overlaid with grungy filters and vignettes, which though stylish, are more appropriate for a horror game than an action-shooter.
Verdict
Wait for updates and/or a strong sale. I hate to say it, because it’s clear that Iron Disco was a labor of love — but this game isn’t great. I had fun sometimes, but the game flip-flopped between absolute cakewalk and dieing again and again because bad coding and design. However, the amount of sexual content is absolutely impressive, and I loved seeing the main protagonists violated by an array of pervy robots and tentacles. . . and maybe spending a little bit of quality time with each other too! Given the sheer amount of quality animation, Iron Disco is definitely worth paying extra for. Generally speaking, I wasn’t terribly “wowed” by the art direction, but the enemies and environments took a turn for better once I reached the end of the game! If you enjoy rough, indie gems, you might get a kick from Iron Disco — I’d keep my eye on this title.
