Thank you ININ Games for sending us this game collection to review!

Irem Collection Volume 3 is the third of five promised Irem Collections announced, and this one focuses on quite an interesting set of shooters. All of them are horizontal ones this time around, or mostly horizontal. They are all unique in some way, but this collection has some really standout games.

There are three main titles on offer in this collection. Each has an English and Japanese version available, where applicable. It seems that all games were translated for this collection if you choose English at the main menu. I assume that is also the case for the other included languages. There are a total of nine languages available.

The games (and versions) offered in this collection are:

Battle Chopper - Arcade, Worldwide and in Japan as Mr. Heli
Mr. Heli's Great Adventure - Japanese PC Engine (aka TurboGrafx 16) version of Battle Chopper/Mr. Heli Arcade
Dragon Breed - Arcade, Worldwide and Japan
Mystic Riders - Arcade, Worldwide and Japan

Each of the games on offer are horizontal shooters, of sorts. Battle Chopper/Mr. Heli is mostly horizontal, but some parts have vertical travel. Dragon Breed and Mystic Riders are more traditional horizontal shooters, though each has something unique going for it.

Battle Chopper/Mr. Heli is probably the most unique game in this collection. At first it seems like just a shooter, but it's not long before you realize that you need to collect crystals to gain money, which are then used to buy upgrades. These upgrades include things like more health, more firepower, and so on. Small gems are worth $20, and the larger ones are worth $100. Each upgrade costs between $200 and $800, depending on what it is. Upgrades reset when you die but money does not, making careful selection of when and how to spend it very important. It doesn't help that you can spend money somewhat on accident if you run into a spend money square when you are dodging bullets and such. It's a pretty long game, and it can sometimes be a difficult balance between gunning through levels as fast as you can vs. a careful collection of items while playing through a level. This is especially the case since some levels have a time limit, making careful play sometimes more risky than it first appears.

The PC Engine version of Mr. Heli is quite an excellent port, being a much easier and more approachable version of the title, with an overall much better balance. It's still quite difficult, and occasional slowdown can be unpleasant, but overall I enjoy this version even more than the excellent Arcade version because of the more reasonable difficulty balance.

Dragon Breed is a pretty neat side-scrolling shooter where the main hero rides on an invincible dragon. You only die when the man on top gets hit, so positioning the dragon and his tail is important if you want to last very long against the swarms of enemies and bullets flying everywhere. Upgrades take the form of various different modes for your dragon, with each being strong in certain areas. Later in the game, enemies start taking advantage of the dragon, leading to some really difficult to avoid and cheap deaths. I still enjoyed it, though.

Mystic Riders is another relatively straightforward side-scrolling shooter that finds one or two witch-like characters (one male, one female) riding on their magic staffs and shooting enemies to defeat them. What I found interesting is that while your main shot is a normal forward ball of magic, you can also throw your staff and it will boomerang and come back to you. Because it can go in almost any direction to chase after enemies, taking advantage of this was necessary to beat the game in my testing. You can also collect gems which upgrade your weapons. You lose levels when you die, but killing more enemies gives you more gems. You can also charge up a powerful shot. Blasts can be switched between two elements, fire or bolt. Bolt has larger shots, but charged shots just shoot a quick spread, while fire's charged shot has a large blast area until it fades. I generally like fire magic more. It's a fun game, but generally more 'normal' than the others as far as shooters go.

Each game in this collection offers a Casual Mode, with unlimited credits, cheats, rewind, save states, and more to make it easier. Rewind is activated by holding the left bumper and is a huge help for all of these games, especially Air Duel. Unlimited credits and save states are also really handy. The other play mode is Classic Mode, which has none of those but does offer an online leaderboard, so you can compete to see who scores the highest on one credit. Thankfully all of the games offer a turbo button, to autofire at a high rate using Y instead of A to normal fire. These games can be brutally difficult, so best of luck beating any of these games on one credit, even with the help of autofire.

Morally, the games are pretty much what you would expect: guns, missiles and bombs in Battle Chopper/Mr. Heli, and magic and mystical creatures in the other two games. I did not notice anything else. The emulation is also competent and I didn't notice any major bugs.

The Irem Collection Volume 3 is a collection of classic shoot 'em ups that are fun, if obnoxiously difficult, and largely stand the test of time graphically and otherwise. If you are a huge shoot 'em up fan, perhaps this collection is worth getting, but it's not exactly inexpensive, either. It's a collection on what is functionally three games, so if the price is good really depends on how much you enjoy them. I feel these games did age really well, especially in comparison to the first Irem Collection. This collection is fun for shoot 'em up fans, and brings back a neat slice of history. New players may enjoy this collection as long as they are fine with lots of deaths and abusing the many cheats available since this collection of games pulls no punches on challenge.