Way back in 2010, Spanish indie developer Locomalito released a longtime passion project and love letter to classic shoot ’em ups called Hydorah as freeware on desktop platforms. The game took influences from some of the major players in the genre like Gradius, R-Type, Darius, and Turrican but also some of the lesser known titles like Enforcer, Space Manbow, Hellfire, X-Multiply, Guardian, Hydefos, and Armalyte. With friend and collaborator Gryzor87 creating a kick ass chiptune soundtrack, Hydorah earned all sorts of accolades on its release and became something of a cult hit. Then last year the developers partnered up with Abylight Studios to create an enhanced and expanded version of the game called Super Hydorah which released on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Steam to even more critical acclaim. And now it’s on its way to iOS! Check out this absolutely killer trailer from the console/desktop release of Super Hydorah.

One of the hallmark features of Super Hydorah is its nonlinearity. Levels contain branching paths and there are more than 21 different planets split off into 35 sublevels in total. This also means there are 35 bosses to square off against as well as more than 100 different enemy types. This game’s a biggie. Super Hydorah is notorious for retaining the “tough but fair" level of difficulty of its classic inspirations, but even then this is a very precision-based game. Abylight Studios has tweaked and tuned things specifically for the touchscreen inputs of iOS, but the game will also include support for MFi controllers. And hey, this will be another paid premium game on the App Store. I’m telling you that is the trend lately and I love it. If you’re interested in pre-ordering Super Hydorah on iOS, then click on this link on an iOS 11 device to be taken to the App Store to do the pre-order thing. Otherwise look for Super Hydorah to arrive in the App Store May 17th for $6.99.