A game that is very difficult, yet soars high after all these years.
No doubt you've heard of this game. It is perhaps the most famous shooter series in video game history. The original Gradius was released in the arcades in 1985. Of course, it was hugely successful, so it received several ports. This one I'm talking about here is the NES port, released in 1986; it was developed and published by Konami, master of the arcades. The game is a space shooter (you have some serious problems if you didn't know that by now).
The game starts with your ship moving very slowly and shooting a simple shot. The main point of the game is to get upgrades which bad guys drop and enhance your firing power. At the bottom of the screen is listed the different upgrades in this order: speed up, missile, double, laser, option, ?. When you snag an upgrade item, the first one will become highlighted; you can press B to upgrade or you can wait and increase in another area. Speed up will increase your ship's speed slightly, missile will give you the ability to shoot down (they also travel along surfaces), double will give your ship a second gun which shoots diagonally up, laser changes your gun from a typical gun to a faster laser, option gives your ship a pod that shoots along with the ship (very helpful), and ? is kind of like a surprise (sometimes it will produce a shield at the front of the ship, which is also very helpful).
These upgrades are the most important part of the game. Red ships and turrets will always drop upgrades, and you'll want to get them. Here's the problem: if you die, you'll lose all your upgrades and start over with nothing; that's right, your ship will be slow and powerless. This gives great incentive not to die. But that brings up another thing: this game is freakin' hard! If one stray bullet touches your ship, the whole thing explodes as if precious TNT were attached to its hull! The only protection you can get is the shield, but that will take quite a bit of upgrading to acquire. So fly cautiously.
Gradius does not have levels; instead the game is broken up into sections. Each section begins with opportunities to snag upgrades, moves into the main part with a change in music, and ends with a boss. However, the boss is the same thing in every section except for the final boss. It's this round machine that shoots four lasers while moving up and down. Each time this boss increases in speed, but besides that, all he does is move up and down and shoot. There are six sections in the game, so you'll fight this guy five times.
Each section is unique. Section three is especially memorable for its easter island heads (which shoot rings of death!). These have become a staple in the Gradius series. I don't know if a programmer was drunk when he suggested they put easter island heads in space, but they listened to him, and somehow the series maintained these ugly heads all the way through. Well, it's a video game, so it doesn't need to make sense. The other sections have more of an enemy base feel to them as you fly through narrow passages and avoid A LOT of bullets! Turrets will shoot from overhead, robots will run along the ground and shoot, pods will fly out of bases, and all of these will produce a crazy amount of bullets on screen that can be very hard to dodge.
As much as this game is adored, I do have some gripes. It's a great game, but it's not perfect. Near the end of section one, there's a bit where these two volcanoes will shoot out tons of rocks randomly. If your ship is not properly upgraded, you will be destroyed. I suppose this part was added to make sure your ship was upgraded, but I found it annoying, as you can still be killed if you're upgraded (it only takes one rock to put an end to that ship). Also, there were times when I was constantly shooting in front of me and an enemy still managed to run right into the front of my ship and obliterate me. "What?!!! I was shooting the whole time!" Cheap.
You guys have nothing better to do than shoot glowing cheerios at me?
This game is hard. You begin with three lives; once again, if you die, you lose all your upgrades and will begin at the last checkpoint. I can't tell you how many times I started over from the very beginning because a stray bullet took me by surprise or a ship managed to barely touch me or I flew too close to the ground and killed myself. Aargh! If only I was a little kid with nothing else to do and no responsibilites, I could devote enough time to finish this game. So I have to admit, I did not beat this game (but I sure did try!).
Now I can't be too hard on this game because, after all, it's Gradius; this is the first game in the greatest shoot 'em up series of all time. But I'm not giving it a free pass either. Gradius II and III would enhance this formula and become the greatest games in the series. This one deserves credit for being the first, and on top of that, it's pretty good too.
So we meet again. How have you been since last we met?
Final Verdict--4 Stars: Recommended
I have to recommend this game, because, well, it's a good game. If you like shooters, you definitely gotta check out one of the best ones right here. Gradius is available on the Wii Virtual Console, 3DS Virtual Console (that's how I played it), and Wii U Virtual Console. Once again, its posterity would be better games, but the first is still great. It still holds up. Intense action, hardcore difficulty, and no lag made the experience as smooth as possible. Just be prepared for some cruel stuff, meaning a lot of bullets on screen at once. Oh, and easter island heads!
Join me every Saturday as we take a look back at all kinds of retro games, good and bad.
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