Gradius Review

The fist game in this 3 part Gradius special!

Gradius was the first game ever to use the "Konami Code". The player could simply pause the game and input: " Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A" and you would get all power-ups except "Speed Up, Double and Laser" As a mater of fact, lets go through them all:

• Speed Up: Speeds up you plane by 1 stage
• Missile: Fires a missile diagonally downwards 
• Double: Shoots two bullets at once, One going forward and second diagonally upwards
• Laser: A short stream of laser that penetrates enemies
• Option: A small sphere that follows you and shoots the same projectile you do
• ?: Also called a shield that's in front of you and 

The power Up system was pretty innovative at the time and still is a way. A red colored enemy would drop a power up sphere which you would collect and it would move the indicator on the Power Up screen to the left by one step. By pressing "B" you would obtain the marked Power Up and the marker would reset to the beginning. This way, you would have to prioritize what were more important at that specific time. Would you use for instance "Speed Up" and easily pass through a hard section or save it and hope to obtain a Option.

Dying on the other hand resulted it losing everything you had saved up, unless you had something marked on the Power Up screen, then at least you would start with the marker on "Speed Up". On the subject of dieing in Gradius, this game killed you in one hit. One small projectile or colliding with a wall or enemies resulted by death.

This game had some interesting levels, all of them started out with you piloting the Vice-Viper through a space like stage where you have the chance to collect some Power Ups to repair you for the coming stage.

The stages in this game are:

1. Volcano
2. Stone Henge
3. Moai
4. Invert Volcano
5. Tentacle
6. Cell
7. Base

Theres some secret 1-Ups and scores you can get like for example, Fly through a volcano or touch the back side of a diamond shaped rock and so on. The bosses on the end of some level are called "Core" and the name says itself, It's a ship that fires at you and has a Red or Blue glowing core. They were used in almost every Gradius game that were to come.

Konami are known for making some of the best Famicom music and this game of course is no exception.

The Space stage song of course is classic and used in almost every Gradius game. And the Mid-boss and End-boss song is just what you want for a good boss fight, its fast paste and makes you nervous and that "one hit death" constantly reminds you that the slightest little mistake you do here will make all that hard worked power-ups disappear. And taking on the boss again with no Power-Ups certainly makes it a lot more harder.

Pros and Cons:

The Good Stuff:

• After beating the game you can replay the whole game with harder difficulty, beating it more times will make each play through harder.
• Stellar soundtrack
• Fun Power-Up system
• Challenging Bosses

The Bad Stuff:

• This game is really hard, even on the first play through
• Cheap Death's on certain locations

Well, that was Gradius 1 for the Famicom.

Stay tuned for the next Gradius game in this Three parter.

Arashes Out!