NES Game Reviews #43 – Gradius (Konami)
‘Gra-dius’, or ‘Grade-ius’ however you pronounce it, Gradius is undoubtedly one of the NES’s classics. The system isn’t blessed with shooters, while still playable, many do not hold up well today. Gradius however still plays great, no wonder it became Konami’s most applauded shump series.
Coming to this game again as an adult, armed with a much richer background in shooters, it wasn’t long before I was overtaking my childhood self. I reached what I believed to be stage 4 quickly before realizing that the floating Easter Island heads at the beginning of the stage, are a a warp to stage 5! I believe this is achieved by collecting 200,000 points by the end of stage 3. To increase your chances I advise destroying as many of the Easter Island heads in stage 3 as possible. Since the real stage four is simply an upside down version of stage one, it really isn’t to taxing to have to play it though.
The most obvious criticism of Gradius is that when you die its near impossible for beginners to regain their power-ups, especially on later levels.
Essentially making the game a single-life run!
Finishing this with one life will involve a lot of playthroughs and enemy memorization, but there are some tips to help along the way. Learning the order of the power-ups and how they cycle is important. While ultimately you want max out your ship, I would advise against upgrading Speed to max, as I find the ship far too twitchy, though it’s all personal preference. One thing every player should do is ensure they cycle back to the force field icon when maxed out to ensure they can rearm the force-field when depleted. This means avoiding all further power-ups. This can often be more challenging than avoiding the hazards! Upgrading to two Options as soon as possible is a good tactic. I would advise laser for the majority of the game for its power and range, though the Doubler does prove very useful in the final stages tight corridors.
Despite some painful slowdown on stage 5, this is a real NES classic. It could benefit from more creative boss battles but otherwise an excellent play!
