Gradius
System: NES
Release Date: December 1986
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Genre: Shoot ‘em Up
Konami has joined in the NES development sphere with their release of Gradius on NES. I like the Gradius family of games, but boy was I getting frustrated while playing this! You’re piloting the Warp Rattler in an attempt to save planet Gradius from the amoeboid Bacterians.
The gameplay is simple, shoot as many bad guys as you can by using the A button. Red enemies will leave a power capsule that you can use to upgrade your ship. The power ups proceed from a speed up, which can be stacked; missiles, which shoot to the bottom of the stage; the double shot, which shoots in an upward diagonal; the laser, which shoots through enemies; the option, which can be stacked twice and creates secondary ships that shoot when you do; and the “?” force field barrier, which allows you to take extra hits.
Different players will prioritize different power ups. I like lasers and options, but I learned to appreciate the force field barrier the more I played. Everything was going fine with my playing until I hit the Moai stage. I could not, for the life of me, get through the level. I tried and tried and tried, with the same result of me getting wasted. Even if I made it to the boss portion, I didn’t have enough power ups to defeat them.
Then I remembered to use the Konami Code. When a Konami game pushes you to the edge, just put in their famous code. Up, up, down, down, left, right, B, A. In Gradius, if you input the code while paused, you are rewarded with the missile, two options, and a shield power up. This got me through the Moai stage and served me well through the rest of the playthrough, allowing me to concentrate on collecting enough capsules for a replacement force field.
The Konami code made the rest of the game trivial and I was able to quickly defeat it. I look forward to the sequel, Life Force, which will drop at the end of 1988. I was able to play and beat that on legit hardware a couple years ago. We’ll see if I still remember it in about 114 games.
Graphics: 1.5
The graphics are just fine, but flickering and slowdown got annoying with many enemies/bullets.
Sound: 3.0
Konami usually has exemplary sound. This is no different.
Gameplay: 2.5
The start of the Gradius series already has solid game mechanics. Later entries should improve on them.
Difficulty: 2.5
The Moai level is super cheap, other than that, I think the difficulty is decent. The Konami code trivializes everything, though.
Fun Factor: 2.0
Gradius is of average fun to me. That’s all I can say.
Overall Grade: 2.3
Gradius earns a C+. It’s a good start for the space shooter on NES. It’s one of the most developed genres, so we’ll see how they all compare.