Gradius
Arcade
Nostalgia Factor:
Gradius is a large, very popular video game franchise that is famous for putting side-scrolling shoot 'em ups on the map. I've never been a giant shoot 'em up fan, so I never really had a reason to check out Gradius. Well, seeing as how this is such a big, influential title and seeing as how I am trying to expand my video gaming horizons, I figured now was finally the time to check it out.
Read on for my thoughts on Gradius, my final review from 1985.
Story:
I'm sure if you look at this game's Wikipedia page, it will probably give you some kind of story summary. But I am not gonna do that. When I write these reviews, my rule is that I always outline the game's story based on what is actually explained in-game.
What's explained in-game? Fucking nothing. You start the game up and you are immediately placed in the line of fire. From what I can gather while playing, you're on a mission to defeat some kind of evil alien or robotic civilization that is invading the galaxy. The final boss of the game is a giant brain. Once you kill it, the entire city it was residing in blows up. Not very deep, is it?
Some of the locations you visit in the game are pretty interesting, and give at least some kind of hint that there is a larger story at play, here. Like the giant statue heads, or the floating volcanic islands. Maybe the mythology of this game is explained in future Gradius titles. For now I'll just have to let the mystery be.
Gameplay:
When I began playing this, my initial impression was that it was just your average run of the mill shooting game. You can move up, down, left, and right on the screen as it scrolls to your right. Enemies appear and fire weapons at you. You have to dodge their shots while firing back at them, collecting the power ups they drop along the way.
The game starts out in open space, but quickly moves to more grounded locations, like the floating volcanic islands I mentioned before. If you touch the bottom of the screen, you crash and die. If you touch any obstacles, such as rock formations, you die. This is quite the hectic game, throwing enemies at you left and right. You'll find out quite quickly how difficult this game is. You have to dodge enemies, make sure you don't touch anything, evade the projectiles coming your way, and still remain focused enough to fire back and destroy your enemies. If you just focus on playing defense, you'll quickly become overwhelmed by enemies and find yourself with nowhere to run to for safety before your ship is destroyed.
What makes things even tougher is that there is no continue feature in this game. You start with three lives, and once those lives are gone you have to go back to the beginning of the game. Meaning if you are playing this in an actual arcade you have to beat the game on one quarter - or you don't beat it at all. Brutal. Just like I did with Gun.Smoke and Ghosts 'n Goblins, this is yet another game where I had to use save states to mark my progress as I played. I certainly don't have the time or patience to start from the beginning each time I die, so I don't feel guilty at all about "cheating."
The gameplay aspect I enjoyed the most about Gradius is how you can use the items you collect to upgrade your ship. You can increase your speed, pick up missiles, upgrade to a double-firing gun (which I never did because it fucking sucks), upgrade to lasers, or add pods that surround your vessel that fire shots when you fire shots.
If you are going to beat this on one quarter, the best way to do this is to increase your speed, add as many pods as you can, and upgrade to lasers and missiles. You turn into a one ship demolition crew that rains fire and destruction in your path. Be careful, because one hit kills you in this game. Die just once, and you lose everything and start off in your slow moving pea-shooter and have to upgrade everything from square one.
Graphics:
Considering this came out in 1985, it looks quite good. If you had told me this came out in the 90s I would have likely believed you. Your ship and your enemies are big and colorful. There's lots of mayhem occurring onscreen. I like the game's diverse locations. This isn't just a generic space shooter where everything looks the same. Gradius definitely has its own signature feel to it.
Sound:
I wasn't a huge fan of the game's sound. The music is a little too upbeat and "circus" like for my tastes. It doesn't seem to fit the tone of the game at all. The sound effects are very loud and piercing. I started playing this one night with my wife in the room, and I immediately turned it off and played something else because I knew she was going to complain about the game sounding annoying.
There's a lot that rubbed me the wrong way about this game, most notably the lack of continues. I know this is designed to be a difficult arcade game and they want you to keep pumping quarters in, but having to start back at the very beginning of the game each time you use up your lives is just unnecessary. Why can't you at least continue from the start of the stage where you died? This actually did the opposite and discouraged me from playing the game the way it was intended to be played. I shamelessly abused save states to get me to the end of this game. I can only imagine that if I had played this in the actual arcades when I was a kid, I wouldn't have wasted more than one or two quarters on this game. You want to at least feel like you have a chance to beat the game.
Once I started cheating and using save states, however, I finally started to enjoy the game. I like the level progression, I like you can power up your ship, the game's locations are fun and interesting. I even liked the boss battles, too.
It's easy to see why Gradius was such an influential title for its time. Back in 1985, there weren't as many arcade options to pick from, and visually Gradius is a quite appealing title. The level progression and the way you get to see new locations as you make your way through the game was a big thing for its time, especially if you compare this to other shooters like Galaga or Centipede where everything always looks the same.
The challenge level isn't for me, but I could see the appeal (for other people) of trying to master this game and show everyone how cool they were. It's a shame I was only three when this game came out. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the arcades and see what everyone's reaction was to this game the first time they played it.
By today's standards, Gradius is an okay title. I'll give it a C+ for slightly above average. If I was grading this when it first came out, it likely would have scored a lot higher. Without those nostalgic feelings to fall back on, however, this final grade is the best I can do.
We can now put 1985 in our rear view mirrors. It's time to move onto 1986!
THE GRADE:
C+
1984:
1985:
Gradius (the review you are reading!)
Onward we move to 1986!
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