Gradius Collection is a compilation of five beloved games in the Gradius series available for the first time on the PSP system. Spanning more than 20 years, the five games--Gradius, Gradius II, Gradius III, Gradius IV, and the long-awaited Gradius Gaiden--deliver hours of classic 2-D shooting action on the go.
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Hey look, another game that has impacted my life so much. Much more than Puyo Puyo but not as much as Terarria. It's 2nd place in terms of why I appreciate gameplay and such. Gradius, originally started in 1985 by Konami, is a series of horizontal shoot em ups (or shumps) that usually have a story of the Bactarian Forces striking upon... I forgot. The story is awesome, but j don't remember most of it. Look it up, cause you might be able to help me figure out the story.
Normally I'd pick a review for each and every one in the series, but because this manages to contain almost every Gradius game (1-4 on Arcades, and Gaiden for the first time), and I could review each and every one in here, including a paragraph about how this game affected my life. With this out of the way, let's start with the original.
Gradius/Nemesis- The Original Gradius. Either ran within Konami's Bubble System or ROM system which decreased the wait time significantly, or in the PSP collection completely skippable and just a novelty to pretend that the game is loading. The gameplay is what you'd expect: Destroy them all, collect the capsules to upgrade your ship, and survive until the end. Not much to say about this one outside of the fact that this game is pretty much the easy entry within the series as a whole. But what do you expect from the first game? It ls solid enough.
Gradius II Gofer no Yabou/Vulcan Adventure-the second Gradius entry. This one has more customization options than 1 featuring Ripple from Salamander and a force field around your ship as an option to protect yourself. The objective remains the same though. The music also gotten a significant upgrade compared to 1 and Salamander and features more of a richer soundtrack! And the game is a lot more challenging than 2 with its enemies, the stage design, and the bosses. They also feature the first boss parade in the series, featuring bosses from well... The first Gradius and Salamander.
Gradius III From Myth to Legend- (I forgot the Japanese title of this game) This was supposedly the last entry to Gradius as the Bactarians were completely defeated in this game, but I guess that having a 4th game to have the 2nd games antagonist be restored is just another sub plot that I'll reference later. This game cranks up the difficulty by a ton, making even the Easy difficulty hard as nuts. I don't understand why Konami has done it, but you always got the SNES version. But you might say that the slowdown is an issue. Use the SA-1 patch to get rid of it completely. It's artificially harder now since the slowdown is gone and not configurable in the settings either. Back to the arcade version.
In this game, more customization options have arrived, but it's been a while since I've played the Arcade version so you'll also have to figure this out yourself. This game also features a familiar soundtrack to the second game, but imo it's more of a downgrade? 2 felt more like an adventure with every song feeling adventurous and treacherous. I guess that they've wanted to have a calmer vibe to 3 instead? The music themselves aren't bad, but the music direction isn't the same, and honestly Its a mixed bag.
Gradius Gaiden- people have been saying that this game is the first to use 3d sprites, but I dunno. This gsme is still awesome. Too bad it's a SPINOFF! This game's soundtrack, down to the gameplay itself has to be too unique of a Gradius game to be a spinoff and I honestly call this game the true Gradius 4. This game also featured Pixel art which theatter doesn't have, and we all know that Jade Knignt (the green ship) is the best one with its lkmit ability. This is also the only Gradius game where you're able to customize the time you're able to get your upgrades which is a life changing addition. Limit is pretty op too! Makes you invulnerable for a couple of seconds and with kt being the first on the list of upgrades, you're pretty much able to spam it how much you want. It's a bot broken, but at the same time, the original and the ship from salamander is in there too.
Gradius IV- The black sheep in the series, but imo, it's deserved. Coming from Gaiden, this game goes back 2 games back to Gradius 2 to even mention it in the games plot where the original antagonist of that game gets reincarnated again. Other than that the customization options have been removed from Gaiden and this game is the fieys to actually use 3d graphics. Whether it's a good step or a bad step is debatable. But they honestly look ugly IMHO. The music is rather jolly too which is unfitting for the atmosphere.
y'know? Some may say rhat Sonic had a tough transition to 3d, but Gradius actually had a tougher transition to 3d.
Now I would've talked about Rebirth, the two on the Gameboy, and V, but they aren't in this collection so I'll put my thoughts on there when I'm ready. I didn't play V yet but I did okay rebirth. But ehu did this game impact me so much? It's the year of 2009, and I remember some beef happening with me and family. I remember that my mother and father were out, and I was crying almost the whole day. And then when my mother called, my bigger brother told her about me and she told that we can play the Wii together. The third game on the SNES was my first entry to the game. I don't remember getting too far in the game because we'll I was a kid and shumps were harder lol, but I remember my brother getting pretty far. This game has an impact on me because it started my journey to find and play shumps to play and appreciate. This game is a good one for people who are new to shumps to try out, and on the easiest difficulty, it's bearable for everyone to try the game out, and I honestly suggest it too!
Normally I'd pick a review for each and every one in the series, but because this manages to contain almost every Gradius game (1-4 on Arcades, and Gaiden for the first time), and I could review each and every one in here, including a paragraph about how this game affected my life. With this out of the way, let's start with the original.
Gradius/Nemesis- The Original Gradius. Either ran within Konami's Bubble System or ROM system which decreased the wait time significantly, or in the PSP collection completely skippable and just a novelty to pretend that the game is loading. The gameplay is what you'd expect: Destroy them all, collect the capsules to upgrade your ship, and survive until the end. Not much to say about this one outside of the fact that this game is pretty much the easy entry within the series as a whole. But what do you expect from the first game? It ls solid enough.
Gradius II Gofer no Yabou/Vulcan Adventure-the second Gradius entry. This one has more customization options than 1 featuring Ripple from Salamander and a force field around your ship as an option to protect yourself. The objective remains the same though. The music also gotten a significant upgrade compared to 1 and Salamander and features more of a richer soundtrack! And the game is a lot more challenging than 2 with its enemies, the stage design, and the bosses. They also feature the first boss parade in the series, featuring bosses from well... The first Gradius and Salamander.
Gradius III From Myth to Legend- (I forgot the Japanese title of this game) This was supposedly the last entry to Gradius as the Bactarians were completely defeated in this game, but I guess that having a 4th game to have the 2nd games antagonist be restored is just another sub plot that I'll reference later. This game cranks up the difficulty by a ton, making even the Easy difficulty hard as nuts. I don't understand why Konami has done it, but you always got the SNES version. But you might say that the slowdown is an issue. Use the SA-1 patch to get rid of it completely. It's artificially harder now since the slowdown is gone and not configurable in the settings either. Back to the arcade version.
In this game, more customization options have arrived, but it's been a while since I've played the Arcade version so you'll also have to figure this out yourself. This game also features a familiar soundtrack to the second game, but imo it's more of a downgrade? 2 felt more like an adventure with every song feeling adventurous and treacherous. I guess that they've wanted to have a calmer vibe to 3 instead? The music themselves aren't bad, but the music direction isn't the same, and honestly Its a mixed bag.
Gradius Gaiden- people have been saying that this game is the first to use 3d sprites, but I dunno. This gsme is still awesome. Too bad it's a SPINOFF! This game's soundtrack, down to the gameplay itself has to be too unique of a Gradius game to be a spinoff and I honestly call this game the true Gradius 4. This game also featured Pixel art which theatter doesn't have, and we all know that Jade Knignt (the green ship) is the best one with its lkmit ability. This is also the only Gradius game where you're able to customize the time you're able to get your upgrades which is a life changing addition. Limit is pretty op too! Makes you invulnerable for a couple of seconds and with kt being the first on the list of upgrades, you're pretty much able to spam it how much you want. It's a bot broken, but at the same time, the original and the ship from salamander is in there too.
Gradius IV- The black sheep in the series, but imo, it's deserved. Coming from Gaiden, this game goes back 2 games back to Gradius 2 to even mention it in the games plot where the original antagonist of that game gets reincarnated again. Other than that the customization options have been removed from Gaiden and this game is the fieys to actually use 3d graphics. Whether it's a good step or a bad step is debatable. But they honestly look ugly IMHO. The music is rather jolly too which is unfitting for the atmosphere.
y'know? Some may say rhat Sonic had a tough transition to 3d, but Gradius actually had a tougher transition to 3d.
Now I would've talked about Rebirth, the two on the Gameboy, and V, but they aren't in this collection so I'll put my thoughts on there when I'm ready. I didn't play V yet but I did okay rebirth. But ehu did this game impact me so much? It's the year of 2009, and I remember some beef happening with me and family. I remember that my mother and father were out, and I was crying almost the whole day. And then when my mother called, my bigger brother told her about me and she told that we can play the Wii together. The third game on the SNES was my first entry to the game. I don't remember getting too far in the game because we'll I was a kid and shumps were harder lol, but I remember my brother getting pretty far. This game has an impact on me because it started my journey to find and play shumps to play and appreciate. This game is a good one for people who are new to shumps to try out, and on the easiest difficulty, it's bearable for everyone to try the game out, and I honestly suggest it too!
Marcianitos pium pium
Finished only Gradius 1 and 2....
I remember it being a decent collection.
It's annoying that there's no easy way to get this from my PS3 to my Vita in 2023. I don't feel like dealing with the workarounds.
It's annoying that there's no easy way to get this from my PS3 to my Vita in 2023. I don't feel like dealing with the workarounds.
A collection of 5 shoot 'em ups that are pretty hard, but feel good to play once you've gotten the hang of them.
Worth it to those who are fans of the genre and want to have their fill of an arcade experience and all the action packed gameplay that comes with it.
And luckily, to make it a bit more accessible, there is a quicksave feature.
Though, the games lack co-op, which is a shame.
Worth it to those who are fans of the genre and want to have their fill of an arcade experience and all the action packed gameplay that comes with it.
And luckily, to make it a bit more accessible, there is a quicksave feature.
Though, the games lack co-op, which is a shame.
Great little collection of games that have some banger music but they are kind of hard and haven't been able to beat the first level of any of these games. It's hard for me to get invested in these because I played the Parodius games first and prefer them because it's this series but wacky.