I'm really not a fan of Konami's approach to its shmups being dropping you into a neverending pit of despair from which you can't recover upon dying.

I'm no shmup master, so I've granted myself a save state at the beginning of each level knowing that death would be worse as it would strip me naked, but now that I've beaten it I wonder if I needed it.

The game has a very uneven difficulty curve: first, vertical levels are much easier, usually presenting you with one obstacle at a time; bosses are all underwhelming and I've beaten each without reloading the stage and am confident I could've beaten them with no power-ups; finally, I want to say that Level 1 might actually be the hardest, featuring several gotcha traps and forcing you to stay close to the edge of the screen. Only the escape sequence gave me more trouble.

It's a comfortable little shmup, even if a bit repetitive at times.

For my first game logged on here, I figured I'd go back and beat a game that I started decades ago but could never finish due to having little experience with shmups at the time.

I went ahead and did this one without the code for Retroachievements, although I did do one run with save state practice (ESPECIALLY for stage 3) before taking the training wheels off and doing a "hardcore" run.

I've got to be honest, it wasn't a fun experience for the most part. Yes, the aesthetic and music are wonderful- stage 2's music literally gives me chills with how much of an earworm it is. That being said, even though you respawn where you left off just like in Thunder Force 3 (which is a far superior game imho), the dreaded "Gradius syndrome" is in full effect here. (If you die, you lose everything and might as well just shut the damn game off or fly your ship into the walls in order to start the stage over and rebuild)

Even from stage 1, there are traps that can and will kill you if you don't have prior knowledge of them. Walls that completely block off your path with no way through, odd veiny structures that materialize right in the middle of the playing field when you're likely trying to avoid a billion other things (referring to stage 4), and of course those massive arcs of fire from stage 3 that give minimal warning and take up half the screen. To reference Thunder Force 3 again...this game is basically that cavern stage with the bouncing rocks and shifting terrain but stretched across a 30 minute gauntlet.

Ironically, all of the bosses are pathetically easy and can (for the most part) be taken out even with just the pea shooter and a little preservation. I almost laughed at the end of stage 3 because I expected the giant dragon head to be this grueling ordeal considering the stage itself took me almost an hour to route (without dying) but no- he just shoots out an easily avoided projectile. Even the last boss (who I'm assuming is what the american cover art is depicting) is a pushover.

For the sake of finishing a game I barely got to stage 3 on as a kid, I'm happy i finally got around to it. That being said, I'll be sticking with Compile and Technosoft shooters moving forward. A killer soundtrack and great visuals can really only carry a game so far and, sadly, Life Force just doesn't hold up on what should actually matter in a game to me.

A little more well-rounded than the NES port of Gradius, and it has co-op! It's as punishing as you would anticipate, but if you just want to power through it, grab a friend and punch in a code. It's a perfectly serviceable little shooter and one of the better ones on the NES. A shame we never got Gradius II on the platform, though.

I don't really have much to say about it. I just wanted to take the opportunity to highlight that the Japanese release (titled Salamander) easily has the coolest cartridge design ever. I mean, just look at it.