Desde hace mucho que queria empezar con la saga Gradius (principalmente para jugar al Gradius V) asi que empece con el original en su version de arcade sin saber mucho de este.
Gradius es un buen juego, el gameplay es genial y me gusta que sea un shmup sidescroller, lamentablemente en mi opinion el juego sufre mucho debido a su dificultad, esta se siente gimmicky e injusta durante muchos momentos del juego, como la seccion de volcanes del primer nivel o la horrible seccion del final en la cual tienes que estar adelante para que no se cierre la puerta, esto no se sentiria tan injusto ni frustrante si no fuera porque es un juego de fichas que al momento de perder todas tus vidas comienzas el juego desde 0, asi que morir por culpa de algo que era imposible saber la primera vez no se siente bien.
No me gusta facilitarme los juegos o usar cheats pero en este caso senti mas que justificado el usar el codigo konami para pasarlo (mas cuando este sale en la pantalla de inicio como tip) y recomendaria usarlo para tener una mejor experiencia.
tl;dr Es un buen juego el cual si no fuera por lo injusto que se siente el diseño de niveles probablemente seria mas disfrutable, espero disfrutar mas de las siguientes entregas (aunque probablemente skippeare el 2 y pase directamente al Gaiden).

Yeah no, I got bored.
I'm honestly surprised by how good this game was, considering I really dislike the NES version, but this is surprisingly competent in most ways. Stage design is often good, controls well, the power up system is dynamic... but, maaaaaaan, the difficulty system is consistently quite ass.

You will NOTICE when it ramps up because shit starts to get fast out of nowhere with no prior warning, sometimes mid-enemy attack, and that, coupled with this game being a 1CC or bust type of game (where continues don't start you back from where you died, but rather back from the start of the game) make this very jarring to play.

The checkpoints in this game also aren't... optimal, namely the ones right after the introductory section of each stage. Saving the player's "progress" AFTER the part of the game where they are supposed to get their power-ups back from a long fight is such a dick move, and can absolutely kill some runs depending of where you die.

I was going comment on how this game gave me a stroke and I kept rewinding because fuck this game, but then I realised I had no idea how to power up, because I thought it happened automatically when collecting the orange things.

It was only when I reached the final level, wondering why I was still so damn weak that I realised I actually had to activate them, so I made this experience extra miserable for myself...

I feel like a filthy game journalist.

(games still evil even with the power-ups, so I don't even know what my point is. I'm a dumbass I guess)

1-All'd - 327,800pts.

Funny example of how too much leniency can end up being a downside, something that probably sounds absolutely insane given how much dying once can set you back, but I'd say it's the frequent checkpoints which are the real issue. Those first waves of each stage do get progressively more difficult, but there's opportunity in these bits to get a chunk of your firepower back; most mid-level sections get kinda whack when you're scrambling to even just stop moving at a snail's pace anymore.

But I still found some value in how the threat of that punishment pushes your play further, which itself is made easier when you're already maintaining so much screen coverage. A clean run is about keeping the streak going as tightly as possible, sometimes to the point that playing without deaths is easier than just a regular run-through...not sure if the 15-minute runtime vindicates or worsens that notion yet, but it's there.

Still, have to appreciate some of the regular idiosyncrasies here too: Double and Laser being mutually exclusive creates a nice dilemma between safer vertical coverage or higher damage and piercing, and the Shield's protective area is larger than Vic Viper's actual hitbox, incurring more hits than you might have otherwise. Efficiently maximizing on Shields is another fun quirk: ideally you're leaving that power-up space charged in preparation to refresh it, but it then turns other pickups into de facto enemies, something to be mindful of and avoid lest you end up rolling all the way back to the beginning of the list. Cute way to spin the main gimmick around by the end, and goes a little ways towards making the later pickup dumps less moot.

The classic horizontal shmup! (I think!)

This one is really fun despite it's age, I really like how the terrain effects your movement more, needing to fly around mountains and avoid hitting cielings and stuff. I've only really pretty vertical shmups to this point outside of Phalanx for the meme, so this was quite neat!

My only real issue with this game was how unforgiving dying is. Losing all your powerups can make winning basically impossible in later stages. I also played on PC-Engine where there are ZERO continues!! I did use save states between stages but watching the NES version I wanna try to 1CC that. Less bullets on screen looks a lot less stressful.

Great game and I can see why it's a classic, just a bit too hard for me atm!

Gradius merece ser alabado por la variedad de opciones que trajo al género de disparos y por la capacidad de customización que ofreció al jugadore en el momento de su estreno. Por desgracia, su filosofía de diseño puntillista convierte la experiencia de jugarlo a día de hoy en una actividad cansina y agotadora.

A primera vista, diría que este rechazo que siento hacia el juego se debe al hecho de haber intentado experimentarlo de una pasada y sin haberme dedicado realmente a dominarlo. El juego sabe muy bien hacerse notar, especialmente cuando trampeas las reglas de la cabina y te dedicas a utilizar save states como un cosaco. La segunda fase parece construida expresamente para generarte ese rechazo. No importa cuántas rutas tomes, te garantizo un mínimo de 10 muertes antes de que encuentres una ruta por el cinturón de asteroides. A esto debes sumarle un terrorífico sistema de pérdida de powerups que te asegura cuanto menos el game over en las últimas fases. Por último, se debe añadir el problema de que las máximas velocidades descontrolan el ritmo de tu nave, haciendo que chocar contra el techo o enemigos se vuelva ocurrencia común.

Una parte mía quiere obviar todo esto y decir que el juego sigue siendo, pese a todo, una maravilla. Estoy segurísimo de que si tratara de jugarlo como quiere, estaría mucho más tiempo en las primeras fases pero acabaría teniendo una experiencia mejor. Pero un sistema de juego que parece diseñado para ponerte la zancadilla a cada paso que das me asquea. Cuando se trata de Castlevania, siento que el equipo de Konami supo manejar mucho mejor la progresión de niveles, pero aquí da la impresión de que aún se trabaja como si estuvierámos pensando en Scramble.

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Gradius deserves to be praised for the variety that it brought to the shooting genre and for the customization it offered to players. Unfortunately, its nitpicky design philosophy makes the experience of playing it today a tiresome and exhausting activity.

At first glance, I would say that this dislike I feel towards the game is due to the fact that I have tried to beat it in one go, instead of trying to master it. The game really knows how to make itself heard, especially when you start cheating and savescumming like an idiot. The second level seems to be built expressly to reject those who dared to approach it without knowing how to play. No matter how many routes you take, I guarantee a minimum of 10 deaths before you manage to pass through the asteroid belt. In addition to this, you have to take into account the loss of all power-ups each time you die, which assures you a game over by the later stages. Finally, you have to add the detail that, at maximum speed, the ship is impossible to get a hold on, which makes crashing into the ceiling or the enemies a very common occurrence.

A part of me wants to ignore all this and say that the game is still, despite everything, a marvelous thing. I'm pretty sure that if I tried to play it the way it wants you to play it, I'd spend a lot more time in the early stages, but end up having a better experience. Despite that, a gameplay system that seems designed to trip you over at every step disgusts me. When it comes to Castlevania, it felt like the team knew how to handle the sense of progression much better, but here it gives the impression that they were still thinking about making a Scramble lookalike.

This was a doozy to get through. Had to resort to using the famous Konami code (Fun fact: Gradius is the first game to make use of it) to unlock all the power ups just to be able to beat the game, and even then it took awhile.

I also wanted to use the continue cheat code (which lets you restart at the beginning of the stage you just visited), but for some reason it didn't work. So instead I used save states ONLY for the start of each stage instead.

Stages 3, 5, and 7 were an absolute PAIN to get through. Stage 3 was when I decided to use the Konami cheat code, stage 5 had the space meatballs with too much health, and stage 7 is a cramped corridor with enemies on the ceiling and floor attack you with bullet hell zeal.

A fun game despite being tough as nails. Took 6.5 hours to beat with a final score of 510500.

Gradius é um jogo muito além de seu tempo e não é atoa que fez tanto sucesso. Antes de Gradius, o gênero costumava ser um loop em que as fases em si pouco importavam, e o foco era totalmente na pontuação, mas aqui, cada fase é completamente diferente, cobram bastante do jogador em movimentação, possuem obstáculos multidirecionais e trazem diversas estratégias diferentes para se passar por elas, se aproveitando bastante do inovador, e um tanto complexo, sistema de power-up. E mesmo indo além do contexto histórico, é um jogo muito divertido que se segura muito bem mesmo nos dias de hoje.

Typically I only enjoy hard games if they feel fair, and Gradius rarely feels fare with it's deaths. Enemy placement and level design is incredibly hostile to the player, the checkpoint system forces you to actually learn how to play the game (instead of just dumping quarters into the machine to see the credits), and the game is nigh impossible to beat if you die at a late stage and lose all your power ups. That being said, I have 0 shame in savescumming my way through old games, so I mostly had a good time.

I can only imagine in 1985 this would have been a pretty impressive arcade shoot 'em up both visually and for it's music. The key word here is arcade though because playing this now you really feel that 'kill them for their quarters' vibe in places. the game will sometimes just railroad you into insane killzones of bullets flying your way or enemies appearing behind you in locations you can't actually shoot them from. It's both unfair and cheap at times. I played this on the Konami Arcade Classics Collection using save states and without them there isn't the slightest micron I would have beaten it or got close without them. It's hard as hell and even with modern platforms it still has a surprising amount of slow down in places.

It's not the only issue though. The game has one boss you fight maybe 5 times with no changes to it's pattern. I'm serious, the last "boss" doesn't even do anything, you shoot it and appear back at the start of the game, I thought my game had bugged initially it made so little sense. Talk about finishing on a whimper.

I will say it's got a pretty cool power up system. You collect what appear to be energy cells which move along a list of options each time you pick one up. when it's on the option you want you power up and gain it. Some have multiple uses so if you're good enough your ship can move super fast with 4 satellite ships firing lasers. The issue is the games base difficulty isn't built around your starting stats and the game knows it to the point when you die it gives a load of red ships / turrets to immediately give you power ups. If it's that poorly balanced then why bother having them as options if it's not rewarding good play is my feeling on it.

This is the 9th shoot 'em up I've played this year but probably one of the ones I liked least overall. It's a pretty well known classic but at the time of writing this game is 37 years old and in some places it hasn't aged well. That said it's still not the worst shoot 'em up I've ever played. Interesting power ups, nice visuals and music make it an ok experience that was perhaps ahead of it's time a bit. Looking forward to trying latter games in the series.

+ Nice graphics and music for 1985.
+ Interesting power up system.

- Cheap at times.
- Only one boss?
- Awful ending.
- Game not balanced around base ship.