In times where I find myself with little interest in the current doings of the modern era, and not much of a schedule to maintain a consistent play of anything with length (being a responsible adult with a lot of hobbies kind of sucks sometimes). There is always my home away from home, the ever-so simple shmup. I attribute my fascination very much to the childhood indoctrination of Super R-Type and it's training from hell, but aside from a smattering of random appearances by Sol-Deace and Einhander that interest was never particularly with the genre itself, and only due to those games randomly passing me by, as they would with many others. After all, Einhander was in A LOT of demo discs.
It seemed fate grew tired of me dragging my feet on exploring the genre proper, because I suppose one day at Blockbuster I was desperate to play something new with my monthly rental. Enter Gradius III and IV, an early release for the PS2 that would introduce me to one of the founding series of the genre. I guess it was fair for R-Type to be my babysitter, and the hardest entries in the Gradius series to be my personal drill instructor, however fucked up that may be. It goes without saying, it was really goddamned hard. How I managed to finish the game was beyond me for the longest time due to the lack of continues, until I remembered that the compilation came with a stage select that was slowly unlocked as you made it through sections of the game. Even with that blessing, it still kind of boggles my mind that I managed it within the five day rental period.
Oh, to be young again with that lack of things to do and with my current level of expertise. I like to think with that combo I could potentially be like the legends who can 1cc this in their sleep, but I'm not sure that will happen.
Over the last two weeks I had been casually playing the fantastic Hamster port of this on my Switch. I was in for a rude awakening when I remembered that I had joycon drift, and playing the game on a smaller screen probably wasn't the best thing in mind. Regardless, I did manage to get to the third stage with my newly found inability to continue despite the presence of a stage select. Joycon drift to me was like an extra challenge, but then I realized that was stupid, and that I may as well had added a bunch of other useless external bullshit like smearing raspberry jam over my screen or paying someone to take a mallet to my feet in random intervals of 10 to 60 seconds.
Then so, I returned to the compilation on my PS2 of which had come into my possession very early in my physical collection out of sheer nostalgia. I did the only thing any sane individual would do, I increased the difficulty to the max of six, and kept the wait level to "0" which eliminated all slowdown from the game. If I'm playing this, I want every infernal beating it can offer me right off the bat. It's just how we do things in V-Town. For about an hour I did what I could, I would be beaten soundly in certain sections, and use the stage select to slowly inch my way through by returning to the beginning of the stage I game over'd in. In theory, I totally could beat it in an evening with that method. Have I truly improved since then? I like to think so, or at the very least that I'm not just persistent and stubborn.
Maybe one day I'll take the time to master Gradius III enough to beat it without a stage select, but for now I feel the incoming appearance of the dreaded OTHER THINGS I would like to play. I do have to wonder though, why do I have an odd feeling of respect for you and not something like Gaiares where I'll gladly spit in it's general direction and stuff it in a locker? Is it that nostalgic upbringing of your appearance into my life, or is it because of the name "Gradius"? Maybe, it's "In The Wind". Regardless, my non-existent hat is off to you my friend.
May we meet again.
It seemed fate grew tired of me dragging my feet on exploring the genre proper, because I suppose one day at Blockbuster I was desperate to play something new with my monthly rental. Enter Gradius III and IV, an early release for the PS2 that would introduce me to one of the founding series of the genre. I guess it was fair for R-Type to be my babysitter, and the hardest entries in the Gradius series to be my personal drill instructor, however fucked up that may be. It goes without saying, it was really goddamned hard. How I managed to finish the game was beyond me for the longest time due to the lack of continues, until I remembered that the compilation came with a stage select that was slowly unlocked as you made it through sections of the game. Even with that blessing, it still kind of boggles my mind that I managed it within the five day rental period.
Oh, to be young again with that lack of things to do and with my current level of expertise. I like to think with that combo I could potentially be like the legends who can 1cc this in their sleep, but I'm not sure that will happen.
Over the last two weeks I had been casually playing the fantastic Hamster port of this on my Switch. I was in for a rude awakening when I remembered that I had joycon drift, and playing the game on a smaller screen probably wasn't the best thing in mind. Regardless, I did manage to get to the third stage with my newly found inability to continue despite the presence of a stage select. Joycon drift to me was like an extra challenge, but then I realized that was stupid, and that I may as well had added a bunch of other useless external bullshit like smearing raspberry jam over my screen or paying someone to take a mallet to my feet in random intervals of 10 to 60 seconds.
Then so, I returned to the compilation on my PS2 of which had come into my possession very early in my physical collection out of sheer nostalgia. I did the only thing any sane individual would do, I increased the difficulty to the max of six, and kept the wait level to "0" which eliminated all slowdown from the game. If I'm playing this, I want every infernal beating it can offer me right off the bat. It's just how we do things in V-Town. For about an hour I did what I could, I would be beaten soundly in certain sections, and use the stage select to slowly inch my way through by returning to the beginning of the stage I game over'd in. In theory, I totally could beat it in an evening with that method. Have I truly improved since then? I like to think so, or at the very least that I'm not just persistent and stubborn.
Maybe one day I'll take the time to master Gradius III enough to beat it without a stage select, but for now I feel the incoming appearance of the dreaded OTHER THINGS I would like to play. I do have to wonder though, why do I have an odd feeling of respect for you and not something like Gaiares where I'll gladly spit in it's general direction and stuff it in a locker? Is it that nostalgic upbringing of your appearance into my life, or is it because of the name "Gradius"? Maybe, it's "In The Wind". Regardless, my non-existent hat is off to you my friend.
May we meet again.