Gradius is Konami’s 1985 sorta kinda sequel to their 1981 horizontal shoot-em-up Scramble. The core of both games involves moving your spaceship around enemies and obstacles, but Gradius’ introductions into the genre make it by far the more important game. A great deal of enemy variety, a power-up system, screens that you can scroll vertically as you move forward; it’s all here and more.
The storyline in Gradius and its own sequels and related games has always been sparse and vastly unimportant when compared to the gameplay, and remains so to this day. The basics of them all come down to some enemy threatens your homeworld so you hop into the iconic Vic Viper starfighter to single-handedly take them out. Despite this, the games do have certain traditions that carry on from game to game. Power-ups are recurring and so is the major repeating boss of this game, the Big Core. The Easter Island moai head themed levels, and their signature ring shaped energy blasts, are perhaps the most memorable imagery in the Gradius franchise. One of them actually shows up as a playable character in the Konami characters crossover game Wai Wai World.
There are numerous enemy types with patterns that can be tough to counter or dodge, particularly when you move to the part of each level where you must navigate traps and tricky terrain. One segment where you must dodge bullets while locked in an electrified cage remains one of the genre’s tensest moments. No less thrilling are bits like where you’ve got shoot out blocks before you collide with them or you must shoot molten rocks from a volcanic eruption of all things before they can melt you down. This is platformer style action in a shoot-em-up setting and it’s fantastic.
Fortunately the game grants you power-ups to help cope with these challenges. You can grab pick-ups to advance your power meter at the bottom of the screen and speed up your ship as well as upgrade your starting peashooter to multi-directional missiles and then the deadly laser. Taking a cue from the anime Mobile Suit Gundam, you can also pick up smaller vessels called “Options” (funnels/fin funnels in the anime) that follow your ship’s maneuvers and fire the same weapon you’re carrying whenever you fire.
Shoot-em-ups have notoriously high difficultly for beginners and this game is no exception. You need to constantly be on the move to dodge what you’re facing and at the same time paying attention to what’s coming up next. The best players learn which main weapon to have at which time to easily get through each level. After all, the laser is the most damaging weapon, but not always the right weapon for the job. Shoot-em-up fans and those looking for a fast paced challenge need to play this game. It holds up very well despite its age, even graphically due to its excellent spritework. Seeing it in action it looks like it could be an arcade game from the late 1980s instead of halfway through the decade.