When deciding which title to localize, Konami gave the nod to the one that alternated between horizontal and vertically scrolling stages, instead of one which was simply a great sequel to a well-known game. I can’t be sure, of course, but that’s another factor that may have prevented both games from reaching the United States back in 1988. A lot of the new content in the home conversion of Gradius II actually came straight from Life Force. Since the Famicom didn't have the same processing ability as the average arcade board, Konami changed a few levels and inserted new elements to make sure the port was worth playing. Konami had the interesting habit of somewhat altering games when porting them from the arcade to home systems. That likely explains why we didn't get Gradius II. Around the time this one might have come out in the region, we instead saw Konami's port of Salamander (known here as Life Force). Not only is it a really good shooter that dramatically improves upon its predecessor, but it also wasn't originally released in America. The Famicom's Gradius II is an interesting title. If the particular path you're charting through the asteroids seems too fraught with danger, it's simplicity itself to go over one instead of under it in order to fight a different arrangement of foes." Making this level particularly neat is the way you can scroll up and down while moving to the right. The Japanese version has some extra bonus challenge missions added in."In Gradius II, you are immediately greeted by the choice between four different weapon sets (as opposed to only one in the original) and then you advance to a very attractive opening stage loaded with fiery asteroids. Strangely, Gradius Galaxies was released in America and Europe before it came to Japan. But it also lacks any real identity, and so it feels a bit unfulfilling. It’s not nearly as frustrating as its arcade counterparts, and the ability to restart at any checkpoint make it an easy pick up and play game. Gradius Galaxies is a solid game, even though it doesn’t bring anything new to the table. There are only four weapon configurations, all similar to Gradius III, though each gives the Vic Viper a different color. For some reason, the famous Gradius cores look more like eyeballs than orbs, and actually shudder when you hit them. The final boss is essentially just a huge brain in a tank. There’s an outer space level, an underground level, a fire level, a Moai level (featuring a cybernetic Moai boss), and a mechanical base level.
The underground level contains waterfalls that hover in mid-air, which is similar to a stage in Xexex. If you’re not careful, you can destroy the foundations of these platforms, causing the ceilings to collapse down on you.
The second level is reminiscent of one of the stages in Gradius 2 on MSX – it consists of glass platforms, which can be shattered by shooting at them. The levels aren’t too interesting, with only a few cool innovations here and there. Much like Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, the music quality is severely compromised, featuring obnoxiously shrieking bleeps and bloops that sound significantly worse than your average NES game. While the graphics are decent, the same can’t be said about the music. Here it’s a buzzsaw-like machine that inflates to take up a huge portion of the screen – it’s similar to the one in Gradius Gaiden, but much, much more menacing. In many previous Gradius games, there’s an invincible boss that will slowly make its way back and forth across the screen, forcing you to hide in small nooks to avoid getting crushed. There’s also some occasional use of rotation and scaling effects, like huge, slowly rotating asteroids with narrow openings in the middle. Some of backgrounds, like the bright red moon in the cavern stage and the comet in the warp level look pretty impressive. The graphics are better than Gradius III but not quite up to the level of G radius Gaiden. It’s not exactly innovative, but as a miniature version of Gradius, it’s quite good.įor starters, it’s obviously not nearly as compromised as the previous Game Boy titles, so despite the low resolution, it’s still quite playable.
GRADIUS 2 NES LEVELS PORTABLE
Gradius Galaxies was developed by Mobile 21, a joint venture between Nintendo and Konami which focused on portable games.
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