Game Discussion of the Week: Gradius series

Definitely one of my favorite series of all time. It also has one of my favorite games of all time, and what I consider the best shoot 'em up if all time: Gradius V.

The spin off series are excellent too, like Parodius, Salamander (Life Force), Otomedius, Crisis Force, etc.. Actually, I would consider Salamander as part of the main series, and one of the best games ever made as well.

If you ask me about the weakest game for consoles at least, it would probably be Gradius ReBirth for the Wii, it was definitely missing some of that magic, and yet it is still a fun game.

One of the best ones in the entire series is Gradius Gaiden, and just like Gradius V, it takes advantage of being designed for consoles in mind from the ground up, in this case, a handheld actually.

Don't get me wrong, the arcade ones are all excellent, and I love them a lot, Gradius III being my favorite of those, but there is something to be said about having a proper console shooter in a similar way to what R-Type III did improving everything that went wrong with Super R-Type, both on the Super Nintendo.

Actually Gradius III was the first shooter I ever owned, and the one that introduced me to the genre. Imperium was my first top down, but Gradius III was my first side scrolling, and shooter in general.

The nostalgia I have for Gradius III is strong. I still remember one time asking my grandma to play, and she made it all the way to the first boss. It is one of the many great memories I have of her.

I actually still love the Super Nintendo port. A lot of people don't like it because of the slow downs in a few stages, but I always took advantage of those. It was also the second game I ever finished, right after Super Mario World, and probably a big reason why spaceship shooting is one of my favorite game genres.

I bought it again through the PS2 release of Gradius III & IV (we actually had two copies of those), and I can see how people like the arcade version more because it is better, but honestly there is nothing wrong with the Super Nintendo version. It is still fun even till this day.

This is definitely one of the top 5 franchises in the entire gaming industry for me. I even like it more than Darius, although I do agree Darius looks cooler with those 3 monitor setups. It would be nice to see Gradius doing that some time, but I do understand it is already a Darius thing.

In simple terms Gradius rules.

I've played through two of the handheld ones, Nemesis on the Game Boy and Gradius Galaxies on the GBA. Nemesis was easily the more playable of the two. The respawn points in Galaxies were obnoxious and made it a chore to play through a level dying left and right.
I put 5 minutes into the original via the Konami collection on the DS and yeah, that needs to be played on a TV.

Gradius V is coming to PS4? I would buy that for sure. In fact I bought Gradius V twice on the PS2 because we loved those Konami games so much we wanted to have a backup.

Those are the kind of games I don't mind buying multiple times because they are so good. I have it on PS3 too, I play it on the arcade cabinet that way.

It's like Ikaruga, I have it on GameCube, which also works on the Wii, Switch, and PS4. Any Gradius V copy would be a no brainier on any platform.

I see, that collection you're mentioning is already pretty solid though. I'm definitely getting that one.

All those are badass 8 bit games, and Scramble is from the amazing 2nd gen. That's a sweet collection.

Well, I always preferred it over Darius. But man, talk about an entire genre that I absolutely suck at: horizontal shmups. I can't beat any of them.

What about vertical shmups?