GRADIUS 2 IMPOSSIBLE PC

The stages are so enemies-dense that the final boss comes as a relief, as the only moment in which you can let your guard down for a while. The last two are a nightmare because the more powerful you are, the more pissed off the aliens are and they will dump a hell of bullets against you.

What’s really hard in the game is to GET to the end of the stage. Even though you can’t really tell when a stage is over because there’s no information about it and, at least in the first screen, the setting remains the same, the bosses are all the same and all easy to negotiate, you just need a bit of speed to be faster than the enemy ship in order to dodge the lasers. Talking about bosses, this is probably the only bad aspect of the game. This adds a bit of strategy to the game because you cannot simply collect everything you see on screen because after having collected all the necessary power-ups to trigger the “?”, the sixth orb you collect throws you back to the first power-up (increased speed)įor the rest Gradius is a classic space shooter with a boss at the end of each stage, represented by the same laser-firing alien spaceship. Of course if you get only one you can choose only the “weakest” enhancement, a boost that increase your speed, but if you get two, three, four or five “pills” you can get more powerful improvements: the last one, indicated with a question mark placest two amoeba-like creatures in front of the spaceship that act like a shield that depletes hit after hit.

Instead of a list of different power-ups that can be collected for different effects, in Gradius we have a unique power up in the shape of a red energy ball but the effects of the power-up itself can be different: the enhancements bar we see on the bottom of the screen allow the player to select which a specific improvement to the spaceship depending on how many “spheres” are collected.

Today this setting is the standard of the traditional space shoot ’em ups but back then Gradius was the first to popularize this philosophy.Įven the power-ups mechanism is different from similar games and, among the major games, has remained pretty much an isolated case. Here insted we see the first inteaction between a futuristic mechanical enviroment blended with repugnant alien organic matter. Gradius has been an innovating games in many aspects.įirst thing the setting: in the games before Gradius the alien or the “invaders” were represented by pseudo-terrestrial “monsters” or spaceship willing to use Earth as a dump for their missiles. The plot itself is nothing incredible and we surely do not expect something more by a space shooter but the strong part of the plot is the setting that will become one of the defining features of the genre. The pilot of the spaceship Vic Viper is alone against the Bacterion empire and has to defeat their base composed by strange and horrible biomechanic stuff. That’s the only moment in which the fluid scrolling starts to slow down but I have to say that this is a blessing because otherwise you could be easily killed by the enemy fire. The visuals are always perfect, no flickering and no slowings except one stace, the one with the rock-like alien creatures whoi try to hunt you with their long mechanical arms. The most interesting innovation in the game is the already cited blend of technology and biology that creates an environment thet will beome very popular in the decade. We are 100% in the 8-bit era and Gradius is a perfet example of the visuals of the 80s. It’s noth technically a splash screen but even the intro tune with the spaceship starting its mission in the space it’s quite good! I love when the title of the game is written with a good font and nice colours and that’s what happen with the military style logo of Gradius. At first to be honest I passend on this game because I wanted to try something more “famous” but when I started to appreciate and play space shooters, Gradius became an obligatory step and I spent a whole day alone from morning to evening to play it without being able to disconnect the console. My first experience with Gradius has been on the NES Mini. Probably There wouldn’t be no R-Type and no Darius without this game which was the first with a biomechanical setting, that will become the standard for the genre.

GRADIUS 2 IMPOSSIBLE PC

Released for the Arcade market in 1986 was quickly ported to the NES and then almost to every platform (Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, MSX, PC Engine, Amstrad CPC, Game Boy, TurboGrafx-16, Sega Saturn, Sharp X68000, NEC PC-8801, MS-DOS, Game Boy Advance, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Pla圜hoice-10). Gradius, also known as Nemesis is one of the most influential shoot ’em up of all time.

Gradius 2 impossible