Gradius III and IV

"You might as well just call this Gradius IV cause that's all you'll play"

As the title suggests, what you have here are arcade perfect ports of parts III and IV of Konami's long running horizontal space shoot'em up series, Gradius. These are old school 2D shmups, and honestly, they are really aimed at hardcore shooter fans. The difficulty of these games, along with their simple graphics and gameplay, are definitely not for the casual gamer. Because these are two different games on one CD, I will review them as two different games.

Gradius III (5/10)

Gradius III was released in the arcades way back in 1989, and even then, it wasn't that good. Later around 1992 or so, Konami released a much much superior SNES port that was better in every way, except it had globs of slowdown. Why Konami decided to include the arcade version in this compilation over the SNES port is beyond me.

Story:
You're the Vic Viper, a super powerful space ship, and you're trying to stop the evil Bacterion, who are trying to take over Earth.

Graphics:
Don't expect much here. The enemies and projectiles are simple bland looking 2D sprites, but on the bright side, you can have a ton of action going on the screen without any slowdown (if you set the wait limit to 0 in the options menu), and the bosses are massive. The level designs are simple, you've got a desert stage, a plant stage, a bubble stage, the infamous giant easter island head stage, a fire stage, and so forth. While the levels aren't anything to gawk at, at least they are diverse and have their own unique features.

Sound:
Even though the music in this game is old Midi stuff, there's something about it that's kinda cool. It has a cool outer space feel to it that can be pretty catchy. As for the sound effects, they aren't much better than what you'd hear in a Atari game.

Gameplay:
Ah, what should be the meat and potatos of any good shmup. First off, even on the easiest difficulty, this game is very hard. If you're not good at these games, then you'll find yourself dying again, and again, and again, and before you know it, it's game over and you still haven't made it past the first level. While this game features a level select mode as you progress, it can still be extremely frustating.

The Gradius series has always mixed twitch gameplay with a little bit of memorization. There can be so much going on the screen at once, that it's easy to die. And once you die, you're in deep deep trouble, and i'll tell you why.
Let me explain all of this. In Gradius, at the bottom of your screen, you have a bar divided into different categories. It looks something like this:

Speed up/missiles/double shot/laser/option/force field/

Anyway, as you defeat certain red colored enemies, they will drop a power up item, and if you get it, you move over one space in the menu. Basically, to upgrade your ship, you have to buy things from the menu. When you do buy something, you start from scratch. So, if you want to get a laser, you have to get 4 power ups, and then you can get it. If you want to get missiles and a laser, then you're gonna need 6 power ups total. It's simple.

One of the major complaints about the Gradius series is that when you die, you lose everything and start back from a checkpoint. Your initial ship is so slow and so pathetically weak, that a lot of times it's almost impossible to stay alive long enough to get your ship to be powerful enough to be effective again. So, essentially, if you die, depending on how skillful you are, you could find it impossible to advance to the next level without using the full power up cheat. This is especially true near the end of the game, when you fight the fortress wall boss.

A little tip of advice, make sure you always have a force field. It can absorb about 5 shots or so, so it's very very helpful.

As I mentioned earlier, this game has all kinds of problems that were fixed in the SNES port. The SNES port made the fire level more playable, as you can now destroy the fireballs that come at you. The spider walkers at the end of the game can be destroyed, the moai boss actually makes sense, and the fortress wall boss doesn't have the walls try to crash into you, and the enemy dispenser hangars can be destroyed. Really, you have to play the two versions to see what i mean, but the SNES port is just simply so much more playable and much more fun.

Konami should've ported the SNES version and cleaned up the slowdown, as it's really a great great game. Unfortunately, they didn't, so we are left with the clunky arcade version. It's not a terrible game, but the SNES version is a million times better.

Gradius IV (Score: 8/10)

Sometime in the mid-90's, Konami released the follow up to part III in Gradius IV. Actually, I think Gradius Gaiden may have been released between the two, but I'm not sure. Never played the game since it was only released in Japan, but I've heard that it's the best Gradius ever.

Anyhoo, Gradius IV is very similar to Gradius III, except it's actually fun to play.

Story:
Same thing as part III

Graphics:
While the game is 2D, the backgrounds and models are made up of 3D polygons, and the game has an incredible fluid look to it. There isn't any slowdown at all, even with 100 bullets on the screen at the same time. The regular enemies are tiny, but the bosses are massive. Also, many of the levels in Gradius III have been redesigned in part IV (hey, it's Konami, what do you expect?). Once again, you have your bubble stage, your easter island head stage, your volcano/fire stage, your crazy mini-boss parade stage, your fortress stage, your organic stage, your plant stage, your high speed zone stage, and so on. However, these levels are much better designed.

Sound:

Music has a weird funky neo-rock elevator jazz vibe to it, but it's actually pretty good. As for the sound effects, well, they stink.

Gameplay:

This game is much easier than Gradius III, and it's much more playable. Whereas III had a clunky feel to it and loads of bad game mechanics, IV is an incredibly solid game. When you die, it's not so hard to get your ship powered up again, and there aren't any cheesy bosses or stupid gameplay mechanics, like the ones that plagued part III. You'll find yourself playing IV a lot more than Gradius III, as it's better in every single aspect. While the game is short, it's sweet, and it's a solid shoot'em up that every hardcore shmup fan should own.

The verdict:

Had Konami ported the SNES version of Gradius III (and cleaned up the slowdown that plagued that version), I would have given this game as a whole a much higher rating. However, since this game is really only worth buying for Gradius IV, and that game is short (you can beat it in about 15 minutes), I gave this package a much lower score than I would've liked. Gradius IV is a great game, but short, and Gradius III just stinks. I'd suggest to those of you who aren't hardcore Gradius fans to rent this game (good luck finding it though), while those of you who are looking for a great 2D shmup should get this just for Gradius IV, as you can probably find this for less than $10 in the used bin at your local gaming store.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/19/03