Nemesis

"Gradius fun for Gameboy!"

Recently while looking at the used games at the store in the mall, I can across a game that looked pretty cool: Nemesis. Being an experienced Gradius player, I thought this might be pretty cool. It is!

Graphics: 7/10

There is a lot of detail put into some of the scenery, and some of the bosses. However, for a game that was released in 1990, it's a little hard to see some of the detail on the old monochrome Gameboy. This is more of the hardware's fault, however. Also, the framerate tends to be a little choppy sometimes.


Sound: 9/10

The sound effects are quite fitting to the game. The exploision sounds are cool, sounds when you fire at someone are cool, and just about all of the rest of the sounds are cool. They aren't spectacular, for it is on the Gameboy, but they're about as good as they get for this system. The music in this game is great, and believe it or not, it's better than the music used in Gradius for the NES!

Gameplay: 9/10

This game plays a lot like Gradius for the NES, only it seems to be funner (at least for me.) You get the same powerups: Speedup, Misslie, Double, Laser, Option, and Shield. The speedup is a great idea, for the ship starts out slow, but you can increase the speed up to 3 times, depending on which speed you're comfortable with. There are a lot of options in this game as well, such as how many lives you start out with, a stage select, difficulty level, wether or not to enable rapid-fire, and button configurations (at least that's what came on my cartridge. You might have to unlock it first. I'm not sure, mine's used.) These are all great options, and they make the game much easier for beginners. There are a few downs in this game. First of all, there are only 5 stages, and they can be beaten rather quickly if you choose to have the maximum amount of lives. Second, sometimes the screen can seem to cluttered, and at other times the small sprites and scenery seemed to be scrunched onto the game's small screen, affecting the gameplay. Other than that, this is a great game.

There are 2 modes of difficulty for this game. The first mode won't take that long to get through, but the second mode adds a decent amount of difficulty to the first.

The replay value is okay. Gradius has always been a fun game.

Overall: 9/10

If you have R-Type DX and what more, get this great game! (or at least the sequel)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/09/00, Updated 08/09/00