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ChronicGamer's Gradius (NES)
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| [February 22, 2007 09:55:24 PM]
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I think like many other game players who are not adept at the transcending skills of side scrolling shooters this game begins as a frustrating experience and only ends slightly less frustrating. On my second play through I managed to get to the third level which is WAY to hard. The majority of the level requires insane dodging. Even after cracking and using the Konami code it was to now avail.
Consequently, using the Konami code probably makes this game a more enjoyable experience as the frustration factor goes down plus you'll probably get farther in the game so you'll get to see more of what the game has to offer. Unfortunately, the game doesn't really offer many variations on game play or any other area for that matter. The music remains the same, the levels are all very similar and not very inspired, and most disappointingly the game play offers nothing new except harder challenges. Just Hold A and dodge folks.
Overall, I don't think my time with Gradius was that well lived. In general, I'm not a big fan of the SHMUP genre. The game play focus is inherently linear and narrow, which is what keeps the genre from achieving the praise and acclamation of genres that have greater versatility and creative capacity. However, games such as Ikaruga show promise with inventive game play mechanics (balance of light and dark) and artistic mysticism, it will be interesting to see if the genre can evolve and revive itself in the future.
William Tuttle
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Feb 22nd, 2007 at 21:58:17.
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| [February 21, 2007 10:26:57 PM]
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I have mixed feelings after playing Gradius. It is a game that does several things well, but also has some setbacks. For the good, Gradius is an impressive game for a title released in 1986. It has many SHMUP elements that I'm sure were very innovative for its day. The game play consists of a one man ship fighting endless waves of enemies. The action is intense from start to finish as enemies are quick and smart as well. The AI of the enemies will lock on to you and shoot and advance from all sides so staying in one spot is not always a good idea. The game features a simple yet entertaining power up system that involves collecting glowing red balls. For each ball you grab you can choose a different level of power up like speed boost, missile, laser, and a very useful shield. This is one of the funner parts of the game play. Another impressive aspect of the game is its visuals, Gradius has a colorful space theme that is driven by lots of speeding enemies and bright explosions.
Those were the good elements, now its time to mention the bad. For starters this game suffers from the limitations of all SHMUPS: A narrow scope of game play. The game offers essentially the same experience the whole way through. Press A and dodge is about as deep as it gets. Another issue is that this game has a steep difficulty curve. It took me several tries to beat the first level and I couldn't get very far in the second one. While this is one of the important staples of SHMUPS, it also causes non-hardcore players to become frustrated and discouraged very easily. Also, I haven't beaten the game yet, but I believe there are only about 4 or 5 levels in the whole game which maybe the reason for the heightened difficulty. Lastly, the music while enjoyable at first becomes stale quickly and doesn't have the lasting quality of tunes from games like Kirby's Adventure and Zelda.
These are my impressions from my FIRST game play experience. Maybe some of my opinions will change on the next play through...
later
William Tuttle
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ChronicGamer's Gradius (NES)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 21 February, 2007
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