|
Captain Wii's Gradius (NES)
|
| [February 23, 2007 02:08:07 PM]
|
Last Minute Gradius Gamelog Zwei!
So, Gradius is still hard. I've gotten better at it, though. I've now experienced all of the powerups, and made it through level 1 without dying once. Still havn't beaten level 2. However, a lot of my playing this game feels like it's less "for fun" as it is "showing the game who's boss" (which, in this case, is the game. But it beats me and I come back for more, so what am I to say?)
So, the last two powerups, the "Option", and the "?". Option adds a second (or third, if you get it twice) point of fire from your ship in the form of an energy ball following it. These balls seem to follow your movement directly, so if you move forward or backward, the balls will fire in the exact same area as you, which is rather useless. I prefer the more modern convention of "stays on either side" or "circles around your ship". And then there's "?". I do not know why it is called "?", but it is a shield. With it active, your ship can actually take a hit. Several in fact, although I couldn't really count how many. Useful effect, if expensive.
I didn't get far enough into level 2 to see the boss, but the level design is a lot more interesting than level 1. You have to go through different tunnel like sections (instead of one large tunnel), and destroy blockades in your way.
Also, something I did not quite get the hang of fast enough was some kind of bonus level after beating stage one without dying once. It consisted of speeding up incredibly and dodging outlines of easter island heads. It was a challenge, and too much for me (so I failed and it sent me to stage 2).
All in all... the game is not incredibly fun. It is, however, incredibly challenging (but beatable). The level design for the second stage was interesting, but otherwise... eh. It isn't my style.
add a comment 
|
| [February 23, 2007 11:07:20 AM]
|
Last minute Gradius write-up part one!
So, for this week I've chosen to play Gradius. And I learned something incredibly important right off the bat: I am terrible at horizontal shooters. Vertical ones, too, but there's kind of a difference. Most of the time, I can't dodge for beans. I suppose I might just have the wrong kind of reflexes for it.
That being said, I beat the first level. Not the second, no, just the first. Not even five enemies -into- the second, in fact. I took five or six tries to beat the first stage, and then died to the power-up enemies in the start of the second.
But let's take a look at what I encountered, why don't we? First off, the power-up system.: I don't exactly have a manual (got the game from a friend), so I may just be mis-interpreting it, but it involves collecting powerups that drop from enemy groups, and for each powerup you collect, the slot on the powerup bar moves forward one. You can then press B to select that power-up and gain its effects. The only ones I actually managed to get were "speed up", which speeds the character up allowing for easier dodging... and crashing into things, "missile", which causes the ship to launch a missile towards the bottom of the screen, and if it hits "land", it will slide along it until it hits something, "double", which causes a second shot to come out of the ship towards the ceiling, and "laser", which changes the regular shot into a faster and possibly piercing laser (I did not get much of a chance to experiment). It should be noted that both double and laser will overwrite one another, so the player cannot have a double laser from their ship.
As for the enemies, they follow set patterns that the player can memorize and exploit, while firing slow moving bullets at the player's ship. I, of course, would lose track of these bullets while focusing on dodging and shooting enemies, and wind up dying. One part that I do not like is that at some points, enemies can come from behind you, which is something I don't see much in vertical shooters (which I play more often).
The first boss confused me a bit. It has a core that changes color when taking enough damage, while it moves up and down and fires four lasers. Now, it has a hole in the front between the laser cannon things, so I figured that I might need to shoot it there in order to kill it, but one of my "double" shots that came from below it was the thing that did the trick. I suppose the limits of the NES are why this wasn't more precise (and hard), or perhaps it wasn't a convention to have specific boss weak points until after Gradius. I believe I might discover the answer should I ever reach the second boss, but I do not see that happening, even in my second play session.
add a comment
|
|
|
 |
Captain Wii's Gradius (NES)
|
|
Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Thursday 22 February, 2007
|
|
