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Vayu's Gradius 3 (SNES)
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| [February 21, 2008 12:26:41 AM]
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GAMEPLAY
I really like the way that Gradius 3 allows you to choose what power ups you get. It allows for a lot of differentiation in gameplay and makes it easy to get back to the powers that you want. And this isn’t overpowered at all, even when you have all of the upgrades possible this game is still difficult. Although somewhat annoying it is pretty easy to reach the top level of upgrades, meaning that when you die, and make no mistake you will die, it isn’t that hard to come back from it. Well that is if you can survive long enough.
I may have had too much time on my hands but I actually beat Gradius 3 during the duration of this assignment. And for beating it I felt good. But then it displayed “Why don’t you try it on hard”, which prompted me to turn off the system and go do something else. I had died enough times on normal already. But since I beat it there is somewhat of an implied storyline. You fight all the enemy ships and at the end see pictures of you barely escaping an explosion. You killed off the invading army, or something like that. I enjoyed playing this game as it was a breath of fresh air, it forced me to think really really fast. It’s amazing how few games do it as well as a good shmup these days.
DESIGN
Gradius 3 is a great shmup and somewhat innovative at that, but it is a shmup. And you can’t play shmups forever. Gradius 3 had good graphics for the SNES and decent music, but none of it was really that memorable. I find that after I beat Gradius 3 once I really don’t feel the need to play it again. I beat it once, I liked it, but I’m done thank you.
Easily the most memorable parts of this game were some of absurd levels that required ridiculous dodging skills. Most of those parts I remember and I remember the power ups.
The power ups are something that’s unique to the Gradius series, you have 6 different levels of power ups, each level is ostensibly a little better then the one before, even though they do different things. Each energy block thing that you pick up moves the level your at one up, cycling through all the options and letting you choose which power up you want to get. This lets you make choices while just beginning (Should I save up for a better laser or get more speed?).
The gameplay in Gradius 3 is entertaining, but emergence is something that I wouldn’t be quick to say. It definitely has a few emergent elements, like the upgrade system, but you do follow a preordained path set by the designers. The AI is good enough that moving around and dodging is required in order to survive more then 10 seconds, which keeps this game from getting dull. Frustrating yes, but dull no.
Anyone who likes shmups, this is a good game to try.
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| [February 20, 2008 09:10:12 PM]
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SUMMARY
Gradius 3 is a classic 2d space shooter, shmup is the generic name for these kinds of games. In this game you fly a small fighter against hordes of enemies and enormous bosses. Just like most other shmups if you get hit then you will instantly die, I think there are some shield power ups you can get as well. Also this game has a rather unique method of powering up your ship, you choose when to get a boost but the more energy you gather the stronger the boost will be, in general. Gradius is also difficult. Incredibly difficult. Being able to pass the first level takes about 10 minutes straight of failing. (Yeah I got slightly annoyed at that).
GAMEPLAY
One thing I noticed is how fast you get into the action. You click that start button and within 5 seconds you’re blowing things up. No real characters, storyline, or text of any kind detected. I suppose that this game really doesn’t need storyline, and what it lacks in that it makes up with sheer difficulty of play.
That first level, took so long to beat, that I had memorized the movement patterns of all the enemies by the time I got to the boss. My emotional state was really more into the determined against all odds phase. When you’re willing to try and do something that really you have such a small chance of beating, you could almost say desperation. But because of how difficult this game is after each part you beat you feel great, because you just conquered that part of the game. (That’s what I felt like after I beat that first boss. Yeah that’s right game, I took you DOWN).
Another cool thing I noticed was that anyone watching me play was somewhat amazed at some of the dodging that the game forced you to do. They would just sit there amazed at this game.
Well I’m off to play some more.
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Vayu's Gradius 3 (SNES)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 20 February, 2008
GameLog closed on: Wednesday 5 March, 2008 |
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