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Thursday 21 February, 2008
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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