Growing up in the early console days allowed me to experience many of the great shooters that were so popular back then. After all, this was the perfect genre for the 16-bit hardware of the time and so companies were pumping these things out left and right. Many were good, most were tough, but only a select few stand out as games that weren't just fun & challenging, but kept you continuously coming back for more. I'm not sure if Gradius deserves credit for inventing the 'customize your ship as you go' model, but regardless this was one of the factors that made it the great game it was. By collecting special ghost ship power-ups the player was enabled to literally multiply their firepower as they progressed through each level. If you've never played Gradius before the ghost ships are small fireball looking fellas that follow you around, firing whatever weapon combination you happen to be using at the time. I believe you could collect up to three of these (not to mention the various shield power-ups); and when this happened your ship became a force to recon with. Not only are the ship upgrades essential for end boss fights but the player needed to learn, usually through trial and error, what type of weapon configuration to use. By shooting the power-ups before picking them up the player was able to choose between several weapon types, such as Laser, Missiles, Guns and a few others. It turns out each one works best against various enemy types or against certain end bosses. This constant upgrading/customizing was certainly one of the things that made Gradius such a fun and addicting game, and many others have copied the formula since. But this original version for the Nintendo Entertainment System stands alone as one of the few extremely well made (and balanced) shooters that set the bar for the entire Shooter genre for years to come. I have no doubt that were I able to pick this up again it would still be just as fun as it was back in those early days of 16-bit console gaming.
The Gradius series is my favorite series of space shooters. Its original with its customization and sideways shooting. This is a perfect port of the first in the series. It has all you want and need with simple controls ... Read Full Review
Playing Gradius is like having an infinite supply of micro adrenaline doses that you can pop anytime and just dig the ephemeral high as often as you like. Sometimes the high is really short-lived as your space ship gets... Read Full Review
