8.5

孩子遇事“没主见”都是你逼出来的!主见孩子父母

Gradius Origins Is an Excellent Introduction to a Legendary Shoot ‘Em Up Series
百度 特别是在火箭的死亡五小阵容当中,巴莫特的存在不仅仅是作为防守球员的存在,更是成为这个小阵容里的一把尖刀。

The old Gradius, she ain’t what she used to be. 35 years ago a new collection of Gradius games wouldn’t need much of an explanation for American video game fans. It was Gradius: we knew what that meant. Today, though, it’s a footnote—a big name among shmup fans, sure, but today that’s as niche an audience as you’ll ever see. In the late ‘80s, though, the original Gradius was one of the major third-party games on the NES. With its distinctive silver Konami box and quickly legendary secret code (this is where the whole “up up down down” thing started), it was as celebrated as other Konami hits like Castlevania, Contra, and Double Dribble. It wasn’t the first side-scrolling shoot ‘em up, but it was the best—at least for Nintendo’s 1980s system, which never got its own version of R-Type.

Gradius burned hot but short in the U.S. The original game had a successful NES sequel in the form of Life Force (the American version of the Gradius spin-off Salamander), a couple of Game Boy spin-offs at the start of the ‘90s, and one last American hurrah on the Super Nintendo with Gradius III. It remained an ongoing concern in Japan, but largely faded in America after Gradius III, mirroring how the whole shoot ‘em up genre fell out of fashion over here in the early ‘90s. And now you basically have to be old or a shmup obsessive to be all that familiar with it.

Maybe that’ll change with Gradius Origins, a new compilation that brings 18 distinct versions of seven different Gradius games together in the same package—including the brand new Salamander III, the first non-mobile video game entry in the series since 2008’s WiiWare exclusive (and, thus, now entirely unavailable) Gradius ReBirth. Gradius Origins is an obvious must-buy for any shmup fan and a handy tool for gaming history buffs, and with its multiple variants of the same game it should be fascinating to anybody interested in how games are changed for different global markets.?

Gradius Origins

What’s a Gradius, though? It’s a side-scrolling shmup known for its difficulty, its unique approach to power-ups, and its weird love for Easter Island statues (or perhaps hatred of them, as you’ll blow a ton of these bad guys up during any playthrough). Instead of select enemies or enemy swarms dropping power-ups that immediately grant you a specific weapon or ability, Gradius games let you decide what to unlock. There’s a bar at the bottom of the screen with a series of options; with every power-up icon you grab the currently highlighted option moves to the right. A press of a button acquires that skill for you, but also sets you back at the start of the meter, needing to find more power-ups to unlock more options. If you want to speed up your ship—almost always the first thing you should do—you’ll need one power-up. You’ll have to collect anywhere from two to seven more for additional skills, depending on the specific Gradius game you’re playing. Those abilities include missiles that run along the bottom (and, sometimes, top of the screen), a second bullet that shoots up at a 45 degree angle, multiple pods that mimic your main weapon, a force field, a laser, and more. Fortunately the game typically sends a lot of power-ups your way—just look for the orange-tinted enemies and take ‘em down—so it’s not that difficult to string several upgrades together and spit out a constant wave of destruction as you fly through space. Of course you lose all of that whenever you die, and given how difficult Gradius games are, even within a genre known for difficulty, it can be really hard to recover from even your first death.?

The Salamander games have a couple of big differences from the Gradius series. First off the weapons are done in a more traditional way. Instead of the menu of options that you can pick from at the bottom of the screen, each power-up icon in Salamander corresponds to a single specific ability. You can become every bit as destructive as you get in Gradius, but won’t have much say in when and how you acquire different abilities. It’s a more streamlined approach that removes what can be a major point of friction for a lot of players new to Gradius, but it also isn’t as memorable or unique. Salamander games also alternate between side-scrolling and vertical scrolling levels, something that’s still hardly ever been tried in shmups despite the genre dating back to the ‘70s.

You’ll find several versions of games from both the Gradius and Salamander series in Gradius Origins. It has the arcade versions of Gradius (1985), Salamander (1986), Life Force (1987; not the American NES version of Salamander, but an updated arcade version released exclusively in Japan with the Life Force name), Gradius II (1988), Gradius III (1989), and Salamander 2 (1996). Origins always frontlines the Japanese version of these games, also including the kind of updated or tweaked arcade revisions that aren’t unusual for the Japanese market; where applicable, the American or European arcade version will also be included. That’s how you get 17 different versions of these six games. The changes in the different versions of the same titles can be very noticeable, with a significant impact on how the game plays and feels, but you’ll have to be a true completionist to play every version enough to see those differences.?

One of the biggest problems with Origins is that it doesn’t include any versions outside of the arcade originals. Whether you grew up playing it on the NES, or prefer it on platforms as disparate as the PC Engine, MSX, and X68000, your home version of choice isn’t on here—and I imagine those kinds of ports are the versions best remembered by fans today. None of them are here. It’s possible they might become available as DLC—M2, the developer behind this comp (who also make the fantastic ShotTriggers shmup collections), has released console versions as DLC for some of its other shoot ‘em up reissues—but for now you might not find the Gradius variation that you’re specifically nostalgic for.

That doesn’t bug me personally—in large part because M2 is pretty fantastic at making old shmups playable today. Origins doesn’t carry the official ShotTriggers branding, but you can see some of those methods all throughout this package. The in-game side panels aren’t nearly as informative here as with the official ShotTriggers games, but they still provide a little bit more information and context than you would typically get while playing these games on their original systems. And the original Japanese versions of the older titles have a training mode that is some straight-up ShotTriggers goodness, letting you replay specific sections of levels a la carte so you can prepare for your next serious run through the game.

Gradius Origins

Most of these games will be new to most of today’s players, but there’s ultimately only one genuinely new game here. Salamander III was developed by M2 to feel like a never-released late ‘90s sequel to the second game in that spin-off series. It might play it a little safe—the first level feels like a Salamander 2 remix more than a new sequel—but that’s excusable. The first Gradius and Salamander title in over a decade should try really hard to feel like these games, even if it runs the risk of feeling overly familiar. Eventually M2 settles into a rhythm and successfully creates a new Salamander game with its own personality out of elements from the old—which is what pretty much every game to follow in the wake of the original Gradius did, too. Salamander III is a worthy new installment in the series, just like Gradius ReBirth was on the Wii.

It’s weird Gradius ReBirth isn’t on here, though. Sure, it’s not a part of the original run of games, and had an intentional “remember this” vibe to everything, but as the last major Gradius game, and one that’s not legally accessible anywhere today, it deserved a spot on the roster. Gradius IV and V are also missing, along with such post-Gradius III spin-offs as Gradius Gaiden, Gradius Advance, and Gradius NEO. Perhaps they’re being saved for a second volume of Gradius Origins, but it would’ve been nice for the Gradius Origins that we do have to be as comprehensive as possible.?

It also feels a little silly to say this overflowing cornucopia of Gradius needs more Gradius, though. I prioritized Salamander III, since it’s the one truly new game here, but did spend a lot of time with the six other titles in the package. I didn’t spend a lot of time with every version of those six games, though, so there’s still a lot of Gradius here for me to uncover. (And believe me, reader: I shall.)

It might not entirely live up to the full promise of a comprehensive Gradius compilation, but Gradius Origins still does a great job of compiling the games that are here—and Salamander III holds up its end of the bargain as a continuation of the series. If you’re a shmuphead or a Gradius fan, you probably already knew to pick this one up; if you’re at all interested in the genre, though, and want to get a feel for how it grew and changed during the ‘80s and ‘90s, Gradius Origins is a fantastic (if very challenging) introduction.


Gradius Origins was developed by M2 and Konami and published by Konami. Our review is based on the PlayStation 5 version. It is also available on Xbox Series X|S, Switch, and PC.

Editor-in-chief Garrett Martin writes about videogames, theme parks, pinball, travel, and more. You can also find him on Blue Sky.

 
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