I always thought Kyo Kusanagi was this brat who constantly got in fights and skipped school, while being able could produce fire from his fingers. Turns out he's an charismatic and almighty Gradius & Salamander historian.
There's just 1 more Gradius game that I would like to see you and Kyo cover, and that's Gradius Galaxies on GBA. This video so far is my favorite. I may have watched this over 4 times easy.
The only Gradius Game I've ever made it through till loop 3 was Nemesis The Final Challenge for the Commodore 64 Computer. It must be more or less 37 years ago. My absolute favourite of the series is Gradius Gaiden. 😊
I hope they talk about it but personally I don't think it deserves to be anywhere near the top, because stage 1 is super boring and way too long. Really sucks all the enjoyment out of replaying the game.
Gradius 5 is easily the masterpiece. That’s how you go out with a bang. It would do so well now in portable, maybe sell better than when it released. Gradius 2 was a creative sequel that established most of the form for later iterations, and Gradius 4 is when it started to recycle itself and get eclipsed by fresher shooters (that vertical mine though…). Gradius Gaiden had the most balanced and enjoyable challenge of the classic bunch. 5 is still far and away the top and does everything right relative to what it is. And I guess Salamander was Gradius.
Kyo is so underrated I saw him on shmup slam with omega fighter and loved his personality. Mark I love your channel, it's like a new York strip. Also, whether or not this matters, I'm representing the females in this community. We out here too!! Thank you for uploading so often, it's a real treat
Oh that is really cool to hear there are female fans out there!! Glad you are enjoying the channel, I have been trying to keep up with a pretty heavy duty release schedule this month :-)
@@TheElectricUnderground we out here! I want to study Satazius Next as I feel it's underrated, and apply for a shmup slam. I don't see any other women throwing down so why not me! Interestingly enough when I have my homegirls over and i introduce them to a shmup it holds their attention better because the controls and objectives are simple and surprisingly they are naturally good at it!
You and my gf are the only females I know that watch this channel lol. Though she watches mostly because she thinks Mark is funny, she’s not too big into shmups, we watch Makr together and gets mad if I watch him alone lol
I am really enjoying this. Feels like I’m ”in the room” with you guys just appreciating the deep diving detailed discussion. You guys are great. Thanks!
Great podcast, I'll make sure to check out this franchise and big props to you for editing Kusagani's expressions, doing that manually for an hour is so much work but it made it funny, I like how he expresses himself so I'll check his channel too.
I didn't know Quentin Tarantino had a kid. This dude had the same cadence as him. It's like listening to a younger Quentins take Gradius instead of movies. I never cared for this series but I'm willing to learn them as a adult now. I do want to try Salamander 2, Gradius 2 and Gradius 5. Sexy Parodies. The Gradius, Nemesis, Life force and Salamander names always caused confusion. Cool history lesson.
Can someone please tell me what BGM is playing during the 25:26 minute mark? It sounds CD quality, so I was assuming Salamander 2 or Gradius 4 or 5. I own 5 but I don't recall this melody.
I personally think Gradius Interstellar assault on gameboy has some of the best if not the best checkpoints in any shmup with a checkpoint system. Love these games
Great discussion! Been replaying some Gradius games, and in particular Nemesis 90 Kai (Sharp X68000) as I only recently discovered it. Would have totally loved seeing that game on a 16-bit console back in the day.
19:34 I heard that bubble memory had issues also with magnetic fields. If that is true it would be very funny because CRTs inside arcade cabinets generate magnetic fields.
Great video! I would have liked more mention of the MSX versions of Gradius though. Even though they probably wouldn't reach an A or S tier, they brought some innovations to the series. After opening the latches on the Big Core, you actually fly inside it in one of the MSX games. And it's been a long time since playing, but I could swear you had to pick up components hidden in levels to construct a weapon or something. Gradius 5 is my favorite, with only one flaw, the missing Moai heads. How did Treasure miss them????!
@@TheElectricUnderground They are not ports, except for the first one. Nemesis 2, Salamander and Nemesis 3 are unique to the system. Too bad an "expert" like you don't know that. I know because I played a hell of a lot back when I was a teenager, specially Nemesis 2 (NOT Gradius 2, mind you).
Oh that is so sad! RIP an amazing amazing artist. I do have an interesting track record of sensing death, so it is crazy how the thumbnail and the artist's death line up.
Agree about Gradius 1 and 2. I hadn't played G1 in a long time and when I returned to it when I got the Saturn pack I was amazed how well balanced it was. I hadn't seen Gradius 2 before getting that pack and the upgrade blew me away. Big fan of Parodius too. I first played G1 in the arcade but I put a PILE of time into the NES port which was excellent in recreating the feel of the original despite the tech issues of the NES.
Darius gang here to defend the series from this slander!! Just kidding, great video! I'm really starting to dig into the series now that I've played V.
Great video, hoping someday you both take a look into the MSX games which are often overlooked. Speaking of MSX, I have to point out that “Parodius da!” isn’t actually the first entry in the series, that would be Parodius on MSX which came out a year prior to Gradius III, so the theory that Parodius was Konami’s answer to Gradius III and the exhaustion of ideas is not sound
@@TheElectricUnderground Konami had teams developing games in 3 departments at that time, arcade, Famicom and MSX. All those departments are separate from each other, working on their stuff independently. Arcade to home conversion were common of course, but those systems had tons of exclusive games that didn’t originate in arcades, the original Parodius being one
@@TheElectricUnderground That's because the MSX was the main platform for Konami at the time. They did something nearly 70 games for the MSX from 1984 to 1989. The MSX versions are not ports of the arcades, they are their own games.
My favs: Salamander MSX, Nemesis 3 Gopher revenge MSX, Nemesis 2 MSX, Salamander 2 Saturn, Gradius V ps2, Space Manbow MSX2. There is more story on MSX about James Burton and Bacterion.
I just streamed Nemesis 2 MSX yesterday. That game gets tier A from me. Konami somehow managed scrolling AND animated ground tiles. I'm convinced 80s konami are actual wizards.
My first Gradius was Nemesis on the GameBoy, and I have very fond memories of it. Need to re-visit it now as an adult to figure out if it's actually good or just nostalgia.
I still play pretty regularly as an adult on OG hardware. It's still a solid game, though very easy compared to its home console peers. The easy difficulty is probably one the reasons I was able to get into the game as a kid. It was a nice introduction the genre and series.
Also worth mentioning: the Gradius 2 "AC Death" and Salamander "AC Delta" NES rom hacks are among the very best shmup hacks in existence, certainly on the NES. It's rather amazing what the hacker was able to squeeze out of the 8-bit console.
Same guy also did a gradius 1 AC patch that drastically improved sprite shading on gradius 1. Unfortunately, that crashed on the last stage when I streamed it.
Absolutely fantastic overview of the series. Learned a lot here. There's probably too many games in the series to cover all in one go but would be nice to cover the MSX (true original) Parodius, Nemesis 95Kai, Gradius Galaxies & Solar Assault.
The Gradius III+IV pack on PS2 has 3 "Wait" settings which I guess adjusts the level of slowdown. Would be interested to hear if that fixes the G3 issues.
@@TheElectricUnderground Here's a run on PS2 of G3 with slowdown switched off (wait=0) . Doesn't make it any easier - that's for sure!!!! :) th-cam.com/video/dC7A3iIdAwg/w-d-xo.html
I have played a few runs of Gradius and Life Force on the NES when I was a kid, and I've been really interested in taking up a horizontal shmup lately. Thanks to Kyo's S-tier rating of the Japanese Life Force, I have decided to get Arcade Archives Life Force for my Nintendo Switch. It includes the original Salamander, US Life Force, and most importantly the Japanese Life Force. Oh, and apparently, July 4th 1986 was when the original Salamander came out in Japan!
Gradius IV hands down. Most everyone will say Gradius V, but I find IV just perfect in every way. It's essentially a remake of II with parts of III thrown in.
I think Gradius is my fave series of all time, in any genre. Ive always found it fascinating since seeing the Gradius 1 and Salamander arcade machines as a kid. And all the games have classic music, which is a big factor for me, I probably spend almost as much time just listening to playlists of Gradius music as playing the games. But the biggest factor probably is the sheer number of good Gradius-related games, looking at all the unique ports & sequels such as on Game Boy, MSX, GBA, Wii, X68000, and then Parodius series etc, it runs into 20+ excellent games, R-Type just cant beat that how ever good it is, or many other series for that matter. I have a few favorites but I honestly dont think I can pick a top 3, I like many of them for different reasons, and there's so many I can play a totally different one every time which keeps them all fresh
I really like the Gradius 3 and Metal Slug 3 analogy - I never thought about it before! had no idea that Life force was that good, I need to give it a shot!
Ive always thought Gradius was pretty unique compared to other old school horis. The levels feel very chaotic and alive, theres always a ton of stuff going on and lots of interactive/chaotic elements, and the power up/options systems are really dynamic as Mark mentions. It has that multitasking element and overlapping attacks of bullet hells without going nuts with the bullet counts. I almost wish the power up system would be required for the entire game instead of just the early levels/recoveries. Resetting your shield works like that and its really fun. Gradius IV got a little bit of a bad rap but IMO its the perfect example of this design. All the levels have a ton of interactivity (even physics) and the game even went as far as to give your ship's bombs some actual throw physics too. I think if it had some decent modern ports or ran well on MAME people would like it a lot more.
Yes I am gonna have to give gradius 4 a closer look. Metal slug 4 also gets a bad rap but it s a pretty solid fun time, despite recycling tons of elements from previous games ha
I'm loving this episode, Mark. I've listened to more eps of your podcast than TH-cam videos so far and from the podcast I got the sense that you only really cared about the competitive scene and bullet hells. I'm really glad to see you giving other shmups some time in the sun. If I have any recommendation, it'd be to try to be more inclusive (not just in general content but also attitude/offhand comments during eps) of shmups other than Dodonpachi and Ketsui on the podcast. I think the podcast may turn off people new to the genre or not as interested in score chasing, but maybe I misunderstood and the podcast is more intended to be about that side of shmups. I'm looking forward to watching more of your vids. Thanks for all the hard work!
I’m slightly disappointed that you guys didn’t talk about Gradius Galaxies/Advance. I think that’s the one people forget to include, but I really enjoyed the discussion between you two. I think my favorite is Gradius 2. It’s heck of an upgrade from the first game. I mean the first level is one hell of an introduction and that music… mmm
@@TheElectricUnderground I would give a kidney for a dedicated Haldheld shmup video. Not the Switch, but dedicated handheld consoles only episode. My first ever 1CC was actually Nemesis (Gradius) on the OG Gameboy. Once I mastered that game, I hopped over to the NES gradius and started working on that. There are some real gems on retro handhelds. Iridion II on GBA is a blast, Gradius II: Interstellar Assault on Gameboy. Shit even Solar Striker, as basic as it was, offered a solid vertical STG experience, designed by the Gameboy designer himself, Gunpei Yokoi.
I chose B tier for Gokujou parodius under the aspect that it does recycle some ideas from Da, and it's significantly shorter than Da is. It's still an absolute blast, anything C tier and above is good, but Da managed to be original and super creative for one hour straight, which is an impressive feat for an arcade game.
Nemesis/Gradius and Gradius II for the gameboy are both amazing ports in their own right definitely some amazing pixel art and great gameplay. The osts are both pretty nice to had some catchy ones.
Great episode! Really enjoying the podcast format! Also made me want to boot up Gradius 2 and life force from the Konami Arcade collection on switch by ACA.
Great video.Learned loads there Kyo is a real character and a great historian- he's like the Bofner of Gradius! Gonna check out his shmup slam run and his channel.
Great podcast with Kyo! Gradius is my introduction to SHMUPs and the reason why I love the genre. Got introduced to the series through the 3 SNES port. I was hoping you guys would mention the port but it totally got sandbagged lol. Would have loved to know your guy's thoughts on the better version along with the no slow-down hack.
@The Electric Underground I’m confused on the no-slowdown hack. Is it the sa-1 hack or a setting in an emulator? FYI the x in Grand Prix is silent. Think Super Monaco Grand Prix. It’s French.
Do u have a steamdeck? I got one recently and discovering shmup genre again, basically I went on your channel and bought 7 games during summer sales (and pinballs too with demon tilt) the joysticks are great, very precise.
Gradius 5 easily. It was great looking, fun and the most accessible. The levels and music were fantastic too. It's an absolute crime it didn't get a remaster. Treasure really did wonders for it. Gaiden is my second favorite. Gradius 3 for SNES introduced me to the series and it's still a personal favorite of mine. Despite having issues with slowdown, it's a much better designed game than the brutal Arcade version and the music is just fantastic. I still have a soft spot for it. Also if we're also talking about Parodius, Goukujo and Sexy were my favorite games in that series.
The original Gradius port on NES is foundational for me. I'd played plenty of shooters in arcades and on the Atari 2600, but Gradius was the first shooter I played that had more of a focus on clearing the game and getting an actual ending as opposed to playing for score. Coupling that with the ability to power up your ship in the order that suits you just completely changed how I think about shooters. That said, the PC Engine CD port of Gradius II is my favorite in the series. Starting with letting you choose your weapon loadout, adding the new stage, the redbook audio letting me enjoy the killer soundtrack outside of the game before you could just download the music, the level design... even the soul crushing first time I made it to those last few stages without losing my power-ups only to hit a wall in the speed stage or die in the boss gauntlet... it was hard in a way the original wasn't, and beating it felt like an achievement. It's the game I just keep going back to to see if I can still do it.
4s the best one by far but you have to be an actual player to notice why so that's 99% of the community out. It has the best dynamic rank system making every single recovery possible, the best moai by far of all time, the best high speed of all time and the ost is amazing regardless of what this cringe goober with the stupid adderal abuse voice says. BTW mark "prix" is pronounced ""pree" not "pricks" which describes the players not the game.
Yes Gradius 4 seems like an interesting sleeper pick to dig into more, just like Metal Slug 4, which I think is a pretty cool game despite the recycled assets. Also yes, my pronunciation of PRIX is a bad habit. When I am saying the word I know to say pree, but whenever I read it I end up saying Pricks ha.
@@TheElectricUnderground it's definitely better respectively than ms4 is within the context of its own series and even is pretty nice looking if played on the correct setup. For me g4, salamander 2 and gaiden were the peaks of the series although unironically think satazius is as good as if not better in many aspects.
I went back to play the original Gradius on the Switch (it's one of the emulated NES games you get when you sign up for Switch online). I am not sure how I was beating this game when I was a kid on the actual NES because it's not easy. However the whole balanced check point concept which Kyo was talking about is kinda moot in emulation because of the use of save states. I have to say it was a huge deal though back then, which was why the konami code was such a useful mechanism to keep players from getting too frustrated and outright give up. My favorite in the series are Lifeforce (I only played US NES version) and Gradius V. I am not a hardcore player, don't care about the scores, and usually just give up on the second loop. However I do care about the music and graphics in addition to gameplay. The music for Lifeforce is one of the best in the series IMO, where as Gradius V has both great music and is the best looking 3d-modeled (as opposed animated) shooter.
My 3 personal favorites of the series, though I like all but Gradius V in the series. I just cannot as a Gradius fan like V at all. IMO it did not feel like a Gradius game to me at all. 1) Gradius Gaiden 2) Gradius IV 3) Gradius III arcade, especially on PS2 where slowdown can be turned off. The Kyo guy mentioned Gradius 1 left you with powerups after death, not in the Japanese version it doesn't, which most ports seemed based off of. Gradius 1 left you just as bare of a ship as every other game in the series, unless you play the western version, Nemesis, which gave you more powerup chances after dying. When you restart a level after death, the game will send a number of ships that when destroyed, yields powerup capsules. Also if Salamander 2 on PS1 or Saturn takes you 20 seconds between levels with load times, you have a gimped disc, it should be just about seamlessly instantaneous from beating a stage boss, into the next stage.
Yes gradius 5 is the battle of the og Konami fans vs the treasure fans ha. Overall I tend to like treasure games more so for me grad 5 is a very big highlight of the series. No doubt it has a treasure feel to it, which is why I like it so much ha. Gaiden is amazing though. PS1 is a beast for these old shmup series
If you wanna play a shmup with multiple different perspectives, try out Philosoma on the PS1. Also grad 2 personal fave but I think grad 3 is the overall best
I used to play Gradius Galaxies/Advance a fair bit via the Gameboy player on my Gamecube, on the rolling start screen intro there is an official series timeline that includes 1981's Scramble as the start point of the series. I don't think I ever played Galaxies as a handheld game, with the amount of stuff in the backgrounds I can imagine it's not easy figuring what's background and whats' a hazard on a small LCD screen when you're under pressure.
@@TheElectricUnderground Lol I thought I was crazy 🤣 it's easy to overlook on the old purple handheld beast. well imo it's a great game If you give it a shot, maybe not the most exciting entry but still quite fun!
Great video! I'm right there with you in the slowdown issues of GIII. Overclock the CPU on MAME to get rid of it and give it a try! From D tier to A+! Not an S though, it still has the infamous cube rush ^^
You can get auto-fire on the NES version in stage 1 if you fully cycle the power-ups at 10,000 points. Get your two speed-ups first and save the rest for the cycle.
As someone who played SNES Gradius 3 an ungodly amount of hours in the 90s I was kind of hoping there would be some discussion about it and how drastically altered it was from the original arcade version. The port is far more forgiving in terms of difficulty so that and it's notorious slowdown in some areas may turn off a lot of fans of the series. I've been playing it a lot more recently due to a special rom that fixes the slowdown, plus it's the only Gradius game (that I know of) that has a hidden feature where your weapon loadout is randomly selected which I always thought was fun as hell.
Pretty informative. I'll definitely play Japanese Life Force next. I have been playing Gradius lately, coincidentally. Right now the PC-Engine version of 1. It's actually kinda funny. I was feeling absolutely horrible the other day, because life is 99% pain and the rest of it is video games, but then I got to that part with the giant skulls that shoot fireballs and my mood immediately improved. Cheered up by a space graveyard. I think that's pretty funny. Very satisfying game because of all the options. Really makes you feel very powerful. If you die, though, it's a big loss, though at least the hitbox isn't gigantic like it could have been, so it's fine. I have been resetting every time I die because it's what I do in shmups with checkpoints because from experience I just expect to be destroyed repeatedly, though hearing about the design of the checkpoints makes me reconsider that and I guess I'll try not to just to see what it's like.
I've been playing the games again on and off for the past 2 years. I'd have to go with V on the top. It has less RNG that works against the player and has the most polish.
I was playing some old Wonderboy game and then I realized gradius is really a misspelling of gladius, the gladiator sword an item in that game. I checked and gladius in katakana is グラディウス, guradiusu which is what Gradius is called in Japanese
Everytime I play Gradius V I think about the problem the whole time travel idea brings up. In my mind Vic Viper T301 would forever be in a loop going back in time to help himself. If not in a loop then there would be 2 Vic vipers maybe? Anyone else pondered on this?
Idk if you play any racing games, but i just got inti the wipeout omega collection on ps4 and these games are insane. I feel like if you were into any, wipeout would be up your alley but idk i may be wrong lol
@@TheElectricUnderground it's 2 loops. first loop is under 20. Second loop has different music with some remixes of old classics from previous gradius games.
Very Good Fun to watch a few days ago I loaded Gradius and as I went through all the cores to see what would load the game (Retoarch Mame-2010) as it loaded it says Warming Up and counting down from 100-0 Am like whats going on here !! as I watch your video and listened to your friends comment Bubble memory, the light came on lol ... any chance of doing a Raiden history ? Rtype - Gradius - Raiden so far are my Fav's.. not saying I won't look for more...Thanks Again..Pud (The thing I like about the Gradius Demo is ..it's played right to the end level boss .. not hitting something daft to end the demo ie R Type)
Interesting to see gradius 3 disapproval. Me being a bit less hardcore about shmups I see people praising it as one of the best shmups. But to be fair people who say that I’ve noticed only say that because they only know the real poplar ones like ikaruga and touhou and stuff like that. Gradius 3 happens to be on the snes and while messing around with rpgs on the snes find gradius 3 and are immediately blown away because they don’t know better (not to put those people under the bus) I personally like gradius 3, but it’s sort of like metal slug 3 where it’s really cool visually and all that stuff but not fun to play. Probably another reason why I see non shmup people love gradius 3
yes the comparisons between gradius 3 and metal slug 3 are so close it's scary. Both are massive with really high peaks and nasty lows, both are ambitious but messy, and both are generally praised as best in the series by casual reviewers ha.
Gradius 3 SNES is almost a totally different game quality wise. They actually FINISHED that version of gradius 3 and got rid of the godawful ice cube stage. Replacing it with a stage from gradius 2 instead. Getting rid of the ice cubes ALONE automatically pulls it out of D tier. Gradius 3 SNES is a B. There's also no stupid softlocks if the game lags on the last stage.
I like games with checkpoints and no power ups. You don't pay to win by respawning, and you don't get stuck by lack of power ups. Balance matters. I prefer games with weapon selection.
Sorry - good luck finding a Gradius I or II for a couple hundred bucks. Try like $800 for a Nemesis and $1K+ for II even with the current (very favorable) exchange rate. This isn't 2006 anymore. A non-bubble Gradius I is like $3K and the Bubble version isn't far behind. Also, does the guest always talk like this or is this his online persona? Only way to play Gradius III is really the PS2 port. You can edit the slowdown in in-game menu and even turn it off entirely. It looks and plays almost exactly like the PCB.
It's hard for me to rank them, but I would have to put Gradius II at the top, specifically the PC Engine version. That's the Gradius game I've returned to the most over the years. But I also love the OG Gradius, Life Force, Gaiden and V. I haven't played Galaxies but it looks like another quality entry in the series. The unpatched Gradius III on the SNES is my least favorite to play despite the excellent music and sound. I've never played IV, but the graphics are less appealing to me and it looks much more derivative of the earlier games compared with V. The formula was getting tired by IV and needed a serious shakeup, which it thankfully received.
37:34 lmao laser beam of death. Yes, that part is infuriating, making an already hard game even more miserable, not to mention that meatball section later on with pretty jank hitbox. While I agree Gradius III is a pretty flawed game fundamentally, I just can't hate the game because it has top notch presentation, great music, and unique levels. I also find it "fun" somehow maybe because I jumped into the game already knowning about it's infamous reputation. Beating it would be great accomplishment for any gamers. So, I agree with you, I would rank Gradius III a B. Oh yeah, here's an obligatory "screw that cube stage".
I don't think anyone really wants an explanation and this is kinda off-topic, but here I go anyway. He said Kiyo and not Kyo, which is not quite correct either, though it is an actual name. It's like the yo in yo-yo but with a short o. So, it's a very short sound, and adding the i can elongate it. Ryu is actually Ryuu, so it's a long u. It's like the word you after a short and weak r. In Japanese, when a sound is long, it's written to be long. Japanese is pretty consistent, so each syllable is pretty much always pronounced the same way that it's written. Not many exceptions. Also, you really should check out the PC-98. It was a very popular system in Japan and it has a bunch of shmups. Probably the pinnacle of PC gaming in Japan, it has never been bigger than it was then. There's a giant game collection on Internet Archive. I want to explore that system more as well, but I need another emulator for it because anex86 is only on Windows and Wine is not ideal and it isn't always available either.
@@TheElectricUnderground You can also torture yourself a bit with that by playing PC-98, I guess, because a lot of the menus will be in Japanese. Not a big deal for shmups, though. I have to work on my Japanese a lot more so I can play Rance and other PC-98 games with text that matters. I should play Rusty, though, that should be my next game. It's a Castlevania-like game but with a female character and Japanese monsters (like the Gashadokuro, that one caught my attention, it's a giant skeleton that eats people's heads, that is in some old Japanese paintings that I think are funny). Looks cool. It was made by a company that made a Pingu game for the PS1. Noot noot.
I disagree a bit about Gradius 5's visuals having aged well. It does that early 2000s "Let's make everything grey and brown because that's realistic" cliché sooo much. In a series so full of colourful, psychedelic anti-realism it just comes off as dreary and depressing.
@@TheElectricUnderground No probs!! Anyhow - great video. Loads of info. I have the Gradius and Salamander collections for Saturn but I was unaware of the history of the Salamander/Life Force series. Your guest is super enthusiastic too!!! Makes me want to go back to them as I haven't played them nearly enough.
This series feels a bit basic to me. It feels like a relic next to Compile or Irem shooters. I don’t think a smaller hit box is necessarily an evolution of the genre. It just means you can squeeze more bullets in. My point is that a shooter needs a hook to stand out and keep your interest. The hook on this game is an overly complicated power up system where you need to constantly be conscious of the power up bar to get the power ups you want. Collect two yellow blobs in a row and you might miss the power up you might want. You can set it to auto but that kind of makes the system kind of redundant. I find the art style fine but not outstanding. I’ve only played SNES Parodius and found it a bit bland in terms of its gameplay and honestly the only real fun comes from the challenge which is a kind of masochistic enjoyment. In terms of ideas it’s quite thin really. A space ship in space and weird blob monsters is not really exciting. Also Moia heads. I think this series and Darius just play very stiffly. Tiny bullets pew pewing requiring precise positioning and timing to kill the enemies feels quite old fashioned to me. I feel the Thunderforce series is much more fun with auto fire by default and a stream of firepower with selectable weapons to choose as you decide. It’s a more fun series to me than a modern bullet dodger because your shooting things as opposed to plotting a path through a sea of bullets bit in terms of gameplay it doesn’t get more basic than Gradius.
Oh some really interesting points here. Don t forget how influential the option mechanic of gradius is! That mechanic alone has been hugely influential on the genre!! I like the thunder force series as well, but I would argue that without gradius thunder force and most other hori shmups would not be what they are. Gradius did pioneer so many ideas
@The Electric Underground no doubt. But maybe Konami was too scared to innovate. Getting Treasure in was a smart move to inject some new ideas but also an admittance that they didn’t know what to do next. It can’t be easy to keep updating such an iconic game. But my point is, the game is short on ideas all round. It just comes across as unimaginative. As much as Aircraft Carrier is an iconic tune (one of my favourites) and the jumping fire dragon is awesome. That was covered in the first two games. Then the series just repeats itself.
Please stop using the word "shmup". It is such an unaesthetic, uncool sound. Much better is the Japanese term "STG", simply "shoot em up" or for my sake "shooter". But with "Shmup" I always have to fight not to close the tab in the browser. Thanks for the otherwise cool channel.
I’m sorry I really cannot listen to this guy. Such scripted, forced, goofy enthusiasm. Keeps interrupting you to say the most mundane shit as if it’s a revelation. He seems like a nice guy in his own right but this collab gives me whiplash every 20 seconds
I always thought Kyo Kusanagi was this brat who constantly got in fights and skipped school, while being able could produce fire from his fingers.
Turns out he's an charismatic and almighty Gradius & Salamander historian.
Ha the truth finally is revealed!!! Yes def drop him a sub!
Wrongo! I actually typed KUSANAGI's name wrong! that typo just stuck with me for life!
@@kyokusagani8869 lol...i was going to say the same thing
Kyo "Grass Crab"
There's just 1 more Gradius game that I would like to see you and Kyo cover, and that's Gradius Galaxies on GBA. This video so far is my favorite. I may have watched this over 4 times easy.
Parodius Da is actually the second Parodius game. The original was for the MSX.
The only Gradius Game I've ever made it through till loop 3 was Nemesis The Final Challenge for the Commodore 64 Computer. It must be more or less 37 years ago. My absolute favourite of the series is Gradius Gaiden. 😊
"Gradius II" is the correct answer. It's a miracle that they made this masterpiece in just 5 months.
Oh gotta check out the vid :-)
I hope they talk about it but personally I don't think it deserves to be anywhere near the top, because stage 1 is super boring and way too long. Really sucks all the enjoyment out of replaying the game.
@@Steve-Fiction It's the first stage lol. They are all throw away except for Gradius V, where the first large enemy you encounter is basically a boss.
Gradius 5 is easily the masterpiece. That’s how you go out with a bang. It would do so well now in portable, maybe sell better than when it released. Gradius 2 was a creative sequel that established most of the form for later iterations, and Gradius 4 is when it started to recycle itself and get eclipsed by fresher shooters (that vertical mine though…). Gradius Gaiden had the most balanced and enjoyable challenge of the classic bunch. 5 is still far and away the top and does everything right relative to what it is.
And I guess Salamander was Gradius.
Grad V is a masterpiece
It has an epic grandeur to it. Amazing game.
Kyo is so underrated I saw him on shmup slam with omega fighter and loved his personality. Mark I love your channel, it's like a new York strip. Also, whether or not this matters, I'm representing the females in this community. We out here too!! Thank you for uploading so often, it's a real treat
Oh that is really cool to hear there are female fans out there!! Glad you are enjoying the channel, I have been trying to keep up with a pretty heavy duty release schedule this month :-)
@@TheElectricUnderground we out here! I want to study Satazius Next as I feel it's underrated, and apply for a shmup slam. I don't see any other women throwing down so why not me! Interestingly enough when I have my homegirls over and i introduce them to a shmup it holds their attention better because the controls and objectives are simple and surprisingly they are naturally good at it!
You and my gf are the only females I know that watch this channel lol. Though she watches mostly because she thinks Mark is funny, she’s not too big into shmups, we watch Makr together and gets mad if I watch him alone lol
I am really enjoying this. Feels like I’m
”in the room” with you guys just appreciating the deep diving detailed discussion.
You guys are great. Thanks!
I'm really happy to hear that!! Yes I think it's great when people can get pulled into the conversation and it feels natural and fun :-)
Great podcast, I'll make sure to check out this franchise and big props to you for editing Kusagani's expressions, doing that manually for an hour is so much work but it made it funny, I like how he expresses himself so I'll check his channel too.
Yeah adding those talking animations was a ton of editing ha
I didn't know Quentin Tarantino had a kid. This dude had the same cadence as him. It's like listening to a younger Quentins take Gradius instead of movies. I never cared for this series but I'm willing to learn them as a adult now. I do want to try Salamander 2, Gradius 2 and Gradius 5. Sexy Parodies. The Gradius, Nemesis, Life force and Salamander names always caused confusion. Cool history lesson.
Can someone please tell me what BGM is playing during the 25:26 minute mark? It sounds CD quality, so I was assuming Salamander 2 or Gradius 4 or 5. I own 5 but I don't recall this melody.
I personally think Gradius Interstellar assault on gameboy has some of the best if not the best checkpoints in any shmup with a checkpoint system. Love these games
That sounds cool!
It really is an amazing game the pixel art for it is some of the best on the system imo.
Great discussion! Been replaying some Gradius games, and in particular Nemesis 90 Kai (Sharp X68000) as I only recently discovered it. Would have totally loved seeing that game on a 16-bit console back in the day.
19:34 I heard that bubble memory had issues also with magnetic fields.
If that is true it would be very funny because CRTs inside arcade cabinets generate magnetic fields.
Loved this episode. Kyo did a great job. Learned a lot
Yes it was a really fun one!!
Great video! I would have liked more mention of the MSX versions of Gradius though. Even though they probably wouldn't reach an A or S tier, they brought some innovations to the series. After opening the latches on the Big Core, you actually fly inside it in one of the MSX games. And it's been a long time since playing, but I could swear you had to pick up components hidden in levels to construct a weapon or something. Gradius 5 is my favorite, with only one flaw, the missing Moai heads. How did Treasure miss them????!
Oh yeah the msx ports are interesting!! It is odd 5 has no 🗿
@@TheElectricUnderground They are not ports, except for the first one. Nemesis 2, Salamander and Nemesis 3 are unique to the system. Too bad an "expert" like you don't know that. I know because I played a hell of a lot back when I was a teenager, specially Nemesis 2 (NOT Gradius 2, mind you).
You foretold the death of Takahashi with your thumbnail 😥😥 darn your powers of vague clairvoyance!!
but also awesome Gradius deep dive ❤
Oh that is so sad! RIP an amazing amazing artist. I do have an interesting track record of sensing death, so it is crazy how the thumbnail and the artist's death line up.
Agree about Gradius 1 and 2. I hadn't played G1 in a long time and when I returned to it when I got the Saturn pack I was amazed how well balanced it was. I hadn't seen Gradius 2 before getting that pack and the upgrade blew me away. Big fan of Parodius too. I first played G1 in the arcade but I put a PILE of time into the NES port which was excellent in recreating the feel of the original despite the tech issues of the NES.
Darius gang here to defend the series from this slander!!
Just kidding, great video! I'm really starting to dig into the series now that I've played V.
Awesome!! Yes five is a great way to ease I to the series (no checkpoints
Great video, hoping someday you both take a look into the MSX games which are often overlooked. Speaking of MSX, I have to point out that “Parodius da!” isn’t actually the first entry in the series, that would be Parodius on MSX which came out a year prior to Gradius III, so the theory that Parodius was Konami’s answer to Gradius III and the exhaustion of ideas is not sound
We ll have to look into this more, but it seems odd to me that Konami would make an msx version of parodius, before an arcade version?
@@TheElectricUnderground Konami had teams developing games in 3 departments at that time, arcade, Famicom and MSX. All those departments are separate from each other, working on their stuff independently. Arcade to home conversion were common of course, but those systems had tons of exclusive games that didn’t originate in arcades, the original Parodius being one
@@TheElectricUnderground That's because the MSX was the main platform for Konami at the time. They did something nearly 70 games for the MSX from 1984 to 1989. The MSX versions are not ports of the arcades, they are their own games.
My favs: Salamander MSX, Nemesis 3 Gopher revenge MSX, Nemesis 2 MSX, Salamander 2 Saturn, Gradius V ps2, Space Manbow MSX2. There is more story on MSX about James Burton and Bacterion.
Salamander 2 on it's own is enough reason to own a Saturn..
I just streamed Nemesis 2 MSX yesterday. That game gets tier A from me. Konami somehow managed scrolling AND animated ground tiles. I'm convinced 80s konami are actual wizards.
My first Gradius was Nemesis on the GameBoy, and I have very fond memories of it. Need to re-visit it now as an adult to figure out if it's actually good or just nostalgia.
I still play pretty regularly as an adult on OG hardware. It's still a solid game, though very easy compared to its home console peers. The easy difficulty is probably one the reasons I was able to get into the game as a kid. It was a nice introduction the genre and series.
Also worth mentioning: the Gradius 2 "AC Death" and Salamander "AC Delta" NES rom hacks are among the very best shmup hacks in existence, certainly on the NES. It's rather amazing what the hacker was able to squeeze out of the 8-bit console.
Same guy also did a gradius 1 AC patch that drastically improved sprite shading on gradius 1. Unfortunately, that crashed on the last stage when I streamed it.
Absolutely fantastic overview of the series. Learned a lot here. There's probably too many games in the series to cover all in one go but would be nice to cover the MSX (true original) Parodius, Nemesis 95Kai, Gradius Galaxies & Solar Assault.
Yeah the list of spin offs and ports is crazy!
The Gradius III+IV pack on PS2 has 3 "Wait" settings which I guess adjusts the level of slowdown. Would be interested to hear if that fixes the G3 issues.
Oh interesting! I wonder how well it plays!
@@TheElectricUnderground Here's a run on PS2 of G3 with slowdown switched off (wait=0) . Doesn't make it any easier - that's for sure!!!! :)
th-cam.com/video/dC7A3iIdAwg/w-d-xo.html
I have played a few runs of Gradius and Life Force on the NES when I was a kid, and I've been really interested in taking up a horizontal shmup lately. Thanks to Kyo's S-tier rating of the Japanese Life Force, I have decided to get Arcade Archives Life Force for my Nintendo Switch. It includes the original Salamander, US Life Force, and most importantly the Japanese Life Force. Oh, and apparently, July 4th 1986 was when the original Salamander came out in Japan!
Looking forward to this!! I already know which one will probably be at the top though haha
It's gonna be an epic time 🙂
I can't believe that was 90 minutes. that flew right by!
Glad to hear it!!!!
Kyo is a PhD level Shmup historian, wow!
Yeah he really knows his stuff!
Gradius IV hands down. Most everyone will say Gradius V, but I find IV just perfect in every way. It's essentially a remake of II with parts of III thrown in.
Yes grad 4 seems to be a big sleeper pick! I ll have to try it out more
Correction: I own "Rebirth" too and you actually are in control of the Vic Viper. It's mentioned in the "How To Play" section on the title screen.
Awesome! Yes I own rebirth as well ;-)
Gread job guys, very interesting and informative! Kyo knows his stuff! :O
For sure!!! Thanks for tuning in!!!
I think Gradius is my fave series of all time, in any genre. Ive always found it fascinating since seeing the Gradius 1 and Salamander arcade machines as a kid. And all the games have classic music, which is a big factor for me, I probably spend almost as much time just listening to playlists of Gradius music as playing the games. But the biggest factor probably is the sheer number of good Gradius-related games, looking at all the unique ports & sequels such as on Game Boy, MSX, GBA, Wii, X68000, and then Parodius series etc, it runs into 20+ excellent games, R-Type just cant beat that how ever good it is, or many other series for that matter. I have a few favorites but I honestly dont think I can pick a top 3, I like many of them for different reasons, and there's so many I can play a totally different one every time which keeps them all fresh
Oh yeah and gradius gaiden has a really awesome and overlooked ost!
@@TheElectricUnderground Yeahs that's one of the best! And I really love the SNES soundtrack for Gradius III
I really like the Gradius 3 and Metal Slug 3 analogy - I never thought about it before!
had no idea that Life force was that good, I need to give it a shot!
also those lewd mahjong games can pretty tough for real
though admittedly not as tough as sexy parodius...
Yes both studios wanted that epic 3rd installment - for better and worse
Ive always thought Gradius was pretty unique compared to other old school horis. The levels feel very chaotic and alive, theres always a ton of stuff going on and lots of interactive/chaotic elements, and the power up/options systems are really dynamic as Mark mentions. It has that multitasking element and overlapping attacks of bullet hells without going nuts with the bullet counts. I almost wish the power up system would be required for the entire game instead of just the early levels/recoveries. Resetting your shield works like that and its really fun.
Gradius IV got a little bit of a bad rap but IMO its the perfect example of this design. All the levels have a ton of interactivity (even physics) and the game even went as far as to give your ship's bombs some actual throw physics too. I think if it had some decent modern ports or ran well on MAME people would like it a lot more.
Yes I am gonna have to give gradius 4 a closer look. Metal slug 4 also gets a bad rap but it s a pretty solid fun time, despite recycling tons of elements from previous games ha
@@TheElectricUnderground Yeah, it's also a bit of a sendoff to the arcade Gradius, cause remember 3 came out a full decade before 4
@@TheElectricUnderground Metal Slug 4 definitely gets an undeserved bad rap. I like it quite a bit more than 3.
I'm loving this episode, Mark. I've listened to more eps of your podcast than TH-cam videos so far and from the podcast I got the sense that you only really cared about the competitive scene and bullet hells. I'm really glad to see you giving other shmups some time in the sun. If I have any recommendation, it'd be to try to be more inclusive (not just in general content but also attitude/offhand comments during eps) of shmups other than Dodonpachi and Ketsui on the podcast. I think the podcast may turn off people new to the genre or not as interested in score chasing, but maybe I misunderstood and the podcast is more intended to be about that side of shmups.
I'm looking forward to watching more of your vids. Thanks for all the hard work!
Nice episode, as always!
BTW did you ever review Super Hydorah?
Thanks so much!! I haven't reviewed it yet, but I m going to in the future someday ha
I’m slightly disappointed that you guys didn’t talk about Gradius Galaxies/Advance. I think that’s the one people forget to include, but I really enjoyed the discussion between you two. I think my favorite is Gradius 2. It’s heck of an upgrade from the first game. I mean the first level is one hell of an introduction and that music… mmm
Yeah the handheld ports weren't included this time around, just so many games to cover. But I d love to do a handheld shmups vid in the future
@@TheElectricUnderground yes please
@@TheElectricUnderground I would give a kidney for a dedicated Haldheld shmup video. Not the Switch, but dedicated handheld consoles only episode. My first ever 1CC was actually Nemesis (Gradius) on the OG Gameboy. Once I mastered that game, I hopped over to the NES gradius and started working on that. There are some real gems on retro handhelds. Iridion II on GBA is a blast, Gradius II: Interstellar Assault on Gameboy. Shit even Solar Striker, as basic as it was, offered a solid vertical STG experience, designed by the Gameboy designer himself, Gunpei Yokoi.
I wonder why Gokujou Parodius is just B-Tier... Semi-Auto-Select was a good addition, the Graphics are amazing and so is the Sound/Music...
I chose B tier for Gokujou parodius under the aspect that it does recycle some ideas from Da, and it's significantly shorter than Da is. It's still an absolute blast, anything C tier and above is good, but Da managed to be original and super creative for one hour straight, which is an impressive feat for an arcade game.
Is that the one with the Sleeping Beauty music at the ship select? Love that!!
Nemesis/Gradius and Gradius II for the gameboy are both amazing ports in their own right definitely some amazing pixel art and great gameplay. The osts are both pretty nice to had some catchy ones.
Great episode! Really enjoying the podcast format! Also made me want to boot up Gradius 2 and life force from the Konami Arcade collection on switch by ACA.
Hell yeah!!! Can t go wrong with the grad 2 :-)
Great video.Learned loads there Kyo is a real character and a great historian- he's like the Bofner of Gradius! Gonna check out his shmup slam run and his channel.
That s great!! Yeah his channel has a ton of great vids!
Great podcast with Kyo! Gradius is my introduction to SHMUPs and the reason why I love the genre. Got introduced to the series through the 3 SNES port.
I was hoping you guys would mention the port but it totally got sandbagged lol. Would have loved to know your guy's thoughts on the better version along with the no slow-down hack.
Ha yeah shoulda mentioned it a bit, my vote is the no slowdown hack, which I understand is crazy hard ha
@@TheElectricUnderground No slow-down hack sometimes makes you appreciate the slow-down a bit 😆.
@The Electric Underground I’m confused on the no-slowdown hack. Is it the sa-1 hack or a setting in an emulator? FYI the x in Grand Prix is silent. Think Super Monaco Grand Prix. It’s French.
Do u have a steamdeck? I got one recently and discovering shmup genre again, basically I went on your channel and bought 7 games during summer sales (and pinballs too with demon tilt) the joysticks are great, very precise.
I don't! I wanna try one when they drop in price though!
Gradius 5 easily. It was great looking, fun and the most accessible. The levels and music were fantastic too. It's an absolute crime it didn't get a remaster. Treasure really did wonders for it. Gaiden is my second favorite.
Gradius 3 for SNES introduced me to the series and it's still a personal favorite of mine. Despite having issues with slowdown, it's a much better designed game than the brutal Arcade version and the music is just fantastic. I still have a soft spot for it.
Also if we're also talking about Parodius, Goukujo and Sexy were my favorite games in that series.
Gokujou Parodius is also a good game, but it only loses to Da because it's a significantly shorter game. =) That gets a B from me.
The original Gradius port on NES is foundational for me. I'd played plenty of shooters in arcades and on the Atari 2600, but Gradius was the first shooter I played that had more of a focus on clearing the game and getting an actual ending as opposed to playing for score. Coupling that with the ability to power up your ship in the order that suits you just completely changed how I think about shooters.
That said, the PC Engine CD port of Gradius II is my favorite in the series. Starting with letting you choose your weapon loadout, adding the new stage, the redbook audio letting me enjoy the killer soundtrack outside of the game before you could just download the music, the level design... even the soul crushing first time I made it to those last few stages without losing my power-ups only to hit a wall in the speed stage or die in the boss gauntlet... it was hard in a way the original wasn't, and beating it felt like an achievement. It's the game I just keep going back to to see if I can still do it.
4s the best one by far but you have to be an actual player to notice why so that's 99% of the community out. It has the best dynamic rank system making every single recovery possible, the best moai by far of all time, the best high speed of all time and the ost is amazing regardless of what this cringe goober with the stupid adderal abuse voice says. BTW mark "prix" is pronounced ""pree" not "pricks" which describes the players not the game.
Yes Gradius 4 seems like an interesting sleeper pick to dig into more, just like Metal Slug 4, which I think is a pretty cool game despite the recycled assets. Also yes, my pronunciation of PRIX is a bad habit. When I am saying the word I know to say pree, but whenever I read it I end up saying Pricks ha.
@@TheElectricUnderground it's definitely better respectively than ms4 is within the context of its own series and even is pretty nice looking if played on the correct setup. For me g4, salamander 2 and gaiden were the peaks of the series although unironically think satazius is as good as if not better in many aspects.
I went back to play the original Gradius on the Switch (it's one of the emulated NES games you get when you sign up for Switch online). I am not sure how I was beating this game when I was a kid on the actual NES because it's not easy. However the whole balanced check point concept which Kyo was talking about is kinda moot in emulation because of the use of save states. I have to say it was a huge deal though back then, which was why the konami code was such a useful mechanism to keep players from getting too frustrated and outright give up.
My favorite in the series are Lifeforce (I only played US NES version) and Gradius V. I am not a hardcore player, don't care about the scores, and usually just give up on the second loop. However I do care about the music and graphics in addition to gameplay. The music for Lifeforce is one of the best in the series IMO, where as Gradius V has both great music and is the best looking 3d-modeled (as opposed animated) shooter.
Only halfway through but really enjoying. I like the discussions on classic series.
Hell yeah my dude!! Can't go wrong with some more Gradius in your life :-)
My 3 personal favorites of the series, though I like all but Gradius V in the series. I just cannot as a Gradius fan like V at all. IMO it did not feel like a Gradius game to me at all.
1) Gradius Gaiden
2) Gradius IV
3) Gradius III arcade, especially on PS2 where slowdown can be turned off.
The Kyo guy mentioned Gradius 1 left you with powerups after death, not in the Japanese version it doesn't, which most ports seemed based off of. Gradius 1 left you just as bare of a ship as every other game in the series, unless you play the western version, Nemesis, which gave you more powerup chances after dying. When you restart a level after death, the game will send a number of ships that when destroyed, yields powerup capsules.
Also if Salamander 2 on PS1 or Saturn takes you 20 seconds between levels with load times, you have a gimped disc, it should be just about seamlessly instantaneous from beating a stage boss, into the next stage.
Agree on IV, good pick
Yes gradius 5 is the battle of the og Konami fans vs the treasure fans ha. Overall I tend to like treasure games more so for me grad 5 is a very big highlight of the series. No doubt it has a treasure feel to it, which is why I like it so much ha. Gaiden is amazing though. PS1 is a beast for these old shmup series
If you wanna play a shmup with multiple different perspectives, try out Philosoma on the PS1. Also grad 2 personal fave but I think grad 3 is the overall best
I used to play Gradius Galaxies/Advance a fair bit via the Gameboy player on my Gamecube, on the rolling start screen intro there is an official series timeline that includes 1981's Scramble as the start point of the series. I don't think I ever played Galaxies as a handheld game, with the amount of stuff in the backgrounds I can imagine it's not easy figuring what's background and whats' a hazard on a small LCD screen when you're under pressure.
Watched it all! Great video!! But... Y'all forgot gradius galaxies on GBA !! :0
Oh snap!! I didn't even know about this game ha, we were mostly focusing on the arcade releases
@@TheElectricUnderground Lol I thought I was crazy 🤣 it's easy to overlook on the old purple handheld beast. well imo it's a great game If you give it a shot, maybe not the most exciting entry but still quite fun!
@@TheElectricUnderground and gradius neo.
You also forgot that.
I fell in love with gradius when I first Played II on the famicom. I've been a shooter fan ever since. Gradius and Dragonspirit.
Great video! I'm right there with you in the slowdown issues of GIII. Overclock the CPU on MAME to get rid of it and give it a try! From D tier to A+! Not an S though, it still has the infamous cube rush ^^
Thank you for tuning in my friend :-)
You can get auto-fire on the NES version in stage 1 if you fully cycle the power-ups at 10,000 points. Get your two speed-ups first and save the rest for the cycle.
That s funny how autofire is a hidden secret
As someone who played SNES Gradius 3 an ungodly amount of hours in the 90s I was kind of hoping there would be some discussion about it and how drastically altered it was from the original arcade version. The port is far more forgiving in terms of difficulty so that and it's notorious slowdown in some areas may turn off a lot of fans of the series. I've been playing it a lot more recently due to a special rom that fixes the slowdown, plus it's the only Gradius game (that I know of) that has a hidden feature where your weapon loadout is randomly selected which I always thought was fun as hell.
Pretty informative. I'll definitely play Japanese Life Force next. I have been playing Gradius lately, coincidentally. Right now the PC-Engine version of 1. It's actually kinda funny. I was feeling absolutely horrible the other day, because life is 99% pain and the rest of it is video games, but then I got to that part with the giant skulls that shoot fireballs and my mood immediately improved. Cheered up by a space graveyard. I think that's pretty funny.
Very satisfying game because of all the options. Really makes you feel very powerful. If you die, though, it's a big loss, though at least the hitbox isn't gigantic like it could have been, so it's fine. I have been resetting every time I die because it's what I do in shmups with checkpoints because from experience I just expect to be destroyed repeatedly, though hearing about the design of the checkpoints makes me reconsider that and I guess I'll try not to just to see what it's like.
Yeah shmups always improve my spirits as well!!! I play gradius games the same way ha, reset on death, damn checkpoints
Gradius/Salamander is way more important to Shmups' development than R-Type.
Konami was a tighter outfit back then, too.
Absolutely!! Og Konami are legends
Both hugely influential, but maybe R-Type was more its own thing (what a thing though!!)
Thunder Cross?
Music is great but game is too simple and easy
I've been playing the games again on and off for the past 2 years. I'd have to go with V on the top. It has less RNG that works against the player and has the most polish.
I was playing some old Wonderboy game and then I realized gradius is really a misspelling of gladius, the gladiator sword an item in that game. I checked and gladius in katakana is グラディウス, guradiusu which is what Gradius is called in Japanese
Everytime I play Gradius V I think about the problem the whole time travel idea brings up. In my mind Vic Viper T301 would forever be in a loop going back in time to help himself. If not in a loop then there would be 2 Vic vipers maybe? Anyone else pondered on this?
Luckily I am an expert on time travel narrative and I can confirm that all time travel in gradius 5 is logical and realistic ;-)
A lot of people call the Konami code, the Contra code, though it was first used in the NES port of Gradius.
#themoreyouknow🌈⭐
The truth comes out!!!
Idk if you play any racing games, but i just got inti the wipeout omega collection on ps4 and these games are insane. I feel like if you were into any, wipeout would be up your alley but idk i may be wrong lol
Oh I ve played a little wipeout! I used to love playing need for speed hot pursuit and Gotham racing
Treasure is composed of former Konami employees if I can recall
actually the first Parodius game was The Octopus Saves the Earth for MSX
Was that by Konami? That s really interesting they started on msx
Thr biggest weakness of Salamander 2 is that's it's ridiculously short.
Oh really! How long is it? Maybe it s made for loops more, like zero ranger?
@@TheElectricUnderground it's 2 loops. first loop is under 20. Second loop has different music with some remixes of old classics from previous gradius games.
@@gigatywing3483 the first game is WAY shorter lol, it's literally 12 minutes per loop
Very Good Fun to watch a few days ago I loaded Gradius and as I went through all the cores to see what would load the game (Retoarch Mame-2010) as it loaded it says Warming Up and counting down from 100-0 Am like whats going on here !! as I watch your video and listened to your friends comment Bubble memory, the light came on lol ... any chance of doing a Raiden history ? Rtype - Gradius - Raiden so far are my Fav's.. not saying I won't look for more...Thanks Again..Pud (The thing I like about the Gradius Demo is ..it's played right to the end level boss .. not hitting something daft to end the demo ie R Type)
Raiden would be absolutely fascinating!!! Excellent suggestion!
Gradius gaiden soundtrack is so nostalgic
It is! My fav of the series ost
Interesting to see gradius 3 disapproval. Me being a bit less hardcore about shmups I see people praising it as one of the best shmups. But to be fair people who say that I’ve noticed only say that because they only know the real poplar ones like ikaruga and touhou and stuff like that. Gradius 3 happens to be on the snes and while messing around with rpgs on the snes find gradius 3 and are immediately blown away because they don’t know better (not to put those people under the bus) I personally like gradius 3, but it’s sort of like metal slug 3 where it’s really cool visually and all that stuff but not fun to play. Probably another reason why I see non shmup people love gradius 3
yes the comparisons between gradius 3 and metal slug 3 are so close it's scary. Both are massive with really high peaks and nasty lows, both are ambitious but messy, and both are generally praised as best in the series by casual reviewers ha.
Gradius 3 SNES is almost a totally different game quality wise. They actually FINISHED that version of gradius 3 and got rid of the godawful ice cube stage. Replacing it with a stage from gradius 2 instead. Getting rid of the ice cubes ALONE automatically pulls it out of D tier. Gradius 3 SNES is a B. There's also no stupid softlocks if the game lags on the last stage.
I like games with checkpoints and no power ups. You don't pay to win by respawning, and you don't get stuck by lack of power ups. Balance matters. I prefer games with weapon selection.
❤️ Gradius ❤️
Sorry - good luck finding a Gradius I or II for a couple hundred bucks. Try like $800 for a Nemesis and $1K+ for II even with the current (very favorable) exchange rate. This isn't 2006 anymore. A non-bubble Gradius I is like $3K and the Bubble version isn't far behind.
Also, does the guest always talk like this or is this his online persona?
Only way to play Gradius III is really the PS2 port. You can edit the slowdown in in-game menu and even turn it off entirely. It looks and plays almost exactly like the PCB.
Yeah PCB prices are coo coo for coco puffs right now. And yes kyo is being evocative with the way he talks, I really appreciate it actually.
It's hard for me to rank them, but I would have to put Gradius II at the top, specifically the PC Engine version. That's the Gradius game I've returned to the most over the years. But I also love the OG Gradius, Life Force, Gaiden and V. I haven't played Galaxies but it looks like another quality entry in the series. The unpatched Gradius III on the SNES is my least favorite to play despite the excellent music and sound. I've never played IV, but the graphics are less appealing to me and it looks much more derivative of the earlier games compared with V. The formula was getting tired by IV and needed a serious shakeup, which it thankfully received.
I just realized something... You've done Gradius, Darius and R-Type, where's Raiden?! Come on Mark! :D
Damn I wanna try Salamander 2. I wish it comes to PS4/switch
Yeah I could see it happening honestly. Konami have at least been porting their old stuff
Nice video, although I think you guys are far off from the Gradius PCB pricing.
Yeah that wouldn't surprise me ha, everything has become so expensive I could see poor gradius falling into that wormhole as well.
Gradius 2 just felt a bit too hard (maybe I suck) but the music is awesome
That fire stage is brutal
37:34 lmao laser beam of death. Yes, that part is infuriating, making an already hard game even more miserable, not to mention that meatball section later on with pretty jank hitbox.
While I agree Gradius III is a pretty flawed game fundamentally, I just can't hate the game because it has top notch presentation, great music, and unique levels. I also find it "fun" somehow maybe because I jumped into the game already knowning about it's infamous reputation. Beating it would be great accomplishment for any gamers. So, I agree with you, I would rank Gradius III a B.
Oh yeah, here's an obligatory "screw that cube stage".
I don't think anyone really wants an explanation and this is kinda off-topic, but here I go anyway. He said Kiyo and not Kyo, which is not quite correct either, though it is an actual name. It's like the yo in yo-yo but with a short o. So, it's a very short sound, and adding the i can elongate it. Ryu is actually Ryuu, so it's a long u. It's like the word you after a short and weak r. In Japanese, when a sound is long, it's written to be long. Japanese is pretty consistent, so each syllable is pretty much always pronounced the same way that it's written. Not many exceptions.
Also, you really should check out the PC-98. It was a very popular system in Japan and it has a bunch of shmups. Probably the pinnacle of PC gaming in Japan, it has never been bigger than it was then. There's a giant game collection on Internet Archive. I want to explore that system more as well, but I need another emulator for it because anex86 is only on Windows and Wine is not ideal and it isn't always available either.
At this point I sort of enjoy torturing my audience with my lack of Japanese language skills XD also yeah PC 98 seems awesome
@@TheElectricUnderground You can also torture yourself a bit with that by playing PC-98, I guess, because a lot of the menus will be in Japanese. Not a big deal for shmups, though. I have to work on my Japanese a lot more so I can play Rance and other PC-98 games with text that matters.
I should play Rusty, though, that should be my next game. It's a Castlevania-like game but with a female character and Japanese monsters (like the Gashadokuro, that one caught my attention, it's a giant skeleton that eats people's heads, that is in some old Japanese paintings that I think are funny). Looks cool. It was made by a company that made a Pingu game for the PS1. Noot noot.
why does gradius & gradius2 have different name outside japan ( nemesis & vulcan venture ) great show
Shout out for TAC/SCAN!
A whole talk on the Gradius series and not a single mention on their music?
Just so much to cover, we do talk about it a bit though
Gradius III to me
Grad 3 is a beast! I m gonna try the snes no slowdown version soon ha
looks like gradius 2 of fc not included
Check Teddy Mercury out here with the top notch tier lists 😄
I disagree a bit about Gradius 5's visuals having aged well. It does that early 2000s "Let's make everything grey and brown because that's realistic" cliché sooo much. In a series so full of colourful, psychedelic anti-realism it just comes off as dreary and depressing.
It's pronounced Kingdom Grand PREE
I know I say it correctly in my review of the game. It's just so hard not to say prix ha, because it's a title i've read and not read said very much.
Prix is French for race and is pronounced Preee
Yes I know, bad habit ha
@@TheElectricUnderground No probs!! Anyhow - great video. Loads of info. I have the Gradius and Salamander collections for Saturn but I was unaware of the history of the Salamander/Life Force series. Your guest is super enthusiastic too!!! Makes me want to go back to them as I haven't played them nearly enough.
This series feels a bit basic to me. It feels like a relic next to Compile or Irem shooters. I don’t think a smaller hit box is necessarily an evolution of the genre. It just means you can squeeze more bullets in. My point is that a shooter needs a hook to stand out and keep your interest. The hook on this game is an overly complicated power up system where you need to constantly be conscious of the power up bar to get the power ups you want. Collect two yellow blobs in a row and you might miss the power up you might want. You can set it to auto but that kind of makes the system kind of redundant. I find the art style fine but not outstanding. I’ve only played SNES Parodius and found it a bit bland in terms of its gameplay and honestly the only real fun comes from the challenge which is a kind of masochistic enjoyment. In terms of ideas it’s quite thin really. A space ship in space and weird blob monsters is not really exciting. Also Moia heads.
I think this series and Darius just play very stiffly. Tiny bullets pew pewing requiring precise positioning and timing to kill the enemies feels quite old fashioned to me.
I feel the Thunderforce series is much more fun with auto fire by default and a stream of firepower with selectable weapons to choose as you decide.
It’s a more fun series to me than a modern bullet dodger because your shooting things as opposed to plotting a path through a sea of bullets bit in terms of gameplay it doesn’t get more basic than Gradius.
Oh some really interesting points here. Don t forget how influential the option mechanic of gradius is! That mechanic alone has been hugely influential on the genre!! I like the thunder force series as well, but I would argue that without gradius thunder force and most other hori shmups would not be what they are. Gradius did pioneer so many ideas
@The Electric Underground no doubt. But maybe Konami was too scared to innovate. Getting Treasure in was a smart move to inject some new ideas but also an admittance that they didn’t know what to do next. It can’t be easy to keep updating such an iconic game.
But my point is, the game is short on ideas all round. It just comes across as unimaginative. As much as Aircraft Carrier is an iconic tune (one of my favourites) and the jumping fire dragon is awesome. That was covered in the first two games. Then the series just repeats itself.
Please stop using the word "shmup". It is such an unaesthetic, uncool sound.
Much better is the Japanese term "STG", simply "shoot em up" or for my sake "shooter". But with "Shmup" I always have to fight not to close the tab in the browser.
Thanks for the otherwise cool channel.
I have a really old vid on the topic th-cam.com/video/nnwXgMnEDyk/w-d-xo.html
Sorry to say, but shmup is here to stay
calling them "shooter" would be really confusing cause "shooters" also used for FPS and TPS
I’m sorry I really cannot listen to this guy. Such scripted, forced, goofy enthusiasm. Keeps interrupting you to say the most mundane shit as if it’s a revelation. He seems like a nice guy in his own right but this collab gives me whiplash every 20 seconds
Just listen, don't watch
This guy’s voice sounds like a Simpsons character
He does it intentionally ha :-) I think it s really fun