The second stage moves you to a spaceship that could have seamlessly fit into Alien, with Giger-esque design and hordes of skittering monstrosities. If the particular path you're charting through the asteroids seems too fraught with danger, it's simplicity itself to go over one instead of under it in order to fight a different arrangement of foes. Making this level particularly neat is the way you can scroll up and down while moving to the right. In Gradius II, you are immediately greeted by the choice between four different weapon sets (as opposed to only one in the original) and then you advance to a very attractive opening stage loaded with fiery asteroids.
Gofer gradius 2 series#
The first installment in the series was a good stepping stone from the ancient era of shooters, which included the likes of Defender and Konami’s own Scramble, but was pretty no-frills. What I noticed more than the rehashed elements, though, was the sheer amount of improvement in this game when you compare it to the original Gradius. Such adjustments might render familiar content original, but at least they offer a different sort of challenge. On the other hand, the cell stage takes place in the final level and, therefore, is a good bit more challenging. This game's fire gauntlet was in the first stage and was a bit simpler to navigate than in Life Force. Part of that may have been because of where they were placed.
Despite having played the Life Force versions of these stages dozens of times, it didn't really feel like I was rehashing old material. For the Famicom port, a couple of levels were lengthened to allow Konami to "borrow" the third stage's fire prominence area and the cell stage of the first level. A handful of the bosses, including three found in the fifth level's boss rush, made appearances in that other game. They might be presented in different ways, but they're almost always there in some form.Īs I played Gradius II, I wasn’t surprised to find a handful of things that I remember from Life Force. Not every element makes an appearance in every single one, but if you play all of Konami's Gradius-related shooters, you'll find tons of volcanos spewing rocks, hordes of Big Core ships where you have to dispose of a few shields before your bullets can reach that core, and many other familiar scenarios.
When you get into the meat of each stage, there are numerous elements that have been recycled from one game to the next. Stages all tend to start in empty space against weak foes that move in simple patterns, which makes it easy for players to get a few power-ups and enhance their ship a bit. If you like Gradius, you'll probably also appreciate Life Force and the Parodius series of parody titles. There's a certain sort of predictable charm to these titles and their spinoffs. After all, the Gradius name is pretty much synonymous with "borrowing from oneself". I would have preferred that Konami left gamers with the choice of which title to purchase. There's a part of me that feels kind of ripped off by that decision. When deciding which title to localize, Konami gave the nod to the one that alternated between horizontal and vertically scrolling stages, instead of one which was simply a great sequel to a well-known game. I can’t be sure, of course, but that’s another factor that may have prevented both games from reaching the United States back in 1988. A lot of the new content in the home conversion of Gradius II actually came straight from Life Force. Since the Famicom didn't have the same processing ability as the average arcade board, Konami changed a few levels and inserted new elements to make sure the port was worth playing. Konami had the interesting habit of somewhat altering games when porting them from the arcade to home systems. That likely explains why we didn't get Gradius II. Around the time this one might have come out in the region, we instead saw Konami's port of Salamander (known here as Life Force). Not only is it a really good shooter that dramatically improves upon its predecessor, but it also wasn't originally released in America. The Famicom's Gradius II is an interesting title. If the particular path you're charting through the asteroids seems too fraught with danger, it's simplicity itself to go over one instead of under it in order to fight a different arrangement of foes." "In Gradius II, you are immediately greeted by the choice between four different weapon sets (as opposed to only one in the original) and then you advance to a very attractive opening stage loaded with fiery asteroids.
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