Gradius V
The glorious return of the Vic Viper
Tags: Gradius V Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Oct 19th, 2004
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gradius V (title page) | |||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
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This is about as good as it gets for shooter fans these days. The enemies are too numerous to count, their unrelenting hail of weapon fire filling the screen in a mishmesh of glowing light. You weave in and out of the chaos, constantly tempting death as the lasers get so close your hull starts to sizzle. As you dart into the madness against all common sense, your multiples dart in after you, mindless automotons shadowing your every movement. While the enemy has set the sky ablaze to shred you apart, you cut yourself a path through the danger, penetrating into its sole weak spot, going for the kill. I swear, the expecience is almost sexual.
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Gradius V is glorious in every way space shoot-’em-ups are meant to be. This is largely in part due to the game’s wonderful graphics, giving lasers a satisfying glow, making gigantic enemies all the more impressive in their detail, and keeping the framerate silky-smooth even as you start to wonder if the enemies and their onslaught of gunfire is beginning to number in the hundreds (although there’s some intentional slowdown to accompany every catacalysmic explosion of the destruction of a boss). Earlier this year, R-Type Final brought the genre into the current generation, making good use of the Playstation 2’s hardware. Gradius V actually seems to try to push the limits of what we thought an old-fashioned shoot-’em-up could look like.
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This is emphasized not only with the huge number of things going on onscreen at any given time, but also the amazing sense of speed and urgency the game instills in the player. While each individual bullet or laser may be going suspiciously slow for a futuristic weapon, combined with dozens more and constantly swarming enemies, you’re rarely given a moment to breathe, constantly jumping from near-death experience to near-death experience. Of course, this is assuming you can keep it from becoming a too-near-death experience.
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While games in this genre pride themselves on being a challenge, Gradius V is particularly hard. I’ve always said that, despite my love for the genre, I’ve never been particularly good at it, but Gradius V has been punishing me even more than usual. People: You would be advised to ramp the challenge level down as much as possible in your first play-through of the game. Treasure’s joyous reuinion with Konami has brought with it their love for a truly challenging space shooter, and at times things can get outright vicious, although unlike many space shooters, you never quite feel like it’s being unfair. The game’s hit detection always errs in your favor, and you’ll often find that the only way to avoid gunfire is to slide so close to it that in any other game you’d be dead. When you do die (oh, and you will), it’s always fairly easy to see where you went wrong, dodging left when you should have gone right, focusing your gunfire instead of spreading it out, or choosing the wrong power-up at the wrong time.
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As per usual in the Gradius series, the weapon power-up system has the player collecting power-ups and deciding whether to save their use for something strong, or use them quickly to take advantage of something smaller now. When players start, they can choose to use their first few power-ups to boost their initial snail’s pace speed, or try and squirrel them away to get a multiple or two (or four), one of the distinct power-ups in the series that creates an invincible clone of your ship that follows you and mirrors your movements and attacks.
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Multiples (previously known in the series as “options”) are one of the biggest distinctions between the four ship “types” in the game. One setup lets you press R1 to halt their movement, allowing them to stay in a formation you find helpful. The second lets you press the R1 button to spread their formation to cover a wider area with gunfire, or bring them closer to focus your gunfire on one target. The third let’s you hold R1 and press a direction to change their direction of gunfire, making them uniquely capable of shooting in any direction. The fourth lets you press R1 to send them swinging wildly around your ship, hopefully protecting it in the process.
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Each of these ship types has merit, and players will certainly decide one or two of them are their favorites that best fit their gameplay style. Sadly, Gradius V is lacking the sheer variety of R-Type Final, and until you beat the game once (which may take a while) you won’t have the customizability of earlier games in the Gradius series either (Gradius III remains to this day my high water-mark for the genre). You only have the four styles mentioned above to choose from, and you have no way to mix and match if, for example, you like type 1’s multiple setup but want type 3’s double upgrade or type 4’s missiles.
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Despite this oversight, Gradius V’s level design, enemy layout, and overall game design is impeccable. Treasure lives up to their name as the undisputed king of the genre, and anyone who even has a vague fondness for the genre would do well to check this game out. Much like R-Type Final, the game has found its way to store shelves at a very reasonable price of $29.99. While I’d still argue that I like Gradius III better, this is still the best space shooter since Ikaruga. And if that means nothing to you, for shame.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ Bullets, lasers, and enemies! They're everywhere, man! + Best graphics ever to grace an old-fashioned shoot-em-up + Fantastic level design and enemy layout |
8.9 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Not enough variety/customizability in ship type (at least until you beat the game once) - It's haaaaaaaaard (some of you might want to add this to the "+" section) |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| This is the best space shoot-em-up since Ikaruga. 'Nuff said. | |
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Tags: Gradius V
Posted by Jake McNeill on Oct 19th, 2004 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
