Seminal shooter! The equivelant to the Mona Lisa in art, although possibly of greater significance in the furtherment of mankind. Plauged by a bit of slowdown and showing its age a tad, no shmupper should be without a copy of this piece of history.
A classic. There's quite a bit of slowdown at times, but the game remains very playable and fun. It's not as merciless as some of the later titles in the series, recovering from death is quite doable even in the second loop. As a bonus, there's an exclusive new level, making the game one stage longer than the NES port or arcade original.
If you need to read a review of Gradius to make you decide whether to buy it or not then you should have your head examined. It's Gradius for Chrissake. Konami. Gradius. As famous a classic as it gets for this system or any other retro system worth its salt (well- okay- there is Space Invaders).
A great game and possible the most important shooter of the '80's arcade scene. This was amazing at the time! A near arcade perfect conversion on my home system!! True, it suffers from some terrible slow down, but this can help you when the action is coming at you thick and fast. The sound, in particular is fantastic and sounds brilliant on the Engine. I have other ports of this on the Sega Saturn and PSP- somehow the Pc Engines music just sounds finest here.
Every games collector should have it and play it at least once periodically...Aahh, the memories of smoky arcades in the summer and a happy youth!
Certainly worth it, still one can't forget how late this port was made and the fact that contrary to other PC-engine carcade conversions this came out while people were playing Gradius 3 in the arcades...(I already was a PC-engine owner back then).
Remember to get Gradius II on SCD too...
