Gradius (NES) Second Opinion Review

Gradius begins with the player assuming control of the Vic Viper. At first, the spacefighter has very little along the lines of mobility, offence, or defence, but collecting power-ups from defeated enemies allows the advancement of a "power meter" at the bottom of the screen. This meter has several options that can be chosen from: "Speed Up", "Missile", "Double", "Laser", "Option", and "?", each of which grant specific benefits when selected with the A Button.

At the end of each of the seven levels, a powerful boss enemy is fought, and each one has a weak point called a "core" that must be destroyed to defeat it. As progress is made, the bosses get crafty with how they defend their precious cores, forcing navigation of the flak-filled battlefield and waiting for an opportunity to strike.

Losing a life carries a heavy price: not only are you set back to the last checkpoint you passed in the level, you also lose any power-ups you were carrying at the time. Speed-ups, lasers, and options: all gone. If you had a power-up on your meter when you died, you were allowed to keep it, but it was set to the "Speed Up" slot on the meter. If you died in one of the later levels, you could consider your run finished, for continuing in Gradius is a painful and gruelling experience: without power-ups, players are hard-pressed to survive for any period of time.

Thankfully, a programmer testing the game also thought so, for he left behind something for players to discover: a special code that, when input on the controller, granted the player a slew of power-ups to ease their progress through the game. A code that has since passed into pop culture immortality: the Konami Code.