![]() It’s all a variation on the typical, action-science fiction rock n’ roll found in these kinds of games. It’s just that none of it stood out to me beside for a few interesting riffs. I was surprised it had a soundtrack album release, since I didn’t really enjoy much of any of the music in the game. Gradius III’s isn’t so much awful as it is lackluster. If you were to ask me, I think they should’ve used the classy front of the soundtrack for the SNES cover art: ![]() There were better examples of what the SNES could do at launch, but gameplay takes precedence over visuals in G3. The backgrounds, particularly in the cavernous stages, are downright ugly and tiled. They’re so small, some of them, that you won’t be able to tell if you’re looking at a space flea or a jellyfish. While the bosses are detailed, most of the many enemies are tiny sprites. The rest of the game though doesn’t shimmer so much. Visuals: 4/10 While no longer as spectacular as they once were, the intro to Gradius III at least still shimmers with the glittering lights of space in a dynamic takeoff scene. There’s a lesson to be learned from Gradius III. I don’t know what this is but you’d better kill it. Dying on a boss sets you back but now you know what not to do next time. Often massive freakish machinery or hideous mutant-aliens, defeating the bosses requires pattern recognition (again) and determination. They’re the best part of the game, waiting for you at the end of each of the ten levels with their barrage of projectiles and handily glowing weak points. Then there are still the hundred-million other things that are out to get you: Sandlion-worms, bipedal Mechs, Space Bubbles, Flame Snakes, Squidward’s House on acid…Ĭhief among G3’s awesome weirdness are its bosses. That includes the walls, the floors and the ceiling. Most everything in G3 wants to murder you and not give you a hug. That doesn’t mean Gradius III is impossible. You also lose your upgrades when you die. ![]() They require you memorize enemy attack patterns and develop some efficient reflexes. Even this SNES port carries over that sense of game-time over narrative. All that matters that is you put in another quarter. The names are just place holders in a narrative that doesn’t need to make sense. Right away we recall that the point of G3 is really just to blow crap up. Pilot the Vic Viper starship and wage endless war against the spread of Bacterion. You must defeat the diabolical entities that plague Gradius and the surrounding planets. It is your mission to save all that is good in the universe. Who could have known that it would come down to this.Īfter a heart wrenching journey through the Gradian Desert Lands, you have come to terms with your fate. Your people are known throughout the universe as a good and peace-loving nation. History is important to the people of Gradius, as is all the higher pursuits of knowledge, art and music. Those were the days when it was just a chapter in your history book. ![]() You even got a toy Warp Rattler for your fifth birthday. That is, until now.īeing a good Gradian, your history class in primary school was the first place you heard of the ancient Heroic Missions to fight Bacterion. In the past, Bacterion has only had the power to rear its ugly head on a few isolated occasions. Feeding on the suffering of the innocent, it moves like a germ throughout the Galaxy, manifesting itself in unspeakably hideous forms. Bacterion, it has been called, is a malignant mass that has spawned all that is wicked in the universe. In the darkest quadrant of space there churns a vortex of Bad Vibes. In a galaxy far, far away where floating ground-clouds inspired Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, the story for the SNES version is as follows: It’s not complex or engrossing, or even as iconic as other space shooters in my opinion, but it possesses all of ornamentation of arcade games and everything that makes those coin-op relics of the past so delightful. ![]() Ported as a launch title in 1990, G3 can also be played on the PS2 and PSP. Gradius III ( G3) predated the SNES by a single year and it existed as a side-scrolling space shooter in Japanese arcades, published by Konami. It was overshadowed by Super Mario World. Known fully as Gradius III: From Legend to Myth, this game is important because it was one of the handful of launch titles at the SNES’s release. So to honor the Super NES, let’s talk about Gradius III. It was “super” by all definitions of the word. We remember the SNES for its dominance, accessibility, astounding and massive library with Nintendo franchises and third-party brilliance, and its 16-bit perfection. Happy Birthday, dear Super Nintendo! Recently the greatest system ever made turned 25. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. “It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. ![]()
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