Games - Gradius series

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	Games - Gradius series

Gradius is a popular series of scrolling shooter games produced by Konami for a variety of portable, console and arcade platforms, and is synonymous with the expression "Shoot the core!".

Reccuring gameplay elements

There are several gameplay elements that are common to almost all the Gradius games. These include, but are not limited to:

Core Warships: A central part of Gradius. Cores are usually blue, glowing masses of energy hidden within large warships and protected by several barriers. All cores must be targeted in order to defeat a warship, which normally comprises several different phases and often uses the terrain to its advantage. In addition, the announcer taunts the player to "destroy the core!" prior to an encounter with a warship - a feature that has since become a trademark of the series.

Moai: For some reason these famous statues appeared as enemies in the first game. They are mounted on either side of the ground (which are flat free-floating platforms) and fire a series of colorful rings at the Vic Viper. The weak point is at the mouth, when open. Because they face at an angle or lie flat on the ground, the up-facing Moai are best destroyed with missiles. Since then they have become so intertwined with the series it is not uncommon for them to cameo in other Konami games. There have even been four games where the Moai have even been a playable character. The first being in an action platform game with Konami characters called Konami Wai Wai World and a platform/puzzle named Moai-kun, both for the Famicom. Later, they appeared in a racing game titled Konami Krazy Racers for the Game Boy Advance
and in the fighting game DreamMix TV: World Fighters for the Nintendo GameCube
and PlayStation 2
. It should be noted that Moai are absent from Gradius V.

Easy Final Bosses: Unlike other scrolling shooters, as well as many video games in general, the final boss of most Gradius games is surprisingly easy given the difficulty of the final stage and previous bosses. The final boss is usually brain-like in appearance and occassionally taunts the player in a brief "this is only the beginning"-type speech prior to destruction. They can usually be vanquished by shooting once at a number of cores without any retaliation from the boss.

Multiple Loops: After the credits roll at the end of the game, the game restarts at the first stage with the Vic Viper stripped of all power-ups. The difficulty increases with every loop as enemies gain greater speed and projectile capabilities. This cycle continues up to the limit specified by the arcade operator and indefinetely for console versions until the player exhausts all reserve ships and chooses not to continue.

Series

Gradius

(1985) - Originally released as an arcade game, and later ported to other platforms. It is known to exist on the following platforms: Nintendo Famicom, Nintendo Entertainment System, MSX, NEC PC Engine, Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation and computer (Saturn, Playstation and computer version are all packaged with Gradius 2 as Gradius Deluxe Pack). In some areas, Gradius was released under the name Nemesis.

Important: "Gradius" (original arcade version) and "Vs. Gradius" (based on the Famicom/NES version) are two separate arcade versions of the same game, the difference being that the Vs. version had two sets of controls, where the original had one set shared by two players in turn.

Gradius 2 (MSX)

The MSX Gradius 2 is unrelated to Gofer no Yabō (which used the roman numeral 'II'). Instead of controlling Vic Viper, the available ship is called Metallion. This game also has some semblance of a storyline, which it is told by cut-scenes. The gameplay is mostly unchanged from the rest of the series, though there are some powerups that temporally gives the ship some enhancements. In addition, when the bosses are being defeated, if the Metallion flies where they are, a mini-level can be accessed in order to obtain new permanent upgrades, assured that the mini levels are successfully cleared. This version was ported to the X68000 computer under the name Nemesis '90 Kai, with some graphical and aural enhancements.

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