The boss cries that he used to be called Venom, which ties Gradius V back to the MSX games. It’s here that the circle completes and you meet your past self from the second stage – except this time, you fly through the top route and get to destroy the boss, finally completing the game. You solve this problem by transporting both yourself and the enemy vessel back in time. However, it requires that it be attacked from two different spots, and your single ship just isn’t up to the task. The game continues up until the eighth stage, where you encounter the same battleship that you conquered earlier in the game.

At the end, you help him open the final door to a huge monstrosity, then escape as the battleship blows up behind you. The other pilot instructs you to help him take down his target, so the two of you split up and take different routes – he takes the top and you take the bottom. Two vessels fly out – a gigantic battleship, and another ship that appears to be exactly like the Vic Viper. The second level begins with the opening of a wormhole. But what’s really cool about Gradius V is the time loop. The seventh stage is the usual final base level. The sixth stage rotates back and forth as you fly forward, with drains spilling green gas all over the landscape. The fifth level takes place in an asteroid field – usually a cliche in shooters, but the screen is littered with rocks flying all over, without even a hint of slowdown. The first level is a space station in orbit around Earth, and the second stage ends with a boss rush – relatively early for a Gradius game.

There’s a biological level, much like in the previous games, but that’s about it. And, for the most part, the “themed” stages are gone. Some of it looks absolutely fantastic, especially the army of pulsing Zelos cores floating above planet Gradius, but many of the stages lack the personality that the Gradius games are known for.Ĭompared to the previous Gradius titles, the stages are on the long side.

It has a hazy feel to it, consisting mostly of metallic browns and grays.

The graphic style is actually a lot like Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga, two of Treasure’s previous shooters. Gradius IV used polygonal graphics very sparsely, but they’re put to much greater use here, with dizzying backgrounds and fantastically designed bosses. The game is still played on a 2D plane, of course, but all of the visuals are 3D, thanks in part to a graphics engine provided by G.Rev, the developer behind Border Down and Under Defeat. On the surface, it looks and feel like the earlier entries, but there are numerous changes that drastically alter the way the game is played. For that, Konami brought in veteran game developers Treasure to design Gradius V. After the disappointing Gradius IV, the series needed a bit of a shake-up.

Gradius Gaiden