Gradius



         


Gradius is a series of horizontally-based scrolling shooter video games developed by Konami since 1985. The player controls a spaceship called the Vic Viper, with the goal of destroying enemies while avoiding their attacks.

The games are level-oriented; the game world in each Gradius game is made up of several contiguous environments that are distinct from one another. Movement in each environment progresses from left to right until the end of the level is reached, at which point the player must challenge a boss character. If the player is successful in destroying the boss character, play continues at the beginning of the next level. Each level usually has a distinct visual theme.


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Power ups

When gameplay begins, the Vic Viper can only move and fire a relatively weak gun directly to the right. This level of capability is generally insufficient for fighting enemies, but the Vic Viper can gain greater capabilities by collecting and using power up items.

Gradius was the first shoot 'em up to use the 'selection bar' power-up method, which has since been adopted by many other scrolling shooters. While most arcade action games utilize distinct power up-items that each correspond to a specific effect on the player character, Gradius has a single power up item. The effect of this power up item is to advance the currently selected item in a power up menu that appears at the bottom of the screen. When the desired power up is highlighted, the player can obtain it by pressing the power up button, returning the menu to its initial state in which no power up is highlighted. In the original Gradius, this menu looks somewhat like the following:

| SPEED UP | MISSILE | DOUBLE | LASER | OPTION | ? |

Almost all power ups in the Gradius series are based on one of these. Explanations follow:

Home console and portable versions of Gradius spawned the now-legendary Konami Code, considered by some to be one of the defining elements of Gradius. The code (traditionally Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A; variants also exist), when entered while the game is paused, grants the player most of the available power ups. While this is essentially a cheat code, the player is only allowed a limited number of uses, suggesting that this is meant only as a limited adjustment of the difficulty. In most cases, the limit starts at one use and an additional use is granted for each completed level. An interesting exception to this rule is Gradius III for the SNES/SFC, where entering the original NES version of the code destroys you, rather than powering you up. Substituting L and R for Left and Right will grant the proper effect, however. While this is a well-known feature among Gradius fans, many video game enthusiasts more closely associate the "Konami Code" with the NES version of Contra, a later Konami game in which the code can be entered at the title screen to grant the player 30 lives.

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Games in series

There have been nine games that are direct members of the Gradius series. These are (note that the known platform listings are probably incomplete):

Gradius is related to the Konami series Parodius, a parody of Gradius that features cute or humorous enemies and environments as well as non-Gradius Konami characters. Another related series is Salamander (known as Life Force in the United States), which is considered a side story of Gradius, where Vic Viper is available to use. Also, a three-dimensional arcade game based on Gradius, Solar Assault (or alternately Solar Assault Gradius) exists, and there is also an arcade racing game that uses the ships from Gradius, known simply as Vic Viper (Japanese release only).

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About MSX versions

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Gradius

This game was later released as part of the Konami's Game Collection 3, which made use of the Konami Sound Cartridge. The game is the same except for the better sound and the passwords below do not work.

To use these passwords, press <F1> to pause the game. Type the password followed by <ENTER>. In each stage there is a password which gives you all weapons, which works only once.

Simply entering the name of the weapon also works:

And there are some passwords which always work:

There are four bonus stages in stage 2 through 4 and 6. To enter the bonus stage in stage 4, you must pass through the mountains in stage 1 and 4 (note that stage 4 is stage 1 upside down).

If you have Twinbee in another slot, the ship will like the one in Twinbee and the power-ups are bells.

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Gradius II

This cartridge had an on-board sound chip SCC to enhance the music. There is another version of the game available (only as a copy) which is known as the beta version. This version has two different stages and there are cheats available under the <F2>, <F3> and <F10> keys.

After you defeat the mother ship at the end of each stage (except stage 7 and stage 0), you can enter it. To do this fly into the space created by the destruction of the vertical beams. After a short stage you will get two, one or none extra weapons depending on how quickly you destroyed the ship. You receive the following weapons (in order): Up Laser, Down Laser, Napalm Missle, Reflex Ring, Extended Laser, Back Beam and Fire Blaster.

In the game you can have one weapon of three groups. Group A: Normal Beam, Extended Laser, Fire Blaster, Normal Laser, Reflex Ring, Double Beam, other item. Group B: Missle, Down Laser, Napalm Missle. Group C: Up Laser, Double Beam, Down Laser and Back Beam.

There are three bonus stages. The first is in stage 3 (fly under the slab supported by three pillars), the second in stage 6 (fly back into the blue dots when you have the rotatory drill) and last in the bonus stage of stage 6. When you reach a screen full of red dots and two slabs at the top, shoot away the red dots and fly to where the lower slab was.

There are some cartridge combinations which enable some cheats.









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