Arcade Archives: Gradius III (PS4|5 - Switch)

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Sturmvogel Prime
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Arcade Archives: Gradius III (PS4|5 - Switch)

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DANGER ZONE (PART XXX)
EXPLICIT DIFFICULTY


For the 30th "Chapter" of the Danger Zone series of reviews, I'll talk to you about the hardest arcade shmup known.
¿Have you ever wondered where and when the difficulty on arcade shmups passes from challenge to unbearable to OBSCENELY difficult?, Is anytime and anywhere where the arcade version of Gradius III is being played. ¿How does Konami's legendary shmup became an utmost exercise of trial and error that only a very few players could survive?


The arcade version of Gradius III?
Are you out of your mind?


The 30th entry of the "Danger Zone" series of reviews is gonna be an EXTREMELY dangerous one as your trusty reviewer Sturmvogel Prime will tackle (and suffer) the challenges of Gradius III, and dudes, this ain't gonna be a funny ride.



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It's the Gradius you always knew, but far more tougher than you remembered.

Let's start off with the positive parts of the gameplay. Faithful to its predecessors, especially Gradius II/Vulcan Venture, Gradius III offers you a weapon array where you can select presetted weapon configurations, and the option of picking if you want the frontal shield or a force field. As for the gameplay, Konami decided to keep and respect the formula that made Gradius the success it was: The basic, now trademark-of-the-series Power Bar that grants the player the option of selecting which upgrade he/she wants based on how many power up capsules were picked. One of the changes from the game was the inclusion of the Free Shield which is the two spinning stars of the original shield, now rotating around the Vic Viper. Not as effective as a Force Field since they leave open spaces for enemy bullets, but an interesting idea for an alternative. Also, the Mega Crush which was the blue capsule is now a new block on the power bar appearing as an exclamation symbol. Like in Gradius II, being able to pick weapon arrays before starting the game makes it more strategic than before, enhancing the traditional "pick Double or Laser" dilemma to a whole new level, adding more challenge and fun to the strategical gameplay the game already had.



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It's more than simple boss fights.

The levels are also improved in duration. While most of them retain the traditional self-scrolling all-linear trajectory, there's the exceptions where like in the previous two games where do you have to move throughout a multi-screened zone that scrolls up or down depending on your movement. This time they exploited that concept further by creating maze-like zones and digging segments like in stage 3 where do you have to be careful of not getting crushed by the rocks. Boss battles were also improved, example of this is again Stage 3 where do you have to fight spinning drones disguised as mountains before fighting the boss or like the Crystal Zone where the objective is to survive an onslaught of sentient crystal cubes that will try to kill you before hitting the wall, ceiling or ground. All of these situations forcely require you to be well powered up, basically having the laser and missiles equipped, which this time might be even more difficult due to the waaaay to high difficulty that reaches obscene levels of "I hate you" towards the player.



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It's the second level, and also the player's hopes final graveyard.

You'll probably ask me "Why Gradius III is an obscenity of difficulty, are you new?" No, but the game is notorious among arcade enthusiasts precisely due to its difficulty. To begin with, you have to be VERY sure of what are you going to upgrade on the Vic Viper, since lacking of one key weapon could lead to a Game Over easily. For instance, choosing between activating the Missile or pick more capsules for an Option. My strategy is to pick two Speed Ups, then the Missile and all the Options possible in Stage 1. Not having a missile in that stage will be a hell of a lot of trouble, that's how climbed up on difficulty the game is. But if you've thought that was hard, wait for the next level. Being the Bubble Zone (Stage 2) infamously difficult as the bubbles take a lot of hits and if you don't have the Laser, you'll be overwhelmed almost instantly. Along with the bubbles, the enemies will be firing even more bullets at the point that we can consider Gradius III as the precursor of the Bullet Hell genre. Bullet Hells can be challenging, but in this game is a nightmare considering one critical, key aspect of the game: The Vic Viper's hitbox. It is basically the whole sprite, so there's no room for errors. The hitbox is gonna be the least of our problems in Gradius III, because that's only the beginning of how cruel this game is gonna be.

Fair warning: Dragon Spirit is fun compared with this.



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Compilation of "Out of Control" moments of the game.

After playing the game, I've found more levels of villany. The Moai stage is a mess even with your ship well armed because there are sections between asteroids where the big Moai heads can trap you and kill you in a crash, along with the energy ring spam they spit. The fire stage is insanely hard since it constantly throws you these fireballs that split into three and they come in several-at-once. Combined with the regular bullet spamming enemies, is basically instant Game Over since your shields wouldn't be enough to withstand the level unless you're some kind of God level superplayer. The Crystal stage is the second worst of the game, as we have crystal cubes that suddenly change their trajectory and they seem to have an auto-aim since they redirect their trajectory to an almost instant collision course with the Vic Viper. Even if you have the Speed Up powered 3 times, that might not be enough to guarantee your survival. But the mother of all problems is the final stage, that combines all the problems from previous stages and add new ones like the collapsing ceiling and floor traps, floor and ceiling ties that detach and fly towards you and don't even get me started with the self-regenerating wall segment. If all that difficulty wasn't cruel and downright unfair enough, the game has no continue option if you lose your lives. You'll say "Oh, old games lacked of continues, Remember Alien Syndrome on the Master System?" Well, yeah. But there you had better chances of making progress before dying and starting over, but here is like facing the 10 most difficult levels in Gradius history combined with overwhelming numbers of enemies, precise navigation and lack of continues. In fact, this game is infamous because its overall difficulty forced Konami to pull the game out of the arcades as if they were saying "We fucked up", and what a wise choice. Better pull it out before arcade cabinets were broken on anger rants. We all know that arcade machines are money gobblers and that's why the operators ramp up the default difficulty, but that's why the continue feature was invented, to keep you in the game and give it another shot until you ran out of quarters or you pull the plug and play something else. In other words we are having "Show Stopping" problems. You could try to pick the Beginner Mode which drops down the difficulty, but you can only play the first three levels, and as a player you don't want to do that. The Asian release reduces the difficulty, but its still highly difficult for the average player, not to mention it removes the Beginner Mode and for some unexplained reason it also removes the "Gradius Retrospective" intro sequence.

Into Action said on a gif "We only lose if we stop fighting". Unfortunately, that positivism won't apply on Gradius III where all hell breaks loose upon the player. After 10 tries or so, you'll realize this game is definitely out of your hands. But to quote Seymour Skinner from The Simpsons: "If life has taught me one lesson repeatedly, it's to know when I'm beaten." So ¿Why I'm still fighting with this game?, even Konami gave up on it. But the best way to sum things up is with a quote from the Angry Video Game Nerd "You have better luck playing Silver Surfer with the Power Glove".



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Pick one of the Gradius III Starter Decks or "Make your Own".
It's your choice, buddy.


To be fair, it had some positive aspects despite the absurd difficulty. The first one is the Weapon Select, which allows you to pick a preset weapon configuration or make your own configuration on the Edit Mode, where the game introduces the "!" which results most of the times on downgrades like Speed Down, Normal (reset Vic Viper's weaponry) and "▲ Option" (pronounced "Remain Option") which trades your spare lives for Options. It also adds new shield configurations like the Free Shield (Rolling Shield on the SNES port) and Reduce which shrinks your ship making it hard to hit.



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*"City 202" plays in the background*

Another exclusive feature of this game was the inclusion of the High Speed Dimension, which was an After Burner II-like 3rd view level where do you have to navigate through the canyon while picking power ups. It lacks of enemies, but its still fun enough to navigate and is both a breath of fresh air and a relief, first because we're witnessing something new on the Gradius franchise, and is a relief because is the only moment in the game which you can truly relax since there's no enemies to spam bullets upon you.



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Hamster and Konami knew this was gonna be tough, so they've made a "Training Mode" for you.

Maybe it was because of its difficulty that the game wasn't ported to computers and consoles, with the exception of the Super Nintendo, where the game had its first home port back in 1990 when the SNES was on its early days. While it had the majority of the key aspects of the game, the game's difficulty was rebalanced and added limited continues. But those changes had a cost for the SNES port: Some stages were trimmed like the volcanic cave, changed like the Moai stage, replaced like the High Speed Dimension which became the High Speed Zone and both Cell Planet and Crystal Zone were removed entirely, along with the historical introduction sequence in favor of a new one showing the Vic Viper taking off. But aside of that it was a solid port of the game as it kept the visuals and most of the music, proving that Konami was indeed capable of bringing arcade faithful ports on the Super Nintendo (and that was 1 year before porting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time). While we've grew with the SNES port, the first "Arcade Perfect" was released on the PlayStation 2 as part of Gradius III & IV, where for our surprise, it was based on the Asian version, but it was also enhanced because it carried the SNES exclusive weaponry on Weapon Edit throughout the "Extra Edit" option, making it the "Definitive" version of the game. Konami also noticed that the PlayStation 2 was very advance and it will kill the slowdown/lag of the original arcade and implemented a player adjustable "Wait Time" which emulated the original arcade rate. On 2006, it was re-released on the PlayStation Portable as part of Gradius Collection, along with Gradius, Gradius II, Gradius IV (again) and Gradius Gaiden. After that, the game didn't saw another release until December 24th of 2020, when Hamster released Gradius III as part of the Arcade Archives series. On this release, you'll be able to play (along with Hi-Score and Caravan Modes), the "Old" and "New" Japanese versions, the Asian version that rebalances things, and the Hamster-exclusive Custom Mode which allows you to do adjustments to learn a little about this game, and gives you the option to remove the annoying Option Hunter and adds a Wait Time like in the PS2 port. Hamster also added the save state function which is gonna be an upper hand for those who want to play the whole game, and for obtain the main trophies 'cos they'll require you to get up to 400,000 points (basically survive 8 stages in one shot). Good luck on getting those ones without the save function.



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This stage is the best part of the game.

Graphically, this game was meant to be "Gradius at its finest" with surprising graphics which were very impressive for Konami's "back then" standards, being the Crystal Zone (Stage 9) which takes the most praise of the whole game due to the three dimensionality of them when they spin along with the speed effect when they're on movement. This also applies to the giant Moai heads that drop heads on the floating asteroids. For 1989, this was very impressive without relying on early polygonal games such as Atari's S.T.U.N. Runner, and it was a great competitor to other arcade games out there, especially Namco which was innovating with Assault, Metal Hawk and Ordyne.



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As nostalgic as the NES cartridge I've rented a lot of times back then.

The opening sequence is very nostalgic as it features a small retrospective comprising Gradius, Salamander (Life Force) and Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou before leaping into 1989 with Gradius III. Neither the Asian version or the SNES release carried it, making it a Japan exclusive. The sound department is as great as it was before, with fantastic upbeat, adventurous and sometimes epic soundtrack that combines drums, keyboards with electronic sounds in a spacey way to fill the outer space theme of the game. The game improved on the clarity of the voice samples making them sound more real, especially on Bacterion's death speech.


CURIOSIUS III


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I'm finally done with this game!

- This is the lone time in the series where the Double can be upgraded
(Spread Shot in Edit Mode).
- It is also the single instance where the double had "controlled aim" capabilities
(Edit Mode's Freeway).
- The Weapon Edit feature was carried onto later "main" games such as Gradius V.
- This is the lone example in arcade history where a game was pulled out by its developer due to difficulty.
- The first wave of "Ice Blocks" on the ice cubes stage are shaped like the Tetris blocks
(now known as Tetriminos).
- Many characters of the game suffered renamings on the SNES localization: Vic Viper was named as M.A.X.
(short for "Modulated Artillery Exalter"), Goliath became "Earwig Scorpion", Big Core MK III was "QB2B", and Vulture Dragon became "Gorgon" and "Two-Headed Scorch Serpent".
- While Vulture Dragon's scattered remains don't hurt the player, they are lethal in the SNES version.
- Second appearance of Death MK II.
- Big Core MK III, Big Core MK II, and Tetran will later reappear on Gradius V, while Death MK II returned on Gradius Gaiden.




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...and don't ask me to play this again, Nina.

While being a cult classic among the shmup community, Gradius III is the ultimate exercise of difficulty for those who want a triumphal consagration after clearing the ultimate challenge that surpasses any "R-Typer" level of difficulty known to man.
If you're looking for an enraging challenge that surpasses Dragon Spirit, then that's the Arcade version of Gradius III. But if you want to play Gradius III without being stressed, you'll be way better with the SNES version.


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In the Lea Scale, this means "For Gods and Pro's only. Casual players stay away from it".
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