RQ: Gradius help

For posting and requesting strategic gameplay tips on shmups!
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KNekoSpy
Posts: 63
Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2011 7:30 pm

RQ: Gradius help

Post by KNekoSpy »

I've beaten the NES version of this barely, but the Arcade version on MAME just seems to get me. I've never beaten it without some form of save-stating and I've been trying to do so without doing so, but stage 4 always manages to eat me alive. Even if I get there with full powerups and a shield some sneaky bullet manages to get by, and the walkers make my life hell because they prevent me from hovering near the ground or ceiling to kill all the stuff. There's just too many bullets and it's impossible to survive without a forcefield. Even worse seems to be stage 7, which is like the living definition of unfair. And if I die at either of them, it's game over because the game just won't let you recover, even if the 'rank' goes way down there's still too many bullets.
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Ruldra
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Re: RQ: Gradius help

Post by Ruldra »

The game gets tougher the more powered up you are. Experiment a bit with a powered down ship. Use only 2 options and no shield, for example.
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KNekoSpy
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Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2011 7:30 pm

Re: RQ: Gradius help

Post by KNekoSpy »

Fair enough, but what if I DIE on that stage? Should I just reset the game? I've never won with a powered down ship.
Estebang
Posts: 1437
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 8:22 pm

Re: RQ: Gradius help

Post by Estebang »

Yep, no matter what you've done, you're all but sentenced to death after losing a single life in Gradius. It wasn't until Gradius Gaiden that you had a fighting chance at recovering from a miss.

(This isn't quite the case in Nemesis, the European ROM, which grants you some capsule-dropping enemies at the start of every new life.)

The best strategy is the use of simple rank tactics: don't fully power up your ship in the first stage, do it gradually and put it off until later stages. You don't need that much power at the beginning, anyway.

As for myself, I would like to know how drastically a shield increases the rank, since it's something you'll get more than once.
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blackoak
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Re: RQ: Gradius help

Post by blackoak »

You can recover in Gradius, particularly I and II. Its just very hard and requires pinpoint economy and precision. Hard to do in a real run, but some of my funnest shmup moments have been dying 20+ times on a difficult Gradius checkpoint and eventually figuring out the recovery path. The shooting gameside special on Gradius mentioned this feature of the game as appealing to hardcore fans, actually...
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TLB
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Re: RQ: Gradius help

Post by TLB »

blackoak wrote:You can recover in Gradius, particularly I and II. Its just very hard and requires pinpoint economy and precision. Hard to do in a real run, but some of my funnest shmup moments have been dying 20+ times on a difficult Gradius checkpoint and eventually figuring out the recovery path. The shooting gameside special on Gradius mentioned this feature of the game as appealing to hardcore fans, actually...
Gradius Galaxies (GBA) has a feature that would be great in any Gradius port: There is a video for every checkpoint that demonstrates how to recover from scratch. Great for when you get stuck (or if you think a section is just fucking stupid and don't want to rage figuring it out, lol).
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