Salamander III announced for Gradius Origins for Switch [by M2] - Coming August 7, 2025

[BulletMagnet]

Back on topic please. If the beef must continue take it to PM.

[To Far Away Times]

Played a few hours of Salamander III last night. Kinda disappointed, not gonna lie.

There’s a lot of “hey remember when…” from various Gradius and Salamander games with the stage design and not a lot of new stuff going on here. The game is supposed to be a “what if” sequel to Salamander II but the music and visuals are far worse than it’s predecessor. The game isn’t building off Salamander II, in fact it feels like it’s going backwards. The ship respawn is all sorts of fucked up, with both a long delay for respawning and short invincibility period when you finally do respawn, which leads to chain dying despite this being a game where you can pick up your dropped powerups. There’s also way too many enemies that come from behind and there’s all sorts of cheap shots and surprises. The remake of Salamander’s stage 4 is especially egregious with the enemies coming from behind while you’re stuck clearing the way in front of you.

If we are going to do speed up powerups in the year of our lord 2025, can we atleast have a speed down powerup too? Even two speed ups feels like too much, so picking up a second one at any point feels like it will lead to deaths in the future.

I played a few hours and then decided to credit feed to the end. I couldn’t even tell when the final boss was attacking me and when the dragon snake things where active or not.

Come on man.

I really like Salamander I & II quite a bit. I think they’re some of Konami’s finest shmups that aren’t named Xexex or Axelay. But this game isn’t it.

[AGermanArtist]

I like it, but wouldn't say I'm crazy about it. It just doesn't feel fleshed out. I'm glad it exists, but I've had more fun playing GanaBlade recently, which cost me €4. I don't feel short changed by Salamander 3 as such, I just wish there was more of it.

[Cakestial]

I like it, but wouldn't say I'm crazy about it. It just doesn't feel fleshed out. I'm glad it exists, but I've had more fun playing GanaBlade recently, which cost me €4. I don't feel short changed by Salamander 3 as such, I just wish there was more of it.

Surprised it has no quick save/load, and no replays. The older games have it but not the new one? Only big negative of the collection, the rest is all good.

[EmperorIng]

Are there any differences between Bubble Rom Gradius and the "normal" version? I tried bubble for a spin last night and limped into the final stage before losing the credit. It felt a little harder with wonkier hit detection than I remember gradius to be but maybe it's just been a while.

[Despatche]

Far as I remember, the Bubble System version is just an earlier release of Version A, which is considered to be the original and common Japanese version. The American version is considered to be Version D. The European version, which MAME insists is specifically a UK version (are there others?), is considered to be Version E. I don't know if Versions B or C have ever been released to the public, but the American prototype in Origin might be one of these. I doubt anything beyond Version E exists.

Pretty sure there's only the one Bubble System version as well. The ROM version was specifically a port of the Bubble System version to get away from that platform altogether.

[Steven]

Played Salamander III for the first time in a while today. I think I dislike this game more every time I play it. It's... fine, I guess, but I don't really like it that much. It veers wildly between putting me to sleep and chain deaths, which is a terrible combination. Loop 2 seems better aside from increased chain death potential, but I don't feel particularly compelled to play through the first loop just to get to the part where the game becomes better. I also feel that visibility is quite poor; most of my deaths are due to stuff I don't even see, which is frustrating because I'll be doing fine but then suddenly explode to seemingly nothing, wait forever to respawn, respawn inside a mess of shit, iframes run out, die again, and maybe do it once more. Instant respawn + speed ups has always been and always will be miserable; checkpoints are much better.

The music is also WAY too quiet! I can barely hear it! Sometimes can't hear the announcer dude very well either. I think the sound effects are too loud and of course the only audio option is master volume.

[MJR]

Played Salamander III for the first time in a while today. I think I dislike this game more every time I play it.

Loop 2 seems better aside from increased chain death potential, but I don't feel particularly compelled to play through the first loop just to get to the part where the game becomes better.

Once you get to loop 2, you can select it when selecting your start stage and loop by pressing fire + start after feeding credit.

And yeah, loop 2 is much cooler but hard and you cannot continue

[Jonpachi]

I was sure Salamander III would by my GOTY, just as GG Aleste III was when it launched but it's just not holding up. The game is frankly a mess, and they've papered over the big holes in their systems and level design by dumping lives on the player. It's a weirdly amateur effort.

[Steven]

Played Salamander III for the first time in a while today. I think I dislike this game more every time I play it.

Loop 2 seems better aside from increased chain death potential, but I don't feel particularly compelled to play through the first loop just to get to the part where the game becomes better.

Once you get to loop 2, you can select it when selecting your start stage and loop by pressing fire + start after feeding credit.

And yeah, loop 2 is much cooler but hard and you cannot continue

Yeah but it disables score submissions. Not that anyone probably wants to play this for score, but you know...

I was sure Salamander III would by my GOTY, just as GG Aleste III was when it launched but it's just not holding up. The game is frankly a mess, and they've papered over the big holes in their systems and level design by dumping lives on the player. It's a weirdly amateur effort.

This has been a weird/disappointing year for shooting. Sonic Wings Reunion is one of the absolute worst arcade games I've ever played, no idea what to think about Cotton High Tension, Earthion might be fine but the initial version of the emulator that it came in was so bad that I refunded it after playing stage 1 a single time and never looked back, and Salamander III is, as you said, a mess. I don't think it's terrible or even bad, but it is messy and could have been better.

The best thing released this year so far is probably the demo for Tatsujin Extreme. lol that a demo takes first place so far. I guess it could be worse, but between Salamander III and Haunted Castle last year I'm starting to wonder if M2 should stick to getting external help from others to develop their new games like they did with GG Aleste 3. At the very least, I'd like to see Namiki make some more games, whether for M2 or otherwise, but he's sadly out of commission right now, so I doubt that that is going to happen.

[MJR]

If any of you read the translated developer interview about Salamander III, it was clear that they ran out of time. They kept building more and more features on the level editor and then were forced to rush the actual level design and balancing. Levels feel somehow overfilled, and the lives dumping feels like last-minute patch to fix the issue of chain deaths.

I still like the game a lot, though. It just isn't the same level of polish as previous Salamander and Gradius games. The name alone would suggest an extremely high level of polish.

[Steven]

Ah, they rushed it... yeah, that will do it. That is most disappointing. It's too bad that they didn't have more time because the foundation is very solid, and with a few fixes to what is already here this could be a pretty good game. Not an excellent game or even a great one, but a pretty good one. As it is, it's okay and definitely not bad, but could have been better. Hopefully they'll get to make another one to get revenge, or perhaps patch Salamander III to improve it.

[Warp_Rattler]

I never spent much time with the Salamander games before this collection. They make a really weird contrast to the Gradius games, which is a little disorienting when they share so much in their visual and audio design. One difference that feels really jarring is the approach to powerups. The start of any Gradius game (or your recovery after dying) means being methodical about what powerups you select first depending on the level (and actually being able to see the game's rank in the gadgets encourages me to put more emphasis on strategic selection and not just rushing to grab four options and the laser), but Salamander says, "here, here's full power in the first 20 seconds of the stage! Hope you managed to get all the formations!" I'm realizing this is necessary, because while recovering from a bad death has always been a challenge in the series, I've noticed a number of times across the Salamander titles where I'm forced into chain deaths because of a segment where there are waves of enemies, or rocks, or pink goo that are just impossible to overcome if you happen to tackle them with just the pea shooter and maybe an option or two. It's a design moment that feels like it transcends "hard/challenging" and instead arrives at "spiteful."

If we are going to do speed up powerups in the year of our lord 2025, can we atleast have a speed down powerup too? Even two speed ups feels like too much, so picking up a second one at any point feels like it will lead to deaths in the future.

This is always something that's bugged me about the Gradius titles in general--I find anything above one speed up to be too difficult to control, but frequently manage to select another speed up by accident during a hairy section when I'm not focusing on my powerup bar and think I'm activating missiles. The difference between the Salamander and Gradius titles is weird here, too. The ship is way too slow in Gradius without one speed powerup, but the default movement speed in Salamander feels a lot faster and I generally don't feel the need to get a speed up item. Collecting one item feels like it puts the movement speed right in between one and two speed ups in Gradius--I feel like I have a little more control, but fine course corrections are fairly iffy.

This collection has reminded me of one point of confusion I've had for years re: the original Gradius. I have memories of playing a version where flying through the "tunnel" in the split mountain of the first stage would reward you with a point bonus, but most versions I can remember playing in the past decade or so--PCE, Gradius PSP collection, Origins--don't feature that bonus. But the other night I played Vs. System Gradius, flew through the tunnel, and received the bonus. I'm assuming this means that it happens on the NES/FC port as well. Was this the only version of the game that included that point bonus, and through the unreliability of memory I've somehow assumed it was more widespread than that?

[Warp_Rattler]

(Also, double posting to break up wall of text):

Original Gradius, lasers vs. double shot? Long ago I assumed lasers were the way to go because they're clearly the most powerful, especially with a few options. However, over the years I've come to feel the vertical coverage of the double shot is better despite the slower firing rate. Seeing how a double vs. laser powerup affects the game rank has also pushed me towards avoiding lasers entirely.

Do folks tend to choose their preference and stick to it, or are there places where one is more effective than the other and swapping between the two is an encouraged strategy?

[LordHypnos]

(Also, double posting to break up wall of text):

Original Gradius, lasers vs. double shot? Long ago I assumed lasers were the way to go because they're clearly the most powerful, especially with a few options. However, over the years I've come to feel the vertical coverage of the double shot is better despite the slower firing rate. Seeing how a double vs. laser powerup affects the game rank has also pushed me towards avoiding lasers entirely.

Do folks tend to choose their preference and stick to it, or are there places where one is more effective than the other and swapping between the two is an encouraged strategy?

Speaking for Game Boy Nemesis (Probably not valid for other versions), I went Double the whole time. It's very likely that it's better here because there's just less stuff on screen, and maybe less tanky enemies or something. I felt like it made dealing with ceiling enemies much easier. In later Game Boy Konami Horis, you can get missiles that fire above and below, so I don't use Double there.

How do people generally feel about Ripple Laser as compared to Laser Laser in games that have that? I was playing NES Life Force at one point, but I was never really sure which to go with. I have been using Ripple in Game Boy Parodius, but that's because I'm using auto power ups to avoid the roulette, and playing as Octopus, because Octopus is cool.

[Jonpachi]

(Also, double posting to break up wall of text):

Original Gradius, lasers vs. double shot? Long ago I assumed lasers were the way to go because they're clearly the most powerful, especially with a few options. However, over the years I've come to feel the vertical coverage of the double shot is better despite the slower firing rate. Seeing how a double vs. laser powerup affects the game rank has also pushed me towards avoiding lasers entirely.

Do folks tend to choose their preference and stick to it, or are there places where one is more effective than the other and swapping between the two is an encouraged strategy?

It's very level-dependent in most of the games. I'll go Laser for 80% of the game, but there are some sections where Double (and the extra coverage) is a literal life-saver.