Games with the worst Gradius syndrome

[Creamy Goodness]

Besides the actual Gradius games, what games would you say give you very little chance for survival upon death?

[Steven]

Tatsujin Ou

and pretty much any non-MOSS Raiden

[copy-paster]

the original set 1 version of Raiden, seriously what the hell were they thinking? was it meant to be a nod for toaplan shmups they inspired from?

[Steven]

lol ninja'd with Raiden

But Toaplan games have brilliant checkpoints, except 1P Zero Wing and Tatsujin Ou. Uemura/Yuge Toaplan games are basically the anti-Gradius.

[MJR]

Toaplan is THE conpany who made recovery a fun challenge. Figuring out how to survive is part of the fun.
Same applies for Gradius 1 and Gradius 2 and R-Type games.

Raiden and Salamander dont have checkpoints, which can lead to annoying chain deaths.

I guess this topic should be renamed ”games with annoying checkpoints”?

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

nah. gradius syndrome isn't just annoying checkpoints, its also savage de-powering.

[Sumez]

Bubble Bobble

Losing your shoes and fast bubbles on a late-game stage can be a complete death sentence

And being so deep into various powerup triggers at that point, it's probably not likely you'll see either again for a loooong while.

[MJR]

Bubble Bobble

Losing your shoes and fast bubbles on a late-game stage can be a complete death sentence

And being so deep into various powerup triggers at that point, it's probably not likely you'll see either again for a loooong while.

That I can actually agree with. Unless you have a secret code for permanent powerups, why even bother trying seriously. The whole game seems to be designed around the fact that you need to find the codes.

All this being said, we DID 1-All the original arcade game with my workmate when we had it in the office back in 90's, when it was being converted to PS1 / Saturn (the less is said about these conversions, the better. Acclaim wanted to use code from Amiga/ST versions to save money)

[Steven]

nah. gradius syndrome isn't just annoying checkpoints, its also savage de-powering.

I think you could strongly make a case for it being just the de-powering. All you really need to do to back up that case is to look at any game with speedups + instant respawn where you'll chain death to game over upon your first death because you lost your speed, or something like Raiden DX where you're more or less screwed the moment you die, especially because lol no score extends. At least, that's how Raiden DX feels to me.

[Sumez]

Agreed for once. I've never seen "Gradius syndrome" as refering to checkpoints at all. Though the checkpoints definitely can contribute to making regaining power more difficult, which counts.

[velo]

Toaplan is THE conpany who made recovery a fun challenge. Figuring out how to survive is part of the fun.
Same applies for Gradius 1 and Gradius 2 and R-Type games.

It's ironic that Gradius is not a strong example but imo recoveries are awfully rough in the latter half of the original R-Type. R-Type 2 is much more reasonable.

Toaplan is usually fair, but disheartening. Dying on the halfway/end boss of K Tiger is a personal one for me. It's easier to do the trick where you back up and die again to be sent back to the previous checkpoint.

Bubble Bobble

Losing your shoes and fast bubbles on a late-game stage can be a complete death sentence

And being so deep into various powerup triggers at that point, it's probably not likely you'll see either again for a loooong while.

Is there a dummy's guide to Bubble Bobble around here? (probably)

[pegboy]

Twin eagle. Even with the instant powerup bug its still a nightmare and nearly impossible unless you are near the very end of the game.

[Jonpachi]

Sideways take: DDP DOJ. Break a chain > Lose tons of points > Lose the ability to hit the score-based extends > RESTART.

It's almost worse than normal Gradius syndrome as you can't really just tough it out, get a lucky break, and get back into the fight. Rather, if you mess up your Stage 2 chain you instantly know that you just threw tens-of-millions of points the trash that you can never get back and now your ability to unlock score based extends has been threatened as well.

[bobhasashotgun]

I'm going with "Detana!! Twin Bee." Trying to juggle bells, underpowered, while fighting off a swarm of fruits and veggies, is just the worst.

It's a big reason why people avoid this game these days.

[Sumez]

Is there a dummy's guide to Bubble Bobble around here? (probably)

A BB-and-related thread would be cool. But I don't like to make dedicated threads like that about subjects which aren't shooters

I did a small rundown of some of the scoring stuff here, but it's a little erratic.

I actually also wrote a small guide for the game, with some stage-specific strategies that I worked out, but it's WIP and was never posted anywhere

[Gojiguy]

I don't know if I'd call it the "worst" but in Darius II if you die you lose everything: all 8 shot levels, all 6 bomb levels, and all 7 laser levels.

So if you die when you're fully powered up, you're reduced to an awful pea shooter and it'll take a miracle of 21 powerups in perfect distribution to get back to full power. I don't think that's actually possible on a run, so if you die fully powered up, you will never get fully powered up again.