Gaiden for sure. Gaiden was the bridge between the older Gradius games to the newer Gradius games.BulletMagnet wrote:For "classic" Gradius I'd recommend Gaiden, or maybe the SNES version of III, as others have mentioned. For something a bit more "modern" feeling, go with V.
Gradius questions
One thing that always bugged me in V is that they didn´t really seem to have grasped the Gradius formula. Because while it seems that being able to recover your options helps tremendously, this doesn´t help you much when you´re in the middle of a bossfight and back to your soulcrushingly slow default speed and without lasers, thus robbing you of your real weapon in the game. Dying here was a lot worse to me than in Gaiden. They should have dropped this and instead give us selectable ship speed (like in R-Type Final) and maybe don´t make the laser so mandatory.
I think the best idea Treasure had was the Freeze type options, those are really fun and actually take some skill to use. The design changes in Gaiden (first and foremost being able to edit your weapon bar) seem much more sensible to me. It´s pretty much what we discussed over in the Treasure thread: They tried to make a game all flashy and epic, and certainly the bend lasers and elaborate levels make it seem like the best Gradius ever, but after I played 1,2 and Gaiden (yes, I actually played those AFTER V, it´s this "late to the party" phenomenon where you´re playing the shmup history in reverse) it struck me how unbalanced V feels compared to the these games.
I guess the one thing Treasure did with V was make a Gradius game for people who don´t like Gradius.
"Intermezzo" is still one of my favourite VGM tunes, though.
I think the best idea Treasure had was the Freeze type options, those are really fun and actually take some skill to use. The design changes in Gaiden (first and foremost being able to edit your weapon bar) seem much more sensible to me. It´s pretty much what we discussed over in the Treasure thread: They tried to make a game all flashy and epic, and certainly the bend lasers and elaborate levels make it seem like the best Gradius ever, but after I played 1,2 and Gaiden (yes, I actually played those AFTER V, it´s this "late to the party" phenomenon where you´re playing the shmup history in reverse) it struck me how unbalanced V feels compared to the these games.
I guess the one thing Treasure did with V was make a Gradius game for people who don´t like Gradius.
"Intermezzo" is still one of my favourite VGM tunes, though.