The future of Gradius

[popawell]

It seems that some people beleve Gradius V was the last, but they may be wrong. I heard that Sony will be releasing their latest playstation next spring. And it will incorperate a disc system that allows the discs to hold 1 GB. Like the PSP. Now, most games now hold and average from about 8MB to 35MB. The reason why Gradius 3 & 4 didin't have any more of the old gradius games. So imagine how big Gradius VI will be with all that memory to work with.
Yeah, im drooling over this thought too.

"DemmieBlonde!!!! OH YEAH!!"

[Metal Gear Okt]

Misconceptions about the PS3 aside, Gradius V was a cd-based game. Size definitely wasn't an issue for them. Hell, Ikaruga was only 16 megs.

That said, if you watched the interview with the Treasure guys on the Options DVD, they didn't seem too keen on making another Gradius game.

Now a new Axelay game on the other hand...

[captain ahar]

...would be a complete waste of time.

*look at me do my happy troll dance* da da da da, ya tah tah

[PFG 9000]

I doubt Gradius V sold very well, and I don't think Konami typically cares to cater to the smaller (and thereby "insignificant") portions of its fanbase. But then, I'm very surprised that they made Gradius V in the first place. Since they did that, perhaps there is hope for another one after all? Besides, Gradius V was fairly well received in the critical circles.

[Metal Gear Okt]

I'd say a new Parodius/Twinbee game is more likely.

[Ataru]

It seems that some people beleve Gradius V was the last, but they may be wrong. I heard that Sony will be releasing their latest playstation next spring. And it will incorperate a disc system that allows the discs to hold 1 GB. Like the PSP. Now, most games now hold and average from about 8MB to 35MB. The reason why Gradius 3 & 4 didin't have any more of the old gradius games. So imagine how big Gradius VI will be with all that memory to work with.

uh... none of that makes sense. A disk system would be foolish to use as ram (incredibly slow).

and, current playstation game discs can already hold many times more than 1 gigabyte, at least 4, maybe up to 9 or so.

[Metal Gear Okt]

It seems that some people beleve Gradius V was the last, but they may be wrong. I heard that Sony will be releasing their latest playstation next spring. And it will incorperate a disc system that allows the discs to hold 1 GB. Like the PSP. Now, most games now hold and average from about 8MB to 35MB. The reason why Gradius 3 & 4 didin't have any more of the old gradius games. So imagine how big Gradius VI will be with all that memory to work with.

uh... none of that makes sense. A disk system would be foolish to use as ram (incredibly slow).

and, current playstation game discs can already hold many times more than 1 gigabyte, at least 4, maybe up to 9 or so.

yeah, i'd say it's better not to argue with him over that.

[FatCobra]

How long was it between Gradius III and Gradius IV? Gradius IV was made in 2001(?), while III was made in 1985(?). Of course, you could agrue that all the Parodius and Salamander games were continuing the tradition, but I consider those spinoffs. (I know I left out Gaiden, we Americans never got it).

So you never know, I think if Konami whored Gradius in the past, they'll continue whoring it in the future. Besides, I don't think they'll let an icon like Vic Viper just simply die out. (If Konami had a mascot, it would be either a Contra dude, a Belmont, Goemon, a Moai, Solid Snake, or the Vic Viper).

[Ataru]

yeah, i'd say it's better not to argue with him over that.

but that seemed to be the center of his point, no?

[iatneH]

Here's hoping Konami whores Gradius over to the PSP.

[FatCobra]

Here's hoping Konami whores Gradius over to the PSP.

Gradius would do pretty well on the PSP don't ya think?

I'm suprised that there is little shmup support on any of the current handhelds. Shmups are a perfect example of short burst gaming.

[DeBurgo]

How long was it between Gradius III and Gradius IV? Gradius IV was made in 2001(?), while III was made in 1985(?). Of course, you could agrue that all the Parodius and Salamander games were continuing the tradition, but I consider those spinoffs. (I know I left out Gaiden, we Americans never got it).

err.. not quite. Gradius III was released in 1989 and Gradius IV was released in 1999.

And I'd be estatic to see another Salamander or Parodius game released, so I hardly consider them to be just spinoffs. Or heck, maybe they can do an entirely new horizontal shooter, that'd be great.

[WarpZone]

After Gradius V, it's difficult for me to see a...concrete idea for another game in the series, without rehashing mechanics and level designs over again. Perhaps there's some new idea involving the Options that somebody will think up, and/or perhaps there's enough "leftovers" from past games that could be dug up and refined and reinterpreted.

That aside, it's probably best to close the book on the series.

[PFG 9000]

How would releasing another Gradius be "whoring out" the series? Konami has released some eleven or so games across twenty years (not counting ports and spinoffs). This is nothing compared to series such as Megaman/Rockman, which now barely resembles its early installments.

Konami knows that Gradius will never be a cash cow (at least, not if it stays reasonably true to its roots). If they released a game a year for the next five years, all in the traditional Gradius style, it wouldn't be whoring out the series unless shooters suddenly became the new Grand Theft Auto of popularity.

[Ghegs]

Konami knows that Gradius will never be a cash cow (at least, not if it stays reasonably true to its roots). If they released a game a year for the next five years, all in the traditional Gradius style, it wouldn't be whoring out the series unless shooters suddenly became the new Grand Theft Auto of popularity.

The other option (hey, I made a pun) is to make a bastard child of Gradius and GTA - you can steal Vic Vipers, Falchion Betas, Lord Britishes, Jade Knights and fly them around in a mission-based environment. Using the Konami Code gives you a Moai head for your garage! Oh, and you can buy the services of the chick from the Salamander anime, then space her after the deed is done. It's TEH BRILLIANT!

...I should be shot.

[Metal Gear Okt]

Heh.

Seriously though, a "sandbox" type game in the ZOE universe would be amazing. And, of course, you could get the "V2" (the transforming Vic Viper from ZOE2).

[Minzoku]

The other option (hey, I made a pun) is to make a bastard child of Gradius and GTA - you can steal Vic Vipers, Falchion Betas, Lord Britishes, Jade Knights and fly them around in a mission-based environment. Using the Konami Code gives you a Moai head for your garage! Oh, and you can buy the services of the chick from the Salamander anime, then space her after the deed is done. It's TEH BRILLIANT!

...I should be shot.

*dies*

INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER, GHEGS

[Edge]

I agree with WarpZone that if Konami releases another Gradius game now, it would probably would be not very innovative. That's why I would like Konami (or Treasure) to wait a while before doing so.

But, I'd love to see a new Parodius game. It's really long since the last Parodius game (think 1996), so there should be plenty new ideas to the developers. This time they had a Metal Gear Solid level and some guest appearances from some other Konami games like ZoE their DDR. And maybe Treasure would work on the that too. (Guess I am dreaming to much)

Or any other awesome remakes like Axelay or a completely new shooter series.


Besides what is a "Sandbox" game?

[captain ahar]

Sandbox - a game that throws you in an environment and allows/encourages you to play with the system. ex: GTA, Mercenaries, Psi-Ops, many others.

and another Parodius or Salamander would make me die of excitement.

*you know i'm crossing my fingers*

[cfalcon]

"Now, most games now hold and average from about 8MB to 35MB"

and...

"The reason why Gradius 3 & 4 didin't have any more of the old gradius games."


Gradius is tiny. Like, size measure in kilobytes tiny. Other early games, like Lifeforce and Salamander, are similar. Recall that early SNES games were "4 Megabits". We now call that "500K". Neo games were "Max 330 Mega", meaning a little over 40MB as their theoretical max. Gradius III SNES was very small, Gradius III arcade similar (at least, from the perspective of 2005). They could have *easily* fit *every* Gradius game on that disk. Compilation disks could hold hundreds of games, and if you grab disks of ROMs, your home made one will often be orders of magnitude "better" than the ones you buy in the store.



There are valid marketing reasons why a consumer would rather have 1 to 10 games presented nicely than 100 games: the 100 games makes each game seem "cheaper". You can see this in the ROM scene where the sudden "wealth" of the gamers explodes into spending a lot of their time in some combination of:
(1)- Collect new games
(2)- Get tired of games very rapidly

These two are the kinds of behaviors you would expect about *anything*- wines, video games, cars, books- if you suddenly had a near infinite plethora of them dropped in your lap, and a society of people in a similar situation.

Additionally, if you think in terms of "tasks", buying a game at the store adds a task to your list, something like "play game a lot", "beat game", "learn how to beat up little kids at game", or whatever. This "task" is a pleasant one, but this goes out the window if you recieve or download 5000+ MAME games all at once- you can't add that as a "task".

At some level, everyone seems to know this, so careful marketting (and per-game charges) need to be applied to "keep the magic". If this upsets you, if this angers you, cool. Not cool like, "Hah I upset you!" cool, but cool like "You haven't given up on humanity and you have a sense that people should not devalue things because they have a lot of them" cool. From here my rant normally goes into how we'll never hit a post scarcity world because of attitudes like this, but I'll save it for another time.



Anyway, bigger disks will be used to give you more cut scenes, better graphics, more sound tracks, etc. But the storage medium is never ever the limiting factor in this age of optical media, it's generating extra sound tracks, creating cutscenes worth watching, etc.




^cfalcon

[Tony Gradius]

Anyway, bigger disks will be used to give you more cut scenes, better graphics, more sound tracks, etc. But the storage medium is never ever the limiting factor in this age of optical media, it's generating extra sound tracks, creating cutscenes worth watching, etc.

Yes.

[Edge]

I think cfalcon hits on some really good arguments there. WHY Konami should not put all Gradius games in one disc and he is right about the Mame-syndrom. Many people collect those roms and don't play them. The same happens if you have bought too many games at once. You may end up not playing all of them properly.

[popawell]

.....Well.
These replys make me feel really stupid right now.
Where do you people learn all this stuff? I need more edcuation in this area of gaming. They don't teach us this at school!!!!
I thought that most games are limited due to their memory capacaty of their disc or cartrage. I guess not.
I know how to play the games, but when it comes to technical stuff I crash and burn.
Someone shoot now, and make me happy.

If they did create a new Gradius game, mabie this time they will advertise it on the TV. When I did my final exam report for this year in Power Point presentation, I presented Gradius and other games like it (with a movie of Gradius V at the end). After everyone was done with their exams, about half the class was looking up the game and the websites that I presented(including this one) on their computer. The love of the shump is still there.

[lawnspic]

as long as treausure is at the wheel we will all be very fortunate, they truly are a very talented group of developers, and konami made a wise choice of putting there flagship shmup title in there hands. i hope they come back soon, these guys know shmups like no ones business. RS maybe hyped to death but it is still one incredible piece of work even almost 8 years later

[Marc]

I think cfalcon hits on some really good arguments there. WHY Konami should not put all Gradius games in one disc and he is right about the Mame-syndrom. Many people collect those roms and don't play them. The same happens if you have bought too many games at once. You may end up not playing all of them properly.

I half agree. A 100+ collection of any one company's coin-ops may be a bit daunting, and some of them certainly aren't going to get played properly.

But for Konami to keep drip-feeding Gradius/Parodius comps is milking it. How many games would there be on a complete Gradius arcade comp? Four/Five? Hardly over-facing the player is it?

The Taito (and on Xbox at least, the Midway) packs are a decent example of how these things should be put out.

[Edge]

Ok, for the Gradius series it wouldn't be so many games.
Your are right, it would be better if they had put all Gradius games on the collection.

But maybe some stupid managers at Konami were thinking:
-"We have seen how smart the manager at EA are, bringing all the unnecassary updates. So why don't we rerealise all classic Gradius games again. Every game on a disc seperatly sold."

-"Great idea! But let's bring Gradius 3+4 as a pack first, to introduce the players to that great games. So they want to play and collect all of them like Nintendo's brilliant managers have done with Pokémon."

-"Wow! I have another great idea, after we are done releasing all the old Gradius arcade games we just rerealise all console versions of Gradius again... ohhh and all the old Parodius games too and all other Konami Shmups. Or just rerealise any old Konami game. This way our fans have to buy our games until we are even richer than rich. And our fans? ... To hell with them who need those stupid idiots anymore when we have all their money. Oh yeah! We are so smart!!!" $__$


Luckily Japanese companies don't bitch so much around like EA.