"Revenge of Moai" - prototype of Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou

[ave]

On a page that contains lots of scans of early Gamest magazines, I found this article about a game called "Revenge of Moai".

The headline says that this was the successor to Gradius and Salamander. The Gamest is apparently from 1987.
Note the big stationary Moai in a Gra1-stage-1-like area. The ship edit mode doesn't really look Konami arcadish IMO, rather MSX or similar.

I couldn't find any info on this early version of Gradius II, neither if I typed the name in English nor in Japanese. Has anybody heard of Revenge of Moai before, apart from the Gamest news?

[orange]

this looks ballin someone needs to get their hands on it

[Udderdude]

Who the hell is Kronomi? >_>

(yes that was a joke)

[BrianC]

I noticed that one screenshot has a bunch of Vic Vipers shooting at a Moai. Konami is also spelled as "Konomi", despite the original JP logo spelling it correctly.

[Ed Oscuro]

A joke?

The edit screen is probably just a grab of somebody's graphics editing station. If that's what Konami (Konomi) used in some of their early stuff, that's cool. Not sure whether I'd peg the artwork as Konami or not...it could be.

Who the hell is Kronomi? >_>

KRONOMI ThE BarBariaNess

[CIT]

Looks like an April Fool's joke.

Under "game description" it says that in this game you can only move forwards or backwards, and instead of you powering up, the enemy powers up every time he is hit.

[Shocky]

I noticed that one screenshot has a bunch of Vic Vipers shooting at a Moai. Konami is also spelled as "Konomi", despite the original JP logo spelling it correctly.

The logo is (intentionally) incorrect too.. it's clearly "Konomi", compare to this:
[Edit: oops, now I get what you were saying.. the same thing ]



What a cruel april fools joke

But there was a prototype version of Gradius 2 for the MSX. I still don't know the story behind it. In the ancient times someone claimed it was a "korean beta", but that sounds just.. illogical. Anyway, at least this prototype actually exists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ0KdoTByoU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMKiNBnUrFA

[ACSeraph]

Kind of an old topic to bring back from the dead, but this game totally exists. I found this topic in the search engine while looking for info about it.

I signed up for Japanese PlayStation Plus this weekend and have been downloading the vast vast library of free games available. One of the PS1 games was Konami Antiques: MSX Collection Volume 1.

Included on it (among other things) are Gradius 1, and Gofer no Yabou: Episode II which I assume is what this is. I looked into it more and it was apparently released in Europe in 1988 under the title Nemesis 3. Haven't played it much yet, but it seems like a big technical improvement over Gradius 1 MSX, which basically looks like someone managed to get the Atari 2600 to run Gradius.

[Ed Oscuro]

This is an old topic about what was (although the page is down now) clearly an April Fool's joke, with a bunch of random stuff.

You've got some details wrong about the release history.

Gradius = Japanese series name.
Nemesis = European and other world releases.
Gradius II = Nemesis II. Also remade in Japan only as Nemesis '90 Kai, confusingly enough.
Nemesis III = Gofer no Yabou: Episode II.

More confusion - for Game Boy, the series was called Nemesis in Japan, but Gradius elsewhere. Of course, these are different games.

Konami was good at doing stuff like this.

[trap15]

So Nemesis III is essentially "Gradius II 2"?

[Ed Oscuro]

Yes, I think that's right

I think Gradius on MSX (never played it) is a pretty straightforward Gradius / Nemesis port, but Gradius II / Nemesis II diverge wildly from that, and the third game ties the storyline back up.

[Mortificator]

I like how there are three totally different titles called "Gradius two" and yet none of them is the second game in the Gradius series.

[ACSeraph]

Damn this series is confusing...

But yeah you're right, Gradius 1 MSX is pretty much just the first game with atari graphics running at 10 frames per second, and Gradius 2 MSX, and Gofer no Yabou Episode 2 are completely unique games. They are well worth playing (despite being hellishly frustrating) if you are a fan of the series.

Like I mentioned before, you can get them on the Japanese PSN by downloading the PS1 classics Konami MSX Collection volume 1 and 2. If you have Plus they are both currently free.