(Subtitles/CC available for gameplay tips and additional comments)
Gradius Galaxies/Gradius Generation/Gradius Advance
©2001 Konami, Mobile21 Co, LTD

This is an update to my previous 1CC video of this game, which was recorded all the way back in 2016. I redid it to have a run that used OBS recording, didn't use the Vizzed RGR Plugin, and didn't have the Freemake watermarks at the beginning and end. Plus, I felt my overall Gradius skill had drastically improved since my original video.

A Gradius game on the GBA. Who would've thought?

Known as Gradius Advance in Europe and Gradius Generation in Japan (the localization teams really had some fun with this one), Galaxies is another one of those installments that's sort of under the radar. You don't hear about it as often as you do the numbered titles or Gaiden, but at the same time it feels more like a Gradius game than Gradius: The Interstellar Assault.

Given the constraints of the GBA, this game is actually pretty damn good in terms of design. One thing I like about each Gradius title is how they have the same basic formula, yet each game feels different from each other for the most part, and Galaxies fits this mold like a glove. It offers plenty of original ideas to make the game feel fresh while not departing from the general style and feel. Some of the bosses have really clever mechanics and certain stage elements (such as the volcano splitting apart in stage 4) bring brand new twists to familiar concepts. The 5000 point bonuses return, and are spread out throughout the entire game (though one of them is unobtainable without dying).

Unfortunately, the game design is about as clever as it is... frustrating. Most of the game isn't too ridiculous in regards to difficulty, but the parts that are difficult are among the most annoying in the entire series. Namely, the cell stage, which has to be one of the worst stages in all of Gradius. Your ship's hitbox is generous when it comes to terrain, but not so much with enemies or projectiles, and given the small resolution of the screen you can find yourself in tight situations pretty easily. Gradius syndrome is as present as ever with checkpoints, and as if that weren't bad enough, you get no extends. Great. In the past I circumvented this by bumping my starting life count to 5, but one of the reasons I wanted to redo this game was so I could have a run that started with the default life count of 3. Of course, that makes each death way more costly and limits progress potential, which just adds to the annoyance that is trying to get a good run of this game. Believe me, getting a run I was content enough with took longer than I care to admit.

The game does attempt to mitigate some of this. There's a Continue mode that allows you to start up to the highest checkpoint you've reached, and even a "Hint" mode that goes through every checkpoint and shows a pre-recorded demo on how to recover. Obviously, just knowing how to recover at a checkpoint doesn't make the execution any easier, but it's a nice feature nonetheless. The Japanese version also offers Challenge modes where you have to recover from each checkpoint to move on, a second mode that bumps the rank up to loop 3 level, and a Final Challenge that's one long high-rank gauntlet of enemies. I've never messed with those but perhaps in the future I will.

Like I said, it took many attempts to get a run better than the one I did almost 7 years ago, and even this could've been better. I barely managed to crack a million points, which was my goal, but I would've wanted to make further loop 2 progress. It's just insanely hard when you only have 2 spare lives to work with, and this game is slightly longer than your average Gradius game, making losing runs that much more of a pain. But, for now, I'll accept this, even though that stage 7 death is a blemish and the way this run ended is kinda pathetic.

Played using mGBA.

свернуть