Gradius V (Page 2)

The Vic Viper blasts its way into Kikizo - find out what we thought as we put Treasure and Konami's latest through its paces in our full review, with media.

	Version PS2	Developer Treasure / Konami	Publisher Konami	Genre Shooting

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After selecting one of the four weapon types, players are then thrust into battle against the Bacterion forces and charged with the seemingly impossible task of safely piloting the Vic Viper ship through 8 levels of intense intergalactic combat. The Vic Viper controls incredibly well even at the start of the game where your ship traditionally starts off slow and armed with a single vulcan cannon. But as you destroy certain groups of enemy ships, odd colored bacteria and asteroids among other things throughout the game, they'll leave behind power-up capsules that players will need to obtain in order to activate each of the weapons in their ship's arsenal.

The classic Gradius power-up meter is displayed at the bottom of the screen with slots containing the weapons that can be armed. How this works is that with each power-up capsule obtained a different slot will become highlighted. By collecting enough power-up capsules to highlight the corresponding weapons slot of your choice and pressing the power-up button you'll be able to arm the Vic Viper with lasers, missiles, multi-directional cannons(Double), a force field that provides you with limited protection, and a speed up function that can be used a number of times to speed up the movement of the Vic Viper ship.

While most of the weapons and features are self explanatory, the option units are invaluable aids during battle as each option unit your ship has serves as an extra set of guns so to speak, and you'll need all the fire power your ship can muster along with precision and finesse in the maneuvering department as you battle against a wide assortment of Bacterion enemy ships, organic creatures, and end level bosses that will put your skills to the test in trying to withstand their destructive beams and relentless laser assaults. Boss battles are quite spectacular and certainly more challenging in the early goings than in previous Gradius games as you'll face off against wave after wave of challenging end bosses that will test your skill by attacking in a multitude of ways.

Unlike in other games like R-type Final, in which you need better memorization ability than actual skill, Gradius V is a complete twitch-gaming dream, where only skilled players will survive.

Not only will you need to avoid getting vaporized by enemy fire and avoid crashing into walls or other objects and exploding into space dust, but there are other hazards that players will need to contend with like blasting their way through and avoiding the organic-like gas that fills the majority of Stage 6, weaving through the crazy barrage of space rocks of the fifth Stage, and surviving Stage 4's nightmarish organic walls that players will need to quickly plow through before they completely refill themselves and devour your ship ala Salamander & Gradius III.

One of the best things about Gradius V other than the amount of shooting madness thrown at players is the amount of nostalgic elements included in the game. Treasure apparently did their homework well as Gradius V contains recognizable elements from the entire Gradius and Salamander / Life Force series, and at times seems heavily influenced by games like Salamander 2 and Gradius Gaiden.

The organic nature of many of the levels, the option to have your ship instantly revive and recollect its option units after being destroyed instead of having to restart earlier in the levels, and the two-player simultaneous feature are all classic features of Konami's Salamander series, and have made their way into Gradius V with great results.

While the two-player mode is a welcomed addition to the Gradius series and Gradius V is the second game in the series - behind Gradius Gaiden - to contain such a cool feature, it's still not without its limitations. When playing in two player mode each ship is allowed less Option units than in the single player mode. So if you think both ships are flying into battle fully stocked, think again. Treasure has gone ahead and balanced things out so that both ships can have different Weapon arrays and be a devastating duo by working together as a team but individually aren't as powerful as they would be in the single player mode. In all fairness, someone's got to look out for Bacterion's best interest you know?

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