Gradius V (Page 3)

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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Where Gradius V differs a little from its predecessors is in the difficulty department where the challenge is high, sometimes even more so than the arcade version of Gradius III. And while it's one of the most challenging games on the market, it's never impossible or unfair. Coming off the heels of another horizontally scrolling shooter such as the disappointing R-type Final, in which difficulty was laughable at best (finished it without losing a life) I'd say that the high difficulty level of Gradius V is a welcomed challenge. The game starts players off with two continues, and like Ikaruga, players are awarded more continues after every hour of gameplay.

Other minor tweaks made to help improve the gameplay of Gradius V over its predecessors include the improved firing rate of the Vic Viper. No longer is the ship limited to having just 2-3 shots onscreen at a time, this time around, the vulcan cannon fires an almost never-ending stream of bullets. The Speed Up function has also received a few tweaks and has become much easier to control at higher speeds than previous Gradius games where you could only use the Speed Up power-up a handful of times with each life before the ship became too fast to control properly.

Other changes included in Gradius V are time limits placed on each boss battle. Borrowing another page from the Ikaruga handbook, bosses will eventually retreat if not destroyed within a period of time, adding a bit more challenge for those players trying for the highest possible scores they can get and missing out on some hefty boss bonuses because they took too long.

Of all the changes made in Gradius V, the most significant one has to be the absence of the infamous Moai levels with the annoying stone heads. While the Moais have always been staples of the Gradius series, personally I'm not sad to see them go as I always found them to be annoying and only served to slow the pace of the game down.

There's no doubt that Gradius V is a highly replayable title, and while shooters have never been known for being lengthy games and usually average about 20-35 minutes of gameplay time from start to finish, completing all 8 stages of Gradius V will probably take accomplished players close to an hour to do so this is not a short shooter by any means but the journey is quite rewarding.

Graphically, Gradius V is quite a visual feast. With the exception of Gradius Gaiden, Salamander 2, and Konami's fully 3D Japan-only Gradius arcade game known as Solar Assault, previous games in the Gradius universe were never ones to wow gamers with their graphics and Treasure has seen fit to change that. The game's visuals have been supercharged with a solid mixture of detailed 3D and 2D graphics, with backgrounds seemingly more organic than the mechanical look and feel of its predecessors.

On top of that, Treasure has injected some of Ikaruga's graphical flair into the game with big, beautiful explosion effects and sweeping camera angles that showcase some of the game's beautiful 3D backdrops.

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