This is tough, but more importantly, it provides the most damning evidence that Konami had no idea where to steer the series at this point. Stage 4 is a pseudo-3D affair akin to Space Harrier, slapped right in the middle of the game, where you do nothing but collect power-ups and dodge walls that zoom in from an absurdly low draw distance. Stage 9 forces you down tight corridors with sharp corners while formations of crystal cubes fly in from the right to seal your exits. And should you try to peacefully dodge the big rocks, enemies will soon flood the screen with bullets just as numerous. Stage 7, for example, is sustained completely by a constant barrage of falling meteorites they can be destroyed, but doing so only breaks them up into smaller, faster, more plentiful chunks, which cannot be destroyed.
This insanity manages to spoil what few new concepts are on display. But that philosophy was still prenatal way back in '89, and Gradius III's idea of difficulty is downright old-fashioned: waves and waves of bullets, coming from everywhere, to kill you forever. Modern shoot'em-ups, with all their bullet-hell curtain fire, at least have some kind of method to their mayhem amid the purple tide of enemy fire, carefully-designed safe spots and combo chains are waiting to reward any player tenacious enough to suss them out. Even with the DIP switches set for maximum forgiveness, it remains one of the most relentlessly punishing games ever made. Not only does Gradius III not care whether or not you like it, but it aggressively hates you. Unfortunately, stagnation is only the least of the game's issues. Remember that stage in Gradius II where you shot down huge crystals into increasingly smaller fragments? Well, you do it again in Gradius III, but now the crystals are bubbles! The regenerating organic matter from Salamander? Present. Just like how you shot a path through rocks in Stage 2 of Gradius I. Keeping traditions like the volcano stage alive is fair enough, but then the volcano stage unexpectedly takes you underground, where you get to.shoot a path through dirt. The creativity of the prior game is nowhere to be found, and most attempts to recapture it are just badly-disguised rehashes of what's come before. Unfortunately, past the disarmingly pious opening sequence, it quickly became apparent that Konami was fresh out of ideas. So when Gradius III came along with an introduction following the rise of the series while a synthetic choir chanted in the background (not to mention the grandiose subtitle "From Legend to Myth"), fans were assured that Konami had prepared a sequel well-suited to a brand that had come to command such gravity. With more inventive stages, more varied weaponry, and greater spectacles all around, it offered a huge leap for just a single iteration. After experimenting a little with Salamander ? (and Life Force, the spin-off of a spin-off), they built on Gradius's earthen foundation a glittering spire called Gradius II ?. Both games rightly received high praise, but while Namco never offered much in the way of Xevious sequels - originally at the insistence of its creator, Masanobu Endoh - Konami treated their baby like the star it was.
While not the first entry in their horizontal shoot'em-up series, Gradius ? defined a new standard over that of Defender, just as Xevious ? had advanced Gradius' Y-axis cousins beyond the single-screen scope of Galaga. Well, if you're Konami in 1989, you completely choke.Īgain, they didn't have it easy. But what if you were working on the latest in a series regarded as the herald of an entire genre, at the height of its popularity and expected to evolve the genre itself with each successive installment? In other words, what if you were making Gradius III? That might be enough, too, if you were allowed to be complacent. Not too hard, right? Just stay faithful to the design of the predecessor, add a new mechanic or two, and spruce it all up with some new audiovisual assets. Or, worse, imagine already having a great game on your hands - and then having to make the sequel.
And that's just analyzing a product that's already been completed! Imagine how mystifying it must be to try planning a compelling system of balanced elements from scratch. and sense its internal harmony, but it takes scholars to explain precisely how the scenery and colors and music and physics and stage layouts and coins and secret beanstalks come together and complement each other so very, very well. Anyone can play a game like Super Mario Bros. If nothing else, the lazy man's review template has proven how easy it is to dissect them into blatant categories like "graphics" and "sound." Yet game design as a whole is deceptive in its specificity. Structurally speaking, games aren't terribly complicated.
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