Gradius for Dummies

[DanCalibur]

I'm starting to play Gradius for the first time and man I suck at it. You guys got any pro tips? I'm using the PC Engine version cuz I heard it's slower and easier.

 

[Graw]

Git Gud. For real. Gradius games are fucking hard. I owned Gradius 3 on the snes when I was a kid and I've still never made it past the third level. I tried the fastrom version of it one day that takes away all the snes slowdown and I couldn't even get past the first level. Also, don't die. Every time you die it gets harder. You lose your powerups and in some levels you end up screwed without enough speedups.

 

[DunkeyKong]

After many attempts at Gradius, I'd say…yeah you gotta practice a lot, great reflexes and memorization would help a lot. I'd recommend playing with savestates instead, where you can still continue to where you left off even if you die many times

 

[NotGodlike]

Learn and learn again, it's one of those horizontal shmups that you have to memorise the routes. Manage your option collection as well, don't overdo your speed up or use double in tight spaces where lasers can't reach. You want to power up as fast as you can and try not to die ever because the recovery is -very- hard.
Assuming that you use emulator, save states are godsend, use all your tools for practice you have at disposal

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

Maybe start with Parodius?

 

[RageBurner]

I'm not good at shmups, but I have a friend that is. In general terms, I'd say you will need plenty of times to memorize patterns; think of each enemy formation as a mini stage of it's own and observe.

Most of the time, weapons offered before a segment are the most helpful to face it, but that's not always the case.

For horizontal shmups, managing your screen real estate is very important, as the stage itself is often an obstacle. Always make sure you have room to reposition.

Edit: my friend says lasers are king in Gradius 1.

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

Use savestates. Once you can complete the stages in full try to play with only one savestate per stage. Once you can do that dont use savestates anymore.

Use retroarch's rewind and slow motion rate. slowing things to 85% of the speed and then when you can do at this speed, increment by 5%.

 

[NeonKnights]

Use an arcade stick for more precise movement, or play more TooWho.

 

[NotGodlike]

Use an arcade stick for more precise movement

D-pad is just as good, same with keyboard. The main problem is re-learning to use stick and its layout, that is if op is entirely familiar with using d-pad

 

[DanCalibur]

Yeah it's mostly practice, I can already beat stage 1 and 2 without dying and stage 3 is almost under control but stage 4 is still too much

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 9:00 PM

Use savestates. Once you can complete the stages in full try to play with only one savestate per stage. Once you can do that dont use savestates anymore.

Use retroarch's rewind and slow time. slowing things to 85% of the speed and then when you can do at this speed, increment by 5%.

I guess save state is the way to go, I was avoiding it so far

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 9:03 PM

I'm not good at shmups, but I have a friend that is. In general terms, I'd say you will need plenty of times to memorize patterns; think of each enemy formation as a mini stage of it's own and observe.

Most of the time, weapons offered before a segment are the most helpful to face it, but that's not always the case.

For horizontal shmups, managing your screen real estate is very important, as the stage itself is often an obstacle. Always make sure you have room to reposition.

Edit: my friend says lasers are king in Gradius 1.

I'll give it a try, I was using double

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

I guess save state is the way to go, I was avoiding it so far

It's like music really. You dont need to always play the intro and the first verse to practice the solo. But if you really like those first stages, then play them by all means.

 

[FTLOTG]

The only solution is to practice. Maybe play Gaiden for PS1, it's easier.

 

[Stingy Perry]

Even if I used the Konami code which gives you all the power ups still couldn’t beat the damn thing.

 

[Bakuma1997]

The games have something called "Gradius Syndrome", basically the more powerups you have when beating a stage, the harder it becomes,, alas, the game NEEDS you to get these power ups, so i reccomend playing on easy to see the maps and until you feel you are ready advance to harder difficulties, those games aren't the "No final boss for you" kind of BS arcade games did back in the day so you can feel safe reaching the final boss, to top it off, even on hardest difficulties, the final bosses are literal pushovers, some eception aside, all they do is stay until you shoot their ass to next week, my recs for first games would be:

Gradius on NES

Gradius III (SNES, KEEP AWAY OF THE ARCADE ORIGINAL)

Life Force, specifically its japanese version Salamander (The easiest of the series)

Nemesis II on GB

A final tip: U U D D L R L R B A S (Not guaranteed, some of them even kill you for using it, still a valid tip)

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

I'm starting to play Gradius for the first time and man I suck at it. You guys got any pro tips? I'm using the PC Engine version cuz I heard it's slower and easier.

Honestly it’s kinda hard not to suck at Gradius. It always felt like the hitboxes were VERY specific and a lot of enemies are down on the ground, but being too close to the ground is also risky cause that can kill you. This combined with how Gradius is a lot more simple than its contemporaries (in gameplay not difficulty, no weapons that shoot in crazy ways and angles) combined with the fact that it’s one of the minority of SHMUP games with no free play, all I can really say is practice and/or abuse save states. Old Gradius is a far better choice to begin with than older Darius games though. And no Darius is not some type of Gradius spinoff, that’s a Square Enix franchise about fish machines that happens to have a suspiciously similar name.

 

[FTLOTG]

Honestly it’s kinda hard not to suck at Gradius.

It's a true blue arcade game. You can improve, get better and better by playing for survival and eventually surpass it. You'll notice all the little ways the game favors you, how easy some parts are had you carried along your power ups, and master the challenges to the point you don't even think about them as anything more than a quick break to get to what's really challenging you. Gradius is a genuine classic.

 

[Jeff]

Start with Nemesis and Nemesis II on Gameboy. In the first Nemesis Gameboy game, you can select any level you want. What you want to do is dodge the small bullets very carefully since you only get 1 HIT PER LIFE (The One Hit Death BS), do not touch the floor or ceiling or the sides of the planet you're flying through because every 2D shoot'em up game acts like the board game Operation. Shoot every enemy as much as you can to gain a red power up (The Blue power up destroys all the enemies on screen), the options at the bottom of the screen gives you speed, weapons, missiles, shields, special and a ?. Examine the power ups wisely and decide which weapon is best to defeat the enemies and to survive, do not pick the laser option because it only goes straight. I suggest getting Ripple, upgrade all the missiles, sheilds and followers, then speed. Also, the ? can either delete all of your hard to earn powerups or just nothing.