The Gradius Collection - First Look
The Gradius Collection
Release date: Spring 2006
Genre: Shooter
Platform: PSP
The second I walked into the nightclub-looking building that housed the Konami Gamer's Day event; I knew that The Gradius Collection was going to be there.
Maybe it was intuition or the fact that my itchy trigger thumb was actin' up. I dunno for sure, but I could feel its presence. It's been 20 years since the Vic Viper flew across our Nintendo screens blowing the crap outta things, so Konami had to have something to honor the anniversary. We sit down in our seats. The speaker comes on the stage and rolls a movie showing what's in store for us. The first game they show? The Gradius Collection for the PSP! I point at the screen like a goofy fanboy. Ha! That's the power I possess!
Gradius Fanboy Love It took some digging at the Konami event but I managed to find the one lone kiosk with The Gradius Collection. Konami put together a decent compilation for this series by giving us five Gradius games in one package. First off you have Gradius, Gradius II, Gradius III, and Gradius IV, with Gradius II being the rarest of that bunch as it was only released in another compilation for the Playstation and Saturn. The USA never saw the excellent NES version of Gradius II. While you'd think (wish) the fifth game would be Gradius V, we're instead treated with Gradius Gaiden, which has never been released here in the States in any form whatsoever. Other extras include intro movies from the Gradius Deluxe Pack, Gradius III & IV, and Gradius Gaiden. They've also added the rockin' soundtracks from all the included games from the series.
From the couple of levels I played the controls seemed to be spot on. The Vic Viper was able to zoom past obstacles and blast space ships without any trouble. While the games fill up the whole PSP widescreen by default, I was surprised to find out that you can actually revert the games to their original 4:3 (more square/non-widescreen) aspect ratio. They were definitely looking out for the classic Gradius arcade purist out there when putting together this package. Thank you Konami!
Gimme More Konami Shmups While I did notice a hint of slowdown in Gradius Gaiden, it wasn't enough for me to not recommend this game. I'm really looking forward to The Gradius Collection being released, as should any fan of the series. I only hope Konami continues the collection trend and also releases the Life Force/Salamander series and maybe the Parodius series, as well. That'd be neato!
-NakedBob
