Gradius (MSX)

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Description

The people of Gradius are in trouble. The ameoboid Bacterions have launched an all out attack against the planet, and it's up to you to fly into battle and save them. Along the way you'll be able to power up your ship with hyper speed, force fields, lasers, missiles, double beam cannons and more to help you battle.

Gradius is a side-scrolling shooter. Shooting certain enemies will leave a power up pod behind which can be collected to add more power to your ship. Each level features a wide variety of enemies trying to stop you, with a large boss at the end. Gameplay is for one player or two players alternating.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Alternate Titles

• "宇宙巡航机" -- Simplified Chinese spelling
• "Nemesis" -- European Arcade & Computer title
• "Arcade Archives: Gradius" -- PS4 / Switch title
• "アーケードアーカイブス グラディウス" -- Japanese PS4 / Switch spelling
• "グラディウス" -- Japanese spelling

Part of the Following Groups

• Arcade Archives series
• Game Center CX challenge games
• Genre: Scrolling shoot 'em up
• Gradius series
• Video games turned into board / card games

User Reviews

There are no reviews for this game.

Critic Reviews

Computer Gamer	Nov, 1986	19 out of 20	95
Computer and Video Games (CVG)	Jun, 1987	9 out of 10	90
ASM (Aktueller Software Markt)	Feb, 1987	9 out of 12	75
Retro Archives	Nov 14, 2018	13 out of 20	65

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
PC Engine credits	6	Freeman (63091) Apr 10, 2019

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The Arcade version of Gradius appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Arcade version

The coin-op arcade version of this game was such a success, rumor has it that it caused a coin shortage in Japan.

BBC Micro conversion

A & B Computing reported in 1987 about a BBC Micro port that was developed, but never finished. The programmer was later revealed to be Kenton Price.

Game Art Beyond

In 2018, Nemesis was selected as one of the biggest classics on the Commodore 64 by the creators of the C64 graphics collection Game Art Beyond. Nemesis was honoured with a high resolution title picture (based on the original arcade game artwork) in a special C64 graphics format called NUFLI, along with a new C64 SID interpretation of the Level 1 theme (incl. Start of Stage prelude).

Konami Code

The NES version was the first game to use the famous Konami Code.

NES version

In the arcade game, players could carry up to four options. Due to technical limits of the NES, here they can only have two.

X68000 supplement

Gradius was bundled with the X68000 computer in Japan, which enforces its status as a "killer app".

Awards

• Power Play
  • 1987 - #3 Best C64 Game '87
  • Issue 01/1990 - Best Nintendo Game in 1989

Information also contributed by Игги Друге, Dracula Marth and Maw

Related Web Sites

• 2006 Retro Remakes Competition (A complete Windows remake of Nemesis/Gradius was one of the entries.)
• Planet Gradius (A fansite containing game-related info, artwork and music, plus some emulations of Konami's games.)