Gradius Rebirth Now on US WiiWare

Posted by John as Shmups

The rage is on games developed in retro style such as Mega Man 9 or Retro Game Challenge. Let’s welcome a new entry in the long running shooter series. Gradius Rebirth heads your way made to look like a relic from the 16-bit era. Though it may not offer anything new to the “Shoot everything you see” game, retro game fans will find Gradius Rebirth to their liking.

Gradius Rebirth features identical level design to classic games on arcade, NES, SNES. You will encounter many of the same enemies such as those in the Easter Islands heads. Some of the similarities came from Lifeforce, a sequel to the original Gradius, namely: the bosses are new along with interesting ones awaiting at the end of each level. A regular feature is you can customize your ship, the Vic Viper, by selecting your power-ups. You can buy missiles, lasers and the popular “option” that flies beside your ship and doubles up your firepower. Be sure to get the dropped capsules from certain enemies to buy the stuff for your ship. The better weapons demand more capsules thus it is a give and take between powering up early and saving up for the mighty bigger guns. Choose from the three ship types at the start of the game to know what type of power-ups you have at your command: multipurpose, wide area attack, or high attack power (but limited range).

A limitation of Gradius Rebirth is the lacking multiplayer function. Gradius Rebirth allows two players to take alternate turns. Lifeforce, on the other hand, has a splendid co-op. Gradius offers neither. The only common aspect of the game is the online leaderboard for the score attack mode.

Gradius belongs to the group of slow shooters having more similarity with R-Type than Raiden or Ikaruga. The Vic Viper at the start of a new game will feel incredibly sluggish. You can then increase your speed once you grab a few power-ups. Don’t be fooled by the sluggishness of the game. Slower pace is more vengeful and tough. Challenging is the effect of the sluggishness. One could say it’s both a limitation and strength of Gradius.

Expect many replaying of the same sequences in this game when you lose a life then sent back to a checkpoint. It could frustrate you so better be extra careful. It is possible to power-up the Viper so that it is near indestructible. If you are shot down, however, you lose everything you’ve gained so far deeming the ship useless. It’s particularly worse when you’ve reached a boss then the game sends you back to the middle of the level instead of bringing you to the encounter. It’s most often wise to do save your progress at a checkpoint so you can always start a new game from the point where you save. You can choose from five levels of difficulty which lets you use the exact saved data. Say you find beating a boss difficult on the normal so you can tame the difficulty down to easy then continue on normal mode with your pride intact.

Overall
Gradius Rebirth is a nostalgic game though its retro design and grueling difficulty limits its appeal. The 16 bit graphics remains to be seen but we sure would love to see a modern Gradius in the US Wiiware. Games are supposed to be challenging yet Gradius Rebirth seems to be an extremely tough game to finish. The ship, Vic Viper, doesn’t fall under the category of useful not unless you power it up. It makes beginning your mid level checkpoints a real pain. Modern ships should be more sleek and fast. Lastly, it is disappointing to find the multiplayer option missing. Gadius Rebirth should be “rebirth” not as a game with a modest 16-bit graphics. It may be to much for 1000 points as compared to the Virtual Console’s 16-bit games worth for 800 points.

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