Gradius Rebirth was finally released in North America three weeks ago, but I chose not to get it on day one. I bought some parts at Lizard Lick Amusements to modify my Fighting Stick Wii. Specifically, I ordered a Seimitsu LS-56-01 because I hear Seimitsu sticks are the best for shmups. Unfortunately, the massive backlog of orders means that I probably won't see anything I ordered until May, and I didn't want to wait any longer, so I picked it up anyway and chose to brave it with my Classic Controller. Once you play shmups with a legitimate arcade stick, there's no going back; playing with anything else (even the venerable Classic Controller) feels like you're being held back (see this page for more on that). Until I played it for the first time, all I knew about the game came from screenshots and only one or two YouTube videos. I don't like watching previews for games and movies and other things I'm interested in. A few months before the Japanese announcement, I wrote a Gradius article for last May's Monthly Musings theme, "If You Love It, Change It". Having just completed the first loop, I'm going down my list again and checking off how Rebirth fares against my suggested changes.

1. Don't leave the player for dead after he dies.
Difficulties below Normal provide the player four to five free powerup capsules at checkpoints and more just before a boss. As I wrote in my previous article, this is the first time such mercy is granted since the original Nemesis. It would have been nice to see this in higher difficulties on the first loop, but that might be asking too much. Given it's short length, this may be for the best.

2. Revive features of previous games.

This is the first point I noticed was addressed and definitely where Rebirth shines the most. The opening cutscene sets the game in "Gradian Year 6664 - Two years before the Silent Nightmare incident". The MSX game Gradius 2 happens to be set in 6666. The pilot of the Vic Viper is James Burton, star of the MSX games. Dr. Venom, a top Gradian scientist (and traitor to the Gradian empire in Gradius 2), constructed the hyper space fighters seen scrambling at the start of the game. On a side note, the ship's onboard computer (with more than a passing resemblance to Metal Gear mk.2 from Snatcher) and Dr. Venom refer to the pilot as James, which I thought was cool because it seemed like they were talking to me. After the first loop is finished, Dr. Venom announces that he has completed work on a prototype of the ship used in Gradius 2, the Metalion. It features the Napalm missile, a Missile/Spread Bomb hybrid; and the hyper-cool Up Laser, which spreads a very wide laser above the ship. I'm told that another ship type is unlocked when I finish the second loop (like that's ever going to happen), but I don't know what it's equipped with. The description of the Metalion states that it is meant to be a successor to the Vic Viper, which makes sense since Gradius 2 on the MSX is supposed to be a sequel to the original arcade game, placing Gradius Rebirth chronologically between those two games. With all of these connections to Gradius 2, I have a good feeling that Gradius Rebirth 2 will be a remake of the MSX title. The soundtrack also includes arrangements for other tracks from the MSX games in the style used for Rebirth that were not used in the game, so here's hoping that Americans will get a chance to play these oft-skipped titles the way they were meant to be played. (Heck, there's even a reference to Antarctic Adventure in the newscast. Maybe we can hope for a legitimate Parodius release over here in the future?)


The sound is also distinctive in that virtually all of it is derived from previous games. The voice over and music style are taken from the arcade version of Gradius III. The default firing and power-up sounds are taken from the MSX games. The player death sound comes from Gradius II. All of the music in this game are remixes of games from all throughout the series' history, from the NES ports to the Gameboy games. The soundtrack's listing notes that arranged songs come from exclusive tracks from the NES Gradius II, the Gameboy-only Nemesis 2 and the MSX port of Salamander, as well as the MSX title Gofer no Yabou Episode 2 (a sequel to the arcade Gradius II. Confusing, I know). On top of that, they were arranged by the incomparable shmup artist Manabu-Namiki (DoDonPachi dai-ou-jou, Mushihime-sama). Unfortunately, none of the outstanding tracks from Gradius Gaiden are represented here. As Jonathan-Holmes wrote in his review, the high asking price shouldn't be a deterrent if you're a hardcore Gradius fan, especially since the music was probably produced on actual Gradius III hardware, which doesn't come cheap these days.

Also the final boss' taunt comes from Salamander 2. I thought that was cool too, but it doesn't fit into the above paragraphs.

3. Make the lowest difficulty easy.
Gradius Rebirth very kindly describes each of its five difficulty modes in detail in the options screen. On the Easy difficulty, normal bullets can be destroyed with the player's weapons. In Very Easy, normal bullets don't appear at all. Special projectiles, such as the Moai's rings, still fly out at normal speeds. For the first time in the series, the "Easy" difficulties are no longer misnomers; removing almost all enemy fire reduces the game's difficulty to a joke.

...That's what I want to say, anyway. The rest of the game is largely unchanged (save for the ribs in stage 4; they are, thankfully, considered "normal bullets"). The real difficulty of the game is shifted to stage design and the bosses, where it belongs. I still had a time finishing off the stage 4 boss in Very Easy. Let it be known that the bosses and stage design are unaffected by the difficulty setting, and that the second loop and beyond are only accessible at Normal diffculty and higher (although an easier difficulty can be used to reach it).

Incidentally, I finished the game on Very Easy to see the ending. Instead of starting up the second loop, Dr. Venom came on screen and said "James, you can't start your second deployment at this difficulty! Reset it to Normal or higher!"

4. Slap yourselves for forgetting to include Moai in Gradius V.
Konami truly made up for this by adding what is now my favorite Moai-themed boss in the entire series. Skip to 3'14".


5. Give the player more freedom over their speed.
Rebirth takes a page from Gradius V and changes the first slot to Speed Down at the max speed, which resets the player's speed to the default setting. I want to say more here, but there's not much more to add.

In conclusion, Gradius Rebirth seems to be a game made just for me (especially how Dr. Venom urged me to play at Normal to access the second loop). It's as if someone important took a look at my notes during development and went out of their way to make sure that my grievances against the best games were answered. The fact that it's only five stages doesn't detract from the experience; if anything, it makes the game much more manageable, as more elements and challenges are compacted in its five stages. Since it's a prequel to Gradius 2, adding any more stages could have forced the developers to add elements from that game that they want to reserve for a sequel. As it's 174 blocks, which is smaller than even some of the N64 games in Virtual Console, it could have been longer, but as it costs a fraction of the price of other games, it's only natural that it lasts a fraction of the time.

Also, what's with the ending? Whose idea was it to rip off Metal Slug of all things?