The four weapons setups and color schemes wish they could be the foursome in Gradius gaiden but they stand out alright on their own. What we're left with is still exemplary so long as you remember it's a GBA game. A little more polish would have made this a GBA Gaiden, but unfortunately that didn't happen. While I'm not torn up over seeing no Lord British, Falchion Beta or Jade Knight, I do wish each of the four weapons setups you get in the game could have gotten their own ship design to go with them. They would be almost perfect if they stretched a bit more, but what we got is still just fine. The animations are all good, and aside from some honestly silly-looking sprite inflating and deflating and a lack of imagination for some bosses which could have been eye-opening, all the effects are completely believable. There are giant panels of breakable glass, jagged, cratered rocks everywhere, big comets that look like uncut diamonds, mechanical bits and that one level you always see in R-Type-uh, I mean the Gradius standard bio-environment.
GRADIUS GAIDEN BLACK BAR SERIES
Again, I think Gaiden, and post-Gaiden I feel the series used that high water mark as a guideline for graphics.Now, this isn't a bad thing: the environments and elements are all very good. On one hand, this is a good thing: the Vic Viper looks like the Vic Viper, enemies look like enemies, enemy bullets look like enemy bullets, and you can clearly see what you're doing as opposed to your enemies. One word describes the sprites in Gradius Galaxies: standard. You could label the story and setpieces of this game "A History Of Gradius 1985-2001" and not be very far off the mark. It's the same old Gradius experience, which isn't bad but it's not entirely the best thing either. If the story of a game involves its setting, then why pay attention if it's nothing but the same tale retold? Nothing feels particularly out of place, but we're never brought anywhere new either.
GRADIUS GAIDEN BLACK BAR MANUAL
The plot is nice, fills up one solitary page on a GBA instruction manual and it makes good sense for explaining the Gradius laundry list of environments. I would never really critique a Gradius game, of all things, for its story, not unless something was deathly wrong with it. We're told none of this in the opening animation, though: we're just shown a scrolling procession of the Gradius games that came before this, including pre-Gradius Konami game Scramble. So you are sent off in typical Gradius fashion: one Vic Viper against several levels of Bacterion freaks. The remains crash on a nearby planet and turn it into a mechanized fortress world (which begs the question of why this was not the original plan in the first place) which must be killed before it gets too powerful. Bacterion creates a weapon they intend to use on Gradius, but it was destroyed before it could be finished. In Gradius Galaxies' case, in between the events of Gradius III and Gaiden, the war between Gradius and Bacterion rages on. Like most of the game there's nothing spectacularly wrong with it. I really hesitate to talk about Gradius Galaxies from a story perspective. Or Gradius Generation if you're Japanese.
But is it founded? Well, I've played it through a couple of times, so here's my thought process as I lived with Gradius Galaxies. You can imagine my disappointment, then, when Galaxies and Gaiden played nothing alike. Back before I got Galaxies I had heard of Gaiden and thought Galaxies was a Gaiden approximation for the GBA. Lots of gorgeous sprite visuals, ships with wide arsenals, plenty of interesting levels and amazing bosses.
Yet another game I was introduced to only after it appeared on the PSP, Gaiden was my mental image of what a Gradius game should play like. There isn't anything particularly wrong with this game, per se, but when anything right I can point out has already kind of been done by other games in the series, in particular its older Playstation sibling, Gradius Gaiden. I'm sorry, but when you don't add a single thing compared to games anywhere from one to a few years your elder, I will call you out as the runt of your particular litter. So someone tell me if there's ever been a bad Gradius game, because I'm seriously calling Gradius Galaxies out for being one simply because it doesn't measure up to its peers. I'm sold there never has been: Gradius 1-3 were classics, I know some shmuppers who swear by the Salamander games, I am forever smitten by Gradius Gaiden, Gradius V was thought to be the second coming of shmups not more than a few months after R-Type Final put an end to the R-Type series as a shmup franchise, the Parodius games are well-remembered and Otomedius isn't what you'd call a blight on the franchise. Somebody tell me if there's ever been a bad Gradius game. Developer: Mobile21 (published by Konami)
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