Gradius III: I had played the SNES version before and didn't remember it being this hard. I don't mind if the game is this punishingly difficult, but the last stage in this title has a section with lasers in which I had to look a guide online about how to beat (the infamous cube rush was hard and randomly generated but it was evident you had to try and build a wall around you). Turns out on the section with the lasers you have to try not to slowdown the game by firing everything you got because the slower scrolling desyncs the pattern of the lasers and you can end up not having a way to escape them. If you are too good at the game, you fuck up the level design. There's unfairly designed hard and then there's hard by inept programming, and even though my account here doesn't take into account gameplay that much, this is a technical issue akin to delivering a painting with the canvas having a hole in it not allowing to see something important (with no postmodern intention behind it)

Gradius IV: The game makes use of real time 3D to portray some of the enemies, which allows for some smoother movement for them compared to previous titles... And that's it. Gradius Gaiden released prior to this had a really impressive and distinct look to it while only using 2D and this just recycles ideas from the previous games in the series with no interesting twists to them (how many times have I seen that Salamander spinning tentacle core this month...), in a franchise which I already see as having problems distancing itself from its formula and without making use of the 3D for some cinematographic looking backgrounds, like what little I have seen for Gradius V.

Well, at least I have these two completed, so when I eventually play Treasure's entry I won't have to go through these underwhelming experiences just before to see if it doesn't become as derivative as Gradius III & IV.

Eine sehr Ok-e Collection mit zwei der härtesten Ableger, der Gradius Reihe. Gerade Teil 4 profitiert hier sehr, weil ein normaler Mensch es endlich dank mehrere Schwierigkeitsstufen auch durchspielen kann. Leider haben viele Level von Teil 3 und 4 dutzende Instakill Fallen, die im Kontext deren Arcade-Automaten (Viel Kohle aus den Spieler rausbringen) noch Sinn ergeben, aber auf Heimkonsole daraus resultieren, dass man stundenlang die Stages üben muss und alle Gegnerplacements einprägen sollte.

Ich würde die Collection höher setzen, wenn die PAL Version nicht auf verkümmerten 50Hz laufen würde und es bessere Optionen gäbe, um einzelne Stages trainieren zu können. Die PSP Collection, welche Jahre später kam, überflügelt diese in jeder Disziplin und sollte am ehesten gespielt werden.

This is a nice little early title for the PS2 that has two Gradius arcade games. Of course, these being Gradius games both are extremely difficult and are also probably the hardest games in the series along with following the traditional Gradius shmup style of "play well, cause if you die you'll be sent back with your power ups taken away and your ship will suck and be less mobile than a garbage truck" that I'm not super into.

Unfortunately, even if you're a fan of the series I'd say this title isn't SUPER worthwhile by default since there's a better collection for PSP that not only has these titles, but also has the first two games along with the PS1 title Gradius Gaiden. I'd say pick that one up instead.

I was actually kinda baffled to boot up Gradius III on this collection and find out that I had all of the stage select for loop 1 unlocked along with some of loop 2(the save on my first PS2 memory card somehow survived all this time when I originally rented this). It really shows how tenacious we were as kids back then to have the patience to do that, but it was also probably because we didn't have anything else to play.