I was really not feeling like playing this game when I first sat down to do so. It’s kind of the feeling that I get whenever I do try out a Gradius game, where I know I am gonna be in for a hard time, but in the case of this game specifically, something about first experiencing it just felt… off. It was my first time using an MSX emulator in order to play a game, and let me tell you, a Gradius game is DEFINITELY NOT the kind of game to play if you are using an emulator for the first time, trying to learn how it works in comparison to others, while also having to deal with all of the usual stuff that a Gradius game throws at you. Nevertheless, I was able to ignore this for a majority of it, and focused my full attention on Nemesis 2.

Despite being yet another game to add to the confusion of titles in the Gradius series that aren’t just named Gradius (at least, not directly), I actually found myself having a good enough time with it, and I would consider it just between the original Gradius and Life Force in terms of it’s quality. As always though, there is the usual hindrances that Gradius carries that didn’t make it too enjoyable, but it helps out well enough with the amount of firepower that you are given to help you out.

This time around, there is actually a story, and while it is simple, it is nice to finally have a small narrative to at least give the player a reason as to why they try to play the game, the graphics are pretty similar in quality to the other games, but the use of the cutscenes and other details throughout the game make it look the best by a slight margin, the music is the usual type that you would expect from one of these games, being just the right kind that you can vibe to while shooting things in space, so it works well enough, the control is pretty good, with me just NOW finally realizing how I can increase my speed going up and down (seriously, I am a fucking idiot), and the gameplay is more of what you would expect, but it is improved upon with some small additions that make it just that bit more enjoyable then the other games.

The game is still a 2D space shooter, where you take control of the Metalion (which is just the Vic Viper with a different name), traveling through a handful of stages, shooting many different enemies and obstacles along the way, avoiding plenty of obstacles, gaining and using plenty of upgrades to increase your arsenal, and fighting plenty of bosses. It is more or less just yet another Gradius game, with not too much to change things up this time around, aside from the aforementioned story that the game now has.

The only real difference between this and the other games in the series would be with the new bonus levels that can be accessed throughout the game. Whenever you defeat the bosses, you are given a brief moment to fly into their core and access said bonus levels, and if you play through the entire thing, you then gain a new permanent upgrade for your ship, and lemme tell you some of these upgrades you can get are REALLY helpful, such as lasers that can shoot upwards, helping out a lot with enemies that appear above you. Keep in mind, this game also still keeps that hefty punishment alive, where if you die, you lose all of the upgrades that you give yourself, so having upgrades that DON’T go away whenever you die is very helpful.

With that being said, it’s about that time again for me to point out the game’s issues, and when it comes to this installment, there aren’t too many new problems, but there are reoccurring ones. Complaining about the difficulty of these games at points would just be incredibly redundant (and this is coming from someone who is already incredibly redundant), so I won’t go too much into it, but lemme just say, if this game was a person, and I got in a fight with them, I would be thrown into a hospital for a long time. An issue that I can point out though is that, following along the tradition from the original Gradius, the bosses in the game for the most part aren’t really that distinct from each other. Sure, the ones that look the same do have different designs, making them look somewhat different, but at their essentials, they are still just the same blue ship with the same orange core over and over and over again.

Ignoring all that though, you may notice at the top of this review that it says “Played” rather then “Completed”. Why would that be, you may ask? Well, just like with… way too many fucking games from this era (seriously, why was this a trend in these games), the game requires you to play through the game twice in order to fully beat it. Granted, it is a little different then other games, as you are replaying all the stages in the opposite order of when you first played them, and there is a new stage to be found at the end of all of them, but it is still replaying all of the stages regardless. Now, I usually put up with this trend in order to get the full intended experience, but in the case of this game, FUCK THAT SHIT. Seriously, these games are already extremely hard on their own for a first playthrough, but you’re telling me I have to do it all AGAIN just to beat the game? Suck my own personal Vic Viper, Nemesis 2, because I ain’t putting up with that.

Overall though, despite that issue and the others that I pointed out beforehand, I still think Nemesis 2 is an improvement over the original Gradius, offering a lot more firepower and the bare essentials of a narrative to follow along with, and if you were really curious as to the other games in the series that don’t directly have the name Gradius stapled to them, then it isn’t that bad to check out. Having said that, I would probably only recommend that to hardcore fans of the series rather then those who are just mildly curious. So, on the next episode of “Mega Wants to Hurt Himself”, we will check out Gradius II, finally getting a proper naming convention for this series… at least for a little bit.

Game #241

My first console was a ZX Spectrum. This was an 8 bit console that used tape cassettes to load games. It didn't always work, pirated games were everywhere and I had a black bin liner full of random games my dad bought at a car boot sale with the console back then. I'm not quite so old that this was modern, at the time a lot of my friends had Sega Megadrives or a SNES but my family couldn't afford it so I made do. I was jealous at the time but looking back wouldn't change a thing. I had a great time with games like Saboteur, Double Dragon and Lemmings to name a few.

Playing Nemesis 2 was a bit like when you smell something that reminds you of your childhood and brings memories rushing back. The MSX this was made for feels like a very similar computer running off of tapes with the same kind of 8 bit power fueling it and I loved Nemesis's simplicity in it's visuals which endeared me to it straight away. The slow scrolling, neon colours and designs just still look great. In the modern era of hyper detail there is something a little refreshing about it.. At least that is what my rose tinted glasses tell me.

The game itself I actually quite like too, at least up to a point. Nemesis 2 is a spin off to Gradius 1 which was named Nemesis on international release. Nemesis 2 however is actually it's own unique game and I think despite running on hardware far inferior to it's arcade younger brothers of Gradius 2, 3 and 4 actually does far more to push the series than they do. There is an attempt at a story here told through short cutscenes for a start. The level design is more interesting with some levels requiring pillars to be destroyed dropping platforms to allow you space to get through, Ice volcanoes that launch little ships at you etc. Also a shout out to Bottle's review pointing out to me hidden stages after beating the bosses I thought was a neat concept.

Where Nemesis 2 does drop the ball though is in how insanely hard it is. In that, with Gradius 2-4 it is well matched. It has the same power up system allowing you to scroll through abilities to manually use for each power cell you collect. speed, options, lasers, shields etc. While I think that in itself is great, when you die you lose everything often making you as weak as a new born lamb to the same hordes. Whilst the levels themselves are fairly neat the design is brutally unforgiving. Go down the wrong path? Not line up shots at a pillar soon enough? dead. By about level 5 I started to get too frustrated and wasn't having fun so threw up the white flag with it.

A shame but what I did take though was I'm going to give some more MSX games a try in the future.

Surpreendentemente bom. Tem algumas limitações óbvias do hardware – em especial o scrolling que não é nada suave – mas elas são perfeitamente mitigadas pelo ótimo level design. Em partes, o hardware fraco do MSX é até uma vantagem, já que o game não pode ficar nem tão rápido nem tão cheio de coisas na tela ao mesmo tempo quanto os Gradius de Arcade, resultando numa curva de dificuldade infinitamente mais humana.

O mais interessante são as inovações que o jogo trouxe para a série. Enquanto a versão "principal" da franquia já estava começando a ficar repetitiva, Nemesis 2 experimenta com novos tipos de níveis, estágios secretos e opcionais e um sistema de upgrades bem mais encorpado.