This is a gameboy shmup game that struggles to run at 15FPS, and somehow it's the best Gradius game that I've played in the past few months.

Differently from the games it is based on, in GB Nemesis it doesn't feel impossible to recover once you die and lose all your power ups. Somehow the level design accomodates that possibility, and in general the game feels considerably more fair than its arcade counterparts.

It does have some funkiness to it admitedly. It runs like shit, and I imagine the stage, select being enabled from the start was due to the game not being able to save(?). Also the game allows you to start with 99 lives which might've been a little too much lol.

Either way, it's a short and sweet game that serves its purpose as a portable Gradius experience masterfully, if only lacking in the technical department, likely due to its early release in the GameBoy lifespan.

At this point in the Gradius series, we have had, what, three to four different sub-series that have spawned from it at this point? There is, of course, the mainline Gradius games that basically started the whole thing, then there is the Salamander/Life Force series that treats itself like a spin-off even though it is almost identical in terms of gameplay, then we have the Nemesis series for the MSX, which were following up the original Gradius, and if we add both Parodius and Scramble on top of all of that………. yeah, this series is way too confusing, and this was only five years after it properly started. So, with all that in mind, how about we add yet another sub-series on top of that! That won’t make things even more confusing than it already was before! And just to add more flame to the fire, we will give it the same name as the original game, so that people will be confused on whether or not it is a port or an original game! Man, game development is fun. Anyway, after this insane thought process was brought into consideration, we were then given Nemesis on the Game Boy.

Going into this game was somewhat interesting for me, because we have already had plenty of Gradius games at this point, but we never had one that was specifically made for a handheld system before, so I was wondering how it would hold up in comparison to a main arcade/console title. At the same time though, I was also going in with very average expectations, as I definitely wasn’t expecting anything too special from the title. So, now that I have fully played through it, I can say that…. yep. It certainly is a Gradius game for the Game Boy. It was a good game, and it will definitely please diehard fans of the series, but it is also pretty basic at this point in the series, and it doesn’t do anything too new for the series at that point.

The graphics are Game Boy graphics, and it doesn’t look quite as good as other titles for the system, but for what it is worth, the sprites for the bosses and some of the enemies are pretty good, and it does at least look like a Gradius game, the music is pretty good, with there being a handful of appropriately sounding tracks that do make it feel like you are playing a Gradius game, but none of the tracks really match the same level as those from the main arcade/console games, the control is pretty much what you would expect from a Gradius game, and the speed that you can reach is good enough, even if it is expectedly very choppy considering what system you are playing it on, and the gameplay is extremely basic for a Gradius title, but there are some additions that make the game more fun and even accessible.

The game is a horizontal scrolling space shooter, where you take control of the Vic Viper once again, take on a set of only five different levels, shoot up everything and anything that will get in your way and try to turn you into an explosive, blazing inferno, while also doing your best to dodge plenty of obstacles along the way as well, gather plenty of powerups that you can use to activate certain upgrades for yourself which will assist you against the many threats that you will encounter, and take on several familiar, yet challenging bosses that will test your dodging and shooting skills. All of it is basically Gradius at its simplest form, with only the bare essentials being here as opposed to having many of the different advantages that past games have had. This doesn’t make the game bad at all though, because for what we have here, it is still a fun and enjoyable Gradius adventure.

Plus, there are some new aspects of the game that have never been seen before in the series at this point, such as with the option screen. Right before you start the game, you are put in an options screen, where you can decide what stage you want to play, what difficulty you want to play on, what buttons you want to do what, and even how many lives you wanna have before going into the game, even going all the way up to 99. This one screen right here makes this undeniably the most accessible Gradius game at this point, because not only are you able to experience the entire game without needing to worry about game overs, but you can also give yourself plenty of chances to not screw up, or you can make it so that you only get one chance, and you wanna do the ultimate challenge run. Even with all that in mind, the game itself is probably the easiest in the series, where I didn’t have that much trouble whatsoever, even though there were still plenty of hard parts that did cause me to die quite a few times. Or maybe have just played so many of these games at this point to where I am now amazing at them, but let’s be honest, that’s probably not what it is.

With all that being said though, this is, once again, a very basic Gradius game. Not only does it do nothing to enhance the gameplay any further then what we already have gotten, but many of the different features seen in other Gradius games, such as the choice of what upgrades you wanna have throughout the game, or even with certain types of stages, are completely absent here. Not to mention, this game CHUGS, with it constantly running at a stuttering frame rate, but then again, that is to be expected from a game like this that was placed on the Game Boy. Despite those few gripes, they didn’t stop me from having a pretty good time with this game, and it does have me looking forward to the sequel whenever I eventually decide to play it.

Overall, despite being yet another generic Gradius title through and through, for being the first handheld game in the series, Konami did a pretty good job with it, and it is a good game even over 30 years later. I would definitely recommend it for those who are big fans of the Gradius franchise, or even for those who are considering trying the series out, because this is what I would consider to be the perfect place to start, just for that options screen alone. Man, it feels good to finally be getting a break from one of these titles, rather than it kicking me around the room for a good hour or so until I beat it. Although, now that I say that, I imagine the next title is probably gonna ramp that difficulty right back up, so I will be ready to eat my words when the time comes.

Game #426

I like Konami from these old days. Not every game they made was good but they still made some stuff I love like Contra the Hard Corps, Xexex, and Pop'n Twinbee. I do like their Gradius series though. I've never loved it though mostly because I feel like the punishment of death scares me too much to do a honest run of the game not using save states. I will never admit I'm good at shmups but I do enjoy them.

Nemesis is a weird one, it was Konami's 3rd GB game with the previous two being Motocross Maniacs and Castlevania the Adventure. Nemesis surprises me by being an actual competent shmup for the handheld that wasn't even a year old at this point I think. I also appreciate it for trying to be it's own thing while not totally abandoning the original.

Nemesis feels like some new take on the first Gradius game with similar level ideas and bosses like the volcanos still being here and the first boss being the one you see in Gradius 1. The rest of the bosses all seem to be totally unique unless they are from a different game in the series. I love the size of them really trying to show the GB can do some cool stuff.

The game did shock me in how easy it was for a Gradius game. I only died like three times. You can even start the game with 99 lives. Though this game does have that dreaded lose everything and it's basically over for later levels. Luckily you can start on any level though don't think you can go to stage 5, use the Konami code and beat the final boss to win because they knew you were gonna try doing that and you still gotta do the other stages now if you want that ending. Can I just say I'm so glad the shield works good in this game, after playing 5 different versions of Parodius where the barrier was just complete garbage it was nice to just actually have a good shield again.

The game also runs pretty nice and doesn't look bad graphically though they didn't bother to animate the ship which is odd to say the least. The music is also that quality Konami sound you expect to hear. Also why does the exploding animation for when you die look so good? Konami you didn't need to make it look kind of clean for a GB game.

Nemesis is not going to impress really many nowadays when much better shmups are to be played but I can't help but appreciate the work behind this. They could have just made a lazy port of Gradius but no they knew the limitations and designed a fun good game for shmup fans to enjoy that you can beat in what feels like 30 minutes. A sequel would be made for this handheld and a port of Parodius would come too. If you want to play this in color, play the EU only Konami GB collection Vol 1 for GBC. Really don't have much to say, it's fun. What? The review is over, you can leave now.