Arcade: 3.5/10
PCE: 6.5/10
Impressive for 1986. Has more of the stuff I liked from Gradius 1 with less of the bad stuff. Feels really good to grab 4 options and wipe the screen clean. That said, it's still an 80's shmup, so there's a LOT of sections where progression is impossible without lots and lots of rote memorization for sections that come at you extremely fast. It also has that aspect of the Gradius series I really dislike where every stage feels done by an entirely different designer, and the overall aesthetic has no consistency besides the music. And goddamn TWO of this game's six stages are asteroid fields, good god
PCE: 6.5/10
Impressive for 1986. Has more of the stuff I liked from Gradius 1 with less of the bad stuff. Feels really good to grab 4 options and wipe the screen clean. That said, it's still an 80's shmup, so there's a LOT of sections where progression is impossible without lots and lots of rote memorization for sections that come at you extremely fast. It also has that aspect of the Gradius series I really dislike where every stage feels done by an entirely different designer, and the overall aesthetic has no consistency besides the music. And goddamn TWO of this game's six stages are asteroid fields, good god