Collection essentials #480: Gradius V (PS2)

I’ve talked about Gradius a few times in the past. Created by the great Konami, it’s one of the most notable classic shoot ‘em up series. Gradius games had traditionally come out first in arcades and then would later be ported to home consoles. They bucked this trend with Gradius Gaiden on the original PlayStation which was a console exclusive. Similarly, Gradius V would be made specifically for the PlayStation 2. Something unusual about it was that Konami actually teamed up with a separate company to make it. That company was Treasure, which about a decade prior had been founded by former Konami employees. Treasure was a great choice, as they had previously made impressive shoot ‘em ups such as Radiant Silvergun.

This game does a good job at being faithful to the Gradius formula, incorporating the proper gameplay basics as well as certain signature enemy and boss designs. The familiar Gradius power-up system is here, where there are a variety of upgrades available to the player and collecting certain items dropped by enemies will give the player the choice to activate a certain one or wait until they can get the one they want. There are various “power-up sets” that a player can choose at the start of a game. Unlike Gaiden, you cannot freely arrange the order of upgrades on the power-up bar.

One of the most distinguishing and recognizable Gradius power-ups is the “Option” or “Multiple”. Activating it creates a little invincible blob that trails behind your ship mimicking its movement, and it will fire whatever weapon you currently have at the same time as your main ship. You can have a few deployed at one time, which is both powerful and fun. Gradius V makes options even more potent and enjoyable with some new features. At the start of a game you can choose how your options behave, as now they don’t universally just trail behind the ship like in the past. You can have them move into certain formations, which perhaps makes them a little more consistent. My favorite thing you can do with options now, though, is changing their direction of fire! By holding down a button and staying in place, you can use the right analogue stick to freely move their direction to be different from that of your actual ship. It’s super fun, especially when you have the laser (which you probably will most of the time).

Unlike other Gradius games, this one actually has a story that unfolds as you progress in the game. Stories in shoot ‘em ups like this usually do little more than add some background flavor and aren’t something that most players pay any attention to. And, well, Gradius V certainly doesn’t have the most remarkable story in the world, but there is something they do with it that’s pretty cool and that you will actually remember long after you’ve played the game. A drawback, though, is that you cannot skip the cutscenes to get straight to the action, which to me seems like a rather silly oversight.

Gradius V can be a pretty tough game, as is the norm for shoot ‘em ups. The more play time you accumulate, though, the more continues you’ll have, making it easier to clear the game, and you can lower the difficulty even though it’s not necessarily easy even on the lowest setting. One drawback of the game’s difficulty is that, because everything is in 3D, it is sometimes a little hard to distinguish bullets from the fancy backgrounds, potentially causing some frustrating deaths. You can perhaps get used to spotting the bullets, and it may be less of a problem if you have a good enough TV or monitor to play on.

This wasn’t the last Gradius game, but there haven’t been many since, and none made quite on this scale, which is a shame. When it comes to the title of “Best Gradius”, it’s not an easy call for me. I’d go with either this game or Gradius Gaiden. At the moment I think I’d lean towards Gradius V, but I could potentially play through them both right now and come out with a different opinion. Of course…the real right choice is to simply play and love them both! Each of them are no-brainer picks as wonderful essentials in my collection.