During the 80’s gaming at home was in its infancy. After the game market crash of 1983, Nintendo was left to pick up the pieces of the crippled industry. Although this toy company single handedly dragged the video game market out of the ashes of its own demise, their console, the NES, was barely capable of anything outside of the most basic of game designs. What wasn’t being held back were the arcade machines that were popping up in every arcade, convenience store, and pizza place. The games that were coming out during this time were fast paced, detailed, exciting, and addicting. Even by 1989, when Gradius III was created, the home console market still couldn’t compare to its arcade counterparts. It would take another two years before Gradius III was finally able to make it to home TV screens on the next generation console, the Super NES. Whether home consoles were finally capable of emulating the arcade experience remained to be seen. Now, here in 2023, we will explore whether it succeeded or proved that the 4th console generation fell short of arcade superiority once again.
Gradius III is a horizontal space shooter that was developed by Konami and was originally released to arcades in 1989. It later came out for the SNES in August of 1991 and didn’t see another console release during that time. Although the game had 9 months of development, the game has one very odd carry over from its origin. Every time you turn the game on a white and black grid appears for the first couple seconds before it starts. This also happens on the ROMs. From the limited research I’ve done, this is apparently either a boot up grid for the arcade system or a test grid. Although it isn’t entirely clear, the consensus is that it is indeed normal and nothing to worry about. So, if you just got a copy of Gradius III and you’re freaking out that it’s broken then relax! It’s working.
The story of Gradius III is . . . nonexistent? No, that’s not right. I’m sure there is an illustrious tale of heroism with lore as detailed as any Tolkien novel. But if that’s the case then it’s written somewhere else because all I could gather is you pilot the Gradius and kill ships and monsters to save the universe . . . or something. Stories matter very little in arcade games. There isn’t a single child with a handful of quarters and a belly full of pizza that could care less about why they’re killing fleets of enemies. The only thing that those greasy gremlins cared about was the killing part. One thing those kids were sure to learn though, was that unless they grabbed the SNES port then they weren’t killing anything because this game is TOUGH!
Like with Castlevania, I’d be remiss without pointing out how absurdly difficult Gradius III can be. This game is brutal; it is probably the hardest game I have ever played. For full transparency, I used emulation purely for the ability to add save states. For the uninitiated, this is an emulation exclusive feature that allows you to add a saved checkpoint wherever you want. Knowing this, I will tell you that there was absolutely no way I was beating this game on physical cartridge. The difficulty was just too high for me. We will dive into further detail about exactly what makes this game so hard later, but, for now, know that this game is not newbie friendly.
This game offers an absurd amount of customization for your ship. Before the game even starts, you’re given a bunch of options for different weapon types and shields. Although the initial amount of options is dizzying, it is surprisingly easy to sort it out. Essentially, each row is a “type.” You can choose a preset that the game offers or you can fully edit your options. I highly suggest choosing a preset at first. You can’t activate everything at once when you start, but you can collect power ups that gives you the ability to activate them. From left to right the number of power ups needed to activate each ability increases. One power activates the first type and you need six to activate the last. See the picture below with all the options you can choose from since describing each missile, laser, option, and double shot option would take literal pages. However, for me the best option is the Speed-up/Spread Bomb/Vertical/C.laser/Option/Shield. It’s a diverse set up that lets you shoot literally everywhere except behind you. A small caveat for the utter annihilation of everything in front of you.
Despite so much customization, it is all thrown to the curb as soon as the game begins. You start off slower than practically everything on the screen! You need to desperately pump up your speed through power-ups before you can do anything else. If not, you’re going to get hit and die . . . IN ONE SHOT! This may sound bad, but that’s because it is. The game gives the illusion of options, but the oppressive difficulty is going to force most players into focusing on upgrading the same things every time. If you play, I’m willing to bet this will be the exact way you get your upgrades: speed up, speed up, laser, missile, shield, option, option, option, option, and if you run out, shield again. That’s IF you can even survive long enough to get to this point. Everything is a one-hit kill, and the enemies are EVERYWHERE! This is the biggest problem I have with the difficulty in the game. Being so restrictive difficulty-wise punishes experimentation, making it tough for a player to justify grabbing what they want first. Even worse if you die you lose all your power-ups. Dying late game is essentially a guaranteed game over, further adding to the frustration that is Gradius III.
I would be lying if I didn’t say that despite the infuriating difficulty, this game is pretty damn fun. Once you start getting a hang of the controls and figuring out enemy locations the game gets really exciting. The number of enemies on the screen makes the combat incredibly frenetic. If you’re able to get all your power ups maxed out, you’ll notice exactly how exciting the game can get. Once you get all four of your options (the little orange balls) you essentially become a wall of death. Of course, the army of enemies coming at you will also act as a wall of death. So, what happens when the two collide? It becomes this tense reverse tug o’ war (push o’ war?) where you’re desperately trying to force back the space fleets and monsters with a torrent of lasers. It’s an exhilarating experience that if you’re able to build yourself up to is a reward in and of itself.
Along with the absolute joy of turning yourself into an intergalactic slaughterhouse, nothing beats the satisfaction of getting to the end of a section and running into an enormous mech or beast of a boss that takes up a third of the screen! There are so many bosses in this game that it’s absurd. It’s difficult to find a thematic connection between most of these end-level overlords. One moment you’ll be fighting gigantic ships launching missiles from every orifice of its metallic body. The next moment you’ll be fighting a huge plant monster that takes over the entire screen. Hell, at one point you’ll be facing easter island statue-like beings? Rocks? It’s all over the place, and the diversity between each boss was delightful. There was a part of the game where you had to fight five bosses in a row in a sort of boss rush style, which was excellent, and I genuinely wish was the bulk of the game. Unfortunately, it isn’t, and the path to get to these highlights is nothing short of infuriating.
It would be unfair to critique a horizontal shooter’s level design since there is only so much you can do with auto-scrolling levels. What I can critique is the absolute chore it is to get through each of these levels. Every main area has a floor and a ceiling with maybe a couple of environmental obstacles to move through, all of which will kill you if you touch it. Death walls are especially infuriating in these types of games because of the crippling state it leaves the player. This is further compounded by the surging waves of enemies that are constantly thrown at you. Sure, there are parts of the game where there are no death walls and it’s just you, the Gradius, your enemies, and open space. The problem is that these parts of the game are boring and are only there to give players who died in the previous area an opportunity to build up power-ups again. Maybe this wouldn’t have been an issue if Konami just PUMPED THE BREAKS ON THE DIFFICULTY! Then they wouldn’t have needed these boring empty areas to make up for the absurdity that is the gauntlet of minions that are just there to eat your lives.
The game’s technical performance holds this game back from greatness. Gradius III has this nasty habit of dropping frames like they’re on fire. Any time a lot of enemies start showing up on the screen the framerate drops to what feels like single digits. To put this in context, the average framerate any game on the SNES ran at was around 60 FPS. The performance can get so bad that the flicker makes your ship look like it’s disappearing and reappearing right when the action starts to get dicey. If this happened only once in a while, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but every level has at least one part that comes to a screeching halt like this. When the problem is this generally profound, it becomes impossible to ignore it.
Gradius III has one issue that is particularly unusual, which is its length. I’m not sure why but there were parts of this game where the levels felt like they would never end. There are levels that have two, sometimes even three, different stages before you run into a boss. Other times the level is nice, concise, and to the point. The level placing is equally as odd. There is a point (my favorite point) where after fighting through a minefield you end up at a stage where you fight 5 unique bosses back-to-back, ending with a ship that takes up half the level. After this brutal battle, the game continues like it never happened to the next level (my least favorite point) which was single handedly the hardest part of the entire game, which then has ANOTHER level right after it! Seriously, I get the developers worked hard to create a vast array of enemies and bosses to throw at you but, man, you got to know when to call it. I don’t think this is an exceptionally big issue overall, but it was something I noticed in my playthrough that was at least worth pointing out.
This has got to be the hardest, most user-unfriendly game I’ve ever played, but, somehow, I still had a great time playing it. There’s a lot of stuff in the game and the developers at Konami didn’t shy away from allowing the player to modify how their own personal Gradius will play. The bosses were incredible, but it’s a shame that the path to these glorious adversaries is paved with bad intentions. The levels are only as difficult as they are because either Konami wanted to be mean, or more likely to artificially increase play time so that kids felt like they had to buy it to beat it. Whether this questionable business practice is acceptable or inexcusable will remain to be seen.
Now, let us get to what most people are interested in— the vague numerical values given to something to help make an opinion more digestible!
Gameplay: 3 out of 5
Combat in this game is an interesting combination of great and awful. Bosses are exciting and varied, forcing you to stay on your toes for each battle. There is an exceptionally exciting level a little past the midway point of the game where the scroll speed of the game increases and you’re racing through the guts of an enemy base at blistering speeds. However, there are way too many stretches of unfair difficulty and slow, boring sections. It cannot be understated how awful the slowdown in Gradius III is. The framerate slows down whenever there are too many sprites on screen, and guess what? There are ALWAYS too many sprites on the screen. A little bit of constraint and quality control could have really made this an unforgettable experience. It still is, but not necessarily in a good way.
Graphics/Art Direction: 4 out of 5
Although it’s easy to rip into them, I love space shooters. It’s amazing what you can portray through a black screen and a pile of basic yet well-placed colored dots. The sprites that represent the common enemies are acceptable and ultimately kind of cute when they’re not lobotomizing the Gradius’s pilot. The real feast for the eyes is the big bosses. The artists went absolutely crazy with the design. There are some bosses that look somewhat similar, but, overall, the design for each one is unique and grandiose. The only real gripe I have is that the mixture of biological, stone, and robotic enemy designs feels a bit unfocused. It’s like there were a hundred great unrelated ideas that were all put into the same game.
Sound: 4 out of 5
There’s no sugar coating it: This game got bangers. The score has this head-bobbing feel to it that matches the fast-paced combat. The sound effects are about as stereotypical of beeps, boops, and nyyyows that you’d expect. Gradius III has what can be called “Video Game Space Sound Effects: The Essentials.” Like always, any time there is digitized voice acting my stony cold heart cracks and I feel love again. Lines like “Shield” and “Option” are clear as day, but whatever the hell the final boss says is a garbled low-pitched mess. Although not necessarily unforgettable, there isn’t really a single unpleasant experience when it comes to sound quality.
Content: 2 out of 5
Despite a seemingly endless stream of bosses, this game feels like it’s lacking substance. Everything is an illusion; the length of the levels is an illusion of length. The menagerie of options at the beginning of the game is an illusion of depth. Everything is there to portray a visage of a big, fat game with lots of stuff. In reality, there isn’t a terrible amount to the game. There are a couple of difficulties for replay, but this game heavily relies on its difficulty to keep people playing. This is especially tragic since there will be so many players who just won’t see what little this game does have to offer because of the absurd challenge. Tragic, indeed.
Total Score: 13/20
It’s A’ight!
It’s sad, really. This is a good game that was held back by a combination of performance, bloat, and difficulty. I’ve seen a lot of people praising this game highly to this day. Sure, there are plenty of merits to Gradius III including its inherent fast-paced gameplay and exciting yet challenging boss battles. To pretend this game is a SNES classic is insane. If anything; it’s more infamous. This is the game that you brag to people you can beat and challenge friends to distance races in. It’s a fun time for the more experienced gamer, but for those who want to get into this genre, I’d highly suggest other games that are fairer, more enjoyable, and less janky.
If knowing this game is an overwhelming, onerous juggernaut doesn’t deter you from trying this out, then you’re in luck. Unlike its generational contemporary, Axelay, the cartridge for Gradius III stayed relatively affordable over the decades. A cartridge is going to range between 15 to 30 dollars, which is not entirely unreasonable for a game like this. You can also get it in a bundle of Gradius III and IV on the PlayStation 2 for around 35 to 40 dollars. If you’re not into the idea of physical copies, then never fear! You can simply buy a digital version of the game on the Nintendo online store. Of course, there’s also emulation, which is how I chose to play the game, but if you can help it you should at least own the game, as well.
Unfortunately, I can’t think of a witty final sentence, so here is a pile of cheat codes I found the most interesting that I found online!
(L is left trigger and R is right trigger)
You can fully power-up by pausing the game then clicking UP UP DOWN DOWN L R L R B A
You can get 30 lives by holding left and pressing A A A START on the title screen.
Putting in the Konami code will kill you.
Pause game and input UP UP DOWN DOWN L R L R B A START to get all your weapons.
Hopefully, these will help the forlorn space pilot on their adventure to destroy everything in their path. Good luck space cadet!
