Past meets present: Gradius II

This column is “Past meets present,” the aim of which is to look back at game franchises and games that are in the news and topical again thanks to a sequel, a remaster, a re-release, and so on. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

Can it even be counted as a Gradius game if it’s named or released in a straightforward manner? Konami eventually kept things uniform with their titles in this series, but things were as inconsistent as ever at the time of Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou. For one, it was Gradius II in Japanese arcades, but in Europe, it was known as Vulcan Venture. And it was Gradius II even though it was 1988 and there had already been a Gradius 2, which was, specifically, a sequel to the MSX port of the original Gradius, which was also known as Nemesis.

Gradius II, however, is the “true” second Gradius, in the sense that it’s the second mainline game in the series, and the one which somewhat crystallized what Gradius was going to be about from that point going forward. That being said, Konami themselves consider it the fourth game in the series, after the original Gradius, Salamander, and Life Force. Sure, Salamander and Life Force are sort of the same game, but they are also very much not the same game, so count them as two, why not. Regardless, Gradius II pulled from innovations and conventions established in the three games that came before it, and the result was the first game in the series that tied it all together while adding its own persisting evolutions.

Of course, no one in North America was aware of that for nearly two decades, unless they were in the business of importing games from Japan or Europe. And that’s because, for as fantastic as Gradius II is, Konami didn’t bother to release it in North American arcades, or to put any of its various home ports on their North American-equivalent systems. It took until 2006’s Gradius Collection on the Playstation Portable for Gradius II to make its way to North America in an official capacity. Just one of its home ports — the PC Engine CD edition — released internationally on the Wii Virtual Console, but to this day the impressive Famicom release of Gradius II remains unavailable to North America. Given the arcade-specific focus of the upcoming Gradius Origins collection, too, it’s going to remain that way even as Konami revisits one of their all-time classic shoot ‘em ups again.

Gradius II is brutally difficult. It’s not impossible by any means, but it was designed with an ever-improving player base in mind, according to longtime Konami developer Kouji Hiroshita. In a 1988 interview (translated by Shmuplations), Hiroshita explained as much: “Lately there’s also been an increasing number of skilled players, so we want to make it difficult for them. So naturally there was a sense of wanting to provide a challenge from the developers to the players.” The result was a game that is absolutely not for your casual Gradius or STG player, but also one so good that you could see someone from one of those categories become more serious about either due to their exposure to Gradius II.

“Gradius Syndrome,” in which you cruise through a game extremely powered up until you die and then can’t make any progress at all, is in full effect in Gradius II. To give you an example, the home ports are easier than the arcade edition in part because, when you die, you restart from the beginning of the stage instead of a checkpoint. Sure, you have to replay things and risk death again, but you also get the chance to power up again, whereas restarting from a checkpoint can end up leaving you with your most basic weapon and a whole bunch of enemies waiting to kill you. It’s to the point where you might just want to restart, even, depending on where in the game you die, especially since, from stage three onward, the screen can end up loaded with enemies and projectiles to dodge.

It’s worth it to persevere through Gradius II, however. To learn the paths in each stage that are a bit safer, to figure out the loadouts that work for you, to discover which weapons you want to upgrade and when, to experiment with deploying the temporary shields that can absorb damage for you, keeping you alive that much longer on your run. What you’ll discover by pushing through is a brilliantly designed game with varied levels, unique bosses in every stage, a fantastic soundtrack, visuals that blow previous Gradius games out of the water both in terms of their graphic fidelity as well as just the design of it all — the moment in the first stage where you go from your standard power-up collection against popcorn enemies to seeing giant fire dragons emerging from burning suns you have to steer clear of is going to leave an impression — and no shortage of strategy to consider.

The development team themselves believed Gradius to be a strategy game as much as it was a shoot ‘em up, with Hiroshita even using that word in the aforementioned interview.

That last bit — about a strategy working in one stage but not the next one — is part of what makes Gradius II so difficult, but also so tough to put down. You are constantly being challenged, you are constantly being tested, and it can be a real pain in the moment. When you figure it out, though? When you finally break free from whatever labyrinth of narrow, claustrophobic walls and too-close-for-comfort enemies and projectiles has been holding you back? It just feels tremendous, and you’ll want to experience that again. And you will, in the very next stage, when you do it all over again but in a different way.

Gradius II built on the foundations of its predecessors, sticking with the RPG-inspired weapon upgrade system of the original game that allowed you to spend collected orbs on whatever kind of offensive and defensive systems you wanted. It went beyond what that original game included, however, in a couple of ways. For one, Gradius II includes newer options that were not part of Gradius, but were added in Salamander/Life Force, such as the Ripple Laser. And thanks to a slew of new ideas that the development staff couldn’t decide between, they went far beyond just keeping up with innovations since then, too: Gradius II lets you choose completely different loadout paths before you even get started, which would become standard for the series from that point forward.

Each of the four loadouts have the same first and last selections, with Speedup and Options, respectively — you can have up to four options here floating behind your ship and firing along with you, which is also true in the Famicom port. Previously, that was limited to just two options given the lesser horsepower of the console compared to its arcade cousins. The three middle slots are where the real changes happen. The first loadout is traditional, with Missile, Double shot, and the standard laser. The second introduces a Spread Bomb and Tailgun, which is a new twist on the Double shot, as it fires behind and in front of the ship instead of at the traditional upward angle for its second shot. This also has the standard Laser. The third has the Photon Torpedo in place of the Missile, and while it acts similarly it can go through multiple enemies. This third loadout also includes the Ripple Laser from Salamander/Life Force. The fourth loadout proved to be the most popular, as it included a 2-Way Missile that shot both above and below, in addition to the Tailgun and Ripple Laser.

Of course, maybe you don’t like using any of the double-shot style weapons, as it interrupts the rate of fire in a single direction: a 2-Way missile is great for full coverage of above and below the Vic Viper, yes, but you’re pumping out missiles in two directions without actually firing faster. The same goes for the standard Double or the Tailgun. So while the fourth loaded ended up being the one that Konami saw getting the most usage, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be the one that fits your own playstyle best. This all added to the strategy element of the game, and became a standard part of the Gradius experience from this point onward because of it. The original Gradius weapon system was built on player choice, and going beyond that scope to include all kinds of loadouts to experiment with was a worthy way of expanding upon that idea. It also extends to the idea of shields in Gradius II: you have your pick of a frontal shield that shrinks with each hit, or one that covers your whole ship, but is only good for four blocked hits in total.

The PC Engine CD edition of Gradius II, released in 1992, is close to the arcade edition of the game in every way other than resolution. The fantastic soundtrack of the original is preserved here in Red Book audio, and thanks to tweaks made to the game’s balance — like with having you restart a stage rather than using a checkpoint — it’s also significantly easier to complete. Though not easy — this is still Gradius II, regardless of where you play it. The easier version of the game here is easier than the arcade edition, though if you’re looking for the same level of brutality, don’t worry, just play the PC Engine CD edition on the hardest setting, and you’ll get to experience it.

One of the programmers for the PC Engine CD edition of Gradius II, by the way, was none other than Koji Igarashi, in one of his first credits with Konami. Before he moved into directing and writing and became the face of Castlevania, Igarashi was a programmer on the PC Engine editions of both Detana!! Twinbee and Gradius II.

The Famicom edition of Gradius II has its own story to tell. There were two key reasons it was never localized for an NES release. For one, Gradius just wasn’t as popular outside of Japan as it was in Konami’s home country, which in and of itself wasn’t necessarily enough to stop Konami from bothering to release it there, anyway. When combined with the fact that it took special custom hardware to get Gradius II running on the Famicom, however, it becomes a lot easier to understand why Konami would allow popularity to sway their decision there.

Konami utilized the VRC4 in its Gradius II Famicom cartridges. It was a custom memory mapper chip that enhanced the game’s graphics, and while it was used in a number of Konami’s games, they were all Japan-exclusive titles: Gradius II, Crisis Force, Bio Miracle: Bokutte Upa, Ganbare Goemon Gaiden 2, WaiWai World and WaiWai World 2, and Twinbee 3. As you probably guessed, it’s the fourth custom memory mapper that Konami developed for Famicom games, not including revisions to existing chips. While not quite as advanced as later editions of the VRC — the VRC7 used in Lagrange Point adds so much to the proceedings that it allows for dual-channel FM Synth on the Famicom in addition to the memory and graphical enhancements — there was still enough going on here that it would have been a pain for Konami to figure out how to translate all of this for an NES release, as they had for the North American release of Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. Given the NES did not necessarily support all of the same kind of custom mapper enhancements of the Famicom, games like Dracula’s Curse needed to be converted to a completely different mapper than the one it was designed around, and have its soundtrack reworked to fit the standard five channels of sound that the NES allowed for on its own.

Which all ended up being a shame, because Gradius II on the Famicom is excellent. It retains as much of the core of the arcade edition of Gradius II as it could, but given the differences in horsepower between Gradius II’s arcade board and what even a mapper-enhanced Famicom cartridge could pull off, that wasn’t a 1:1 experience. Like with Salamander/Life Force, however, Konami added and subtracted as necessary, and ended up with a game worth experiencing on its own merits once more. It sounds great, and while not as detailed visually — there are far more black backgrounds to compensate for the dip in processing power and colors — it still looks great, with its own wonderful sense of design. Too bad about it not being available anywhere, though. Luckily, NES emulators have custom mapper support, so you don’t have to go without if you must experience Famicom Gradius II for yourself.

Luckily, Gradius II itself is available, in a variety of ways. It’ll be included in the upcoming Gradius Origins collection, which releases on August 7, 2025 for Playstation 5, Xbox Series S|X, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam. There is already an Arcade Archives release of Gradius II out there for Switch and Playstation 4 users, and Konami’s Arcade Classics Anniversary collection, available on Playstation 4, Switch, Xbox One, and PC, features both Gradius II and Vulcan Venture. Chances are good that the Gradius Origins version will be the definitive one, owing to M2 being responsible for that port, but you can’t go wrong with any of them. The ACA edition has online leaderboards, while the Arcade Classics Anniversary release features save states. The Origins edition will feature rewind in addition to save states, as well as a training mode, though, so if you’re looking for more than one Gradius arcade title to grab, then maybe you just wait.

Regardless of how or where you play Gradius II, though, the key point is that you should. It’s a step up from what were already two (or three) classics of the genre, and arguably the high point of the series for almost an entire decade, until Gradius Gaiden arrived on Japanese Playstations. At the least, it remains the best of the Gradius arcade titles, which is no small thing. And also the best of the surprising number of second Gradius games, because this franchise allows for a statement like that to be made.

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