This month im reviewing 1 game, with 3 different names. Gradius, Life Force, and Salamander. In one incarnation or another, these 3 games have been on every system, console, and arcade machine. People have tried to rip the concept from Konami in many different ways; the wosrt rip off ever being Air Bonk for the PC Engine. Im not adding R-Type to this list of games because it differs alot from these 3. Same thing, just different. Lets start with Gradius.
This game started it all. The first one of its kind.. fast paced and tons of fun. Very hard at some points and nearly impossible to beat. This game introduced the legendary Konami Code. (up up down down left right left right B A start) Simple and fun, this game has tons of replay value and was a blockbuster success for Komani.
Life Force. Just a better version of Gradius, mixing in the element of sidescreen and vertical scrolling. Again, the same as Gradius, just improved. The Purchase bar has been replaced by a more compact small selection window.
Salamander is a take off on Life Force, designed originally to be a sequel. Only released in Japan, Salamander for the PCE is the exact same thing as Life Force except when you kill a string of enemies and you collect the power-up, it instantly gives you the upgrade, No "purchase bar" across the bottom. The NES versions of Life Force and Salamander are exact except the purchase bar in Life Force is compact and small.
Konami of Japan did make a sequel to Gradius only to be released in Japan. This game featured an editor for purchase bar. You could pick your kind of laser, bombs and so on. This game is extremely hard to find.
All together all 3 games are super hard and damn near unbeatable without useing "the code". Growing up this was a favorite game of my group of friends because of the replay value, and that it is 2 player (turned based) being able to compete for scores. I dont think ive ever played a bad Konami game, and this is a good example of their greatness.
Screenshots of the PCE games..
