Gradius

[hansolo77]

June 2017 GOTM Winner - smario - 343.400

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Gradius Leaderboard

 

POSITION	USER NAME	TOTAL SCORE
1	smario	343,400
2	hansolo77	266,100
3	Mame Offender	172,400
4	ExedExes	171,700
5	Cynicaster	122,100
6	millerbrad	83,300
7	RedDog	46,600
8	Luigimaker	43,700
9	rtkiii	31,200
10	Floyd Turbo	16,300

Last Updated by hansolo77: 01-19-2020

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Please use these settings when submitting a hi-score for Gradius:

ROMSet: Nemesis (this has been changed to improve graphics and playability!)
Flip screen: Off
Version: Normal
Service Mode: Off
Lives: 3
Cabinet: Upright
Bonus Life: 50k and every 100k
Difficulty: Easy

The green coloured default values match the Twin Galaxies settings.
The red coloured values need to be changed!

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# you can change your Mame dip switch settings by following this guide:
# you can make a printscreen of your hi-score screen by following this guide:
# general rules for submitting your hi-score:

 

[hansolo77]

Gradius (グラディウス^?Guradiusu) is a 1985 horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Konami, originally released as a coin-operated arcade game in 1985. It was the first game in the Gradius series of shoot 'em ups. In Gradius, the player maneuvers a spacecraft known as the Vic Viper that must defend itself from the various alien enemies. The game features a power-up system called the "power meter", based upon collecting capsules to 'purchase' additional weapons.

The arcade version of Gradius was released internationally outside Japan under the title of Nemesis, although later releases kept the original title. Home versions were released for various platforms, such as the Famicom/NES, the MSX home computer, and the PC Engine, among other formats. The original arcade game and some of the home versions has also been included in various compilation releases and are available for download in services such as the Virtual Console and PlayStation Network.

The player controls the trans-dimensional spaceship Vic Viper, and must battle waves of enemies through various environments. The game became synonymous with the phrase, "Destroy the core!", as the standard of boss battles in the Gradius series involved combat with a giant craft, in the center of which would be situated one to several blue colored spheres. These bosses would be designed in such a way that there would be a straight passage from the exterior of the giant craft which leads directly to one of these cores. The player must fire shots into this passage while avoiding attack patterns from weapon emplacements on the body of the boss. However, small but destructible walls are situated in this passage, impeding the bullet shots from damaging the core, and must be whittled away by repeated well-placed shots. In a way, these tiny walls represent the boss' shielding gauge until its core is finally vulnerable to attack. Some bosses have the ability to regenerate these walls. When the core has sustained enough hits, it usually changes color from blue to red, indicating that it is in critical condition and its destruction is imminent. Upon the destruction of a core, a piece of the boss may be put out of commission, seeing that it is no longer powered by a core, or if all of the cores are destroyed, the entire boss is defeated and explodes satisfyingly. Note that these cores are not present on the more organic bosses of Gradius. Such bosses have weak spots in places such as a mouth, head or eye.

When gameplay begins, the Vic Viper is relatively slow and has only a weak gun. This level of capability is generally insufficient for engaging enemies, but the Vic Viper can gain greater capabilities by collecting and using power-up items. While most arcade games utilize distinct power up-items that each correspond to a specific effect on the player character, Gradius has a single power-up item. The effect of this power-up item is to advance the currently selected item in a power-up menu that appears at the bottom of the screen. When the desired power-up is highlighted, the player can obtain it by pressing the power-up button, returning the menu to its initial state in which no power-up is highlighted.

-- Quote from Wikipedia

[hansolo77]

Here's a bit of GameEx trivia for ya...

This game was voted upon yet tied with Pepper II.  They each received 6 votes.  Out of the 12 total voters (we allow 2 choices per round).  My random number generator chose this game as the final winner.  I also asked for a bit of additional feedback as to the state of our competition.  Those results show that 83.33% of you (10 votes) are going to participate this month, whereas only 16.67% (2 votes) wouldn't.  So we should see another exciting month of competing!  Something else about this game...  I had to go with the VS version, as the only available games in the MAME section of TwinGalaxies were VS or Gradius III (a totally different game).  So when you're ready to play, make sure you have that correct VS bios in your MAME setup!

Also a bit of update... I asked how everybody would feel about changing the competition to a seasonal one.  Meaning, we would allow for 3 months of gaming on the "GOTM" rather than a monthly one.  The results were inconclusive.. ending at 50/50 (6 votes each).  Honestly, I for one don't really care, so I voted for the monthly one.  I can see the advantages of a seasonal though.  It would give more people a chance to come in and play a game and get a score posted up before the contest is over.  HOWEVER, the drawback of that is the game itself might not be exciting enough to warrant 3 months of dragged on gaming.  So I think for the time being, I'll keep it the way it is for now.

Enjoy this month's feature game!

[Cynicaster]

Isn't the VS version the one that is basically the NES version of the game in an arcade cabinet?  Hope not, because the arcade version would be way more fun to play. 

 

[hansolo77]

I'm not sure.. I'm just going by what is on Twin Galaxies...

http://www.twingalaxies.com/scores.php?platformid=46&gamename=Vs. Gradius

There's only 2 games listed, Gradius III (different game), and Vs. Gradius.

[hansolo77]

Ok boys.. here's my first submission.  I've been playing this off an on all day, because my thumb gets tired lol.  After what seems like $20 in quarters, I finally scored a decent enough score to post.  I know it'll get blasted pretty quick, but I have my hopes up because it's good enough world ranking-wise at Twin Galaxies to be 3rd.  BUT.... I'm not using WolfMAME so I can't submit it for ranking.  Oh well.  Let's see how well you guys are?

BTW, I used to play this a lot at my friends house on his NES, so I have a bit experience with it.  I'm actually kinda glad it was picked.

Score: 164,500
Stage: 3
Initials: N/A (remember, games that don't have initial screens need to have a screenshot of the score with your high score matching... thus my first image..

And here's the title screen with the high score, which doesn't show the previous score earned, which is why you need to screen grab right after you die on your last man..

Happy Competing!

Updated OP, DB, RSS

[smario]

Yay, Gradius! This is gonna be fun!

@Cynicaster's right, by the way. The arcade classic Gradius goes by the name of "Nemesis" outside of Japan so that's probably why there's no TG entry. I'm sure there's one for Nemesis.

So what should we play? While I'm fine with all things Gradius and I don't want to invalidate @hansolo77's score, I'd prefer the real thing.

What do you think?

 

[Luigimaker]

Hopefully they are similair so I can get a good score

[ExedExes]

Hey all, as I was wondering why my MAME version (0.176) didn't have a "Normal" difficulty dip switch, I found that the Atari Age forum had Vs. Gradius as a game in their high score competition.

It turns out that the original name of the game is Nemesis. In the US it was changed to Gradius.

I know we're two days in with this NES version, but perhaps the powers that be can be aware of this, as Nemesis is the original game and nemesis.zip is the ROM in MAME. The purist in me would love to play the arcade original, but I don't know about those who already submitted scores would feel about it.

The Twin Galaxies score track for Nemesis is here and it has all the proper settings.

(I ran Vs. Gradius in WolfMAME 0.106 and it does have the Normal difficulty switch, so I can play in that version if we're sticking with Vs. Gradius.)

EDIT: Cynicaster AND smario beat me to it, but I agree with them. I'd love to play the real thing.

[RedDog]

VSGradus, first attempt: 77,700

[hansolo77]

I quoted this from Wikipedia:

On 6/1/2017 at 11:08 AM, hansolo77 said:

The arcade version of Gradius was released internationally outside Japan under the title of Nemesis, although later releases kept the original title.

Japan (original) had it as Gradius.  Everywhere else had it as Nemesis until later releases.  We've already got 3 scores posted now to the VS.  I was going to call up the person who requested it, since it would be their call which game to use ->

And seeing how he's already replied with:

9 hours ago, smario said:

Yay, Gradius! This is gonna be fun!

@Cynicaster's right, by the way. The arcade classic Gradius goes by the name of "Nemesis" outside of Japan so that's probably why there's no TG entry. I'm sure there's one for Nemesis.

So what should we play? While I'm fine with all things Gradius and I don't want to invalidate @hansolo77's score, I'd prefer the real thing.

What do you think?

 

I think we'll change it out to Nemesis to make you purists happy.  Give me a night to sleep and I'll fix it in the morning.  As of now, the board is still 000000.

[hansolo77]

Updated OP.  I kept the game name and artwork, but changed the underlying ROM file we use. 

I gave this version a go, and it IS different than the VS.  To me, it's  more difficult.  There is a section in the 1st stage that gives you a bullet-hell like scenario that I can't get past yet.  Since the default high score is over 50k, I wasn't able to beat it and post a score.  I'll come back to this!

[Luigimaker]

Is it cheating to bind missile and normal fire to the same button because its annoying to spam two buttons..

[Adultery]

If it gives you a competitive edge, then yes. And it does, so yes

[GimmeClassics]

20 minutes ago, Adultery said:

If it gives you a competitive edge, then yes. And it does, so yes

I have to agree with Adultery

[smario]

Here's my first entry to get things going - 121,000 - Maoi stage

[hansolo77]

Hey hey!  Alright!  So this game has an in-game table.  Awesome!  Thanks for your submission smario.. got the bar set high.. I'm gonna try this here in a couple hours.  (Last day of vacation.. )

Updated OP, DB, RSS

[rtkiii]

Yes...Nemesis....I remember trying to find this ROM back in the day.  What great pick.  I played this a ton on NES but not much on Arcade.  I'll see if my KB MAME setup will play this well enough to submit

[RedDog]

Here's my best so far. Tough game if you don't get and spend the powerups well.

46,600

[hansolo77]

Grr... I should have submitted a score for this when I could.  I didn't know there was a score lower than 57,300 I could have beaten to get initials up.  Now I'm going to have to try again on my next day off (not for a few days unfortunately).

Updated OP, DB, RSS

[Mame Offender]

Haha, I was just about to submit my score for Vs. Gradius just to realize we are changing it to Nemesis!  

 

Oh well, I also am strongly in favour of the"real thing".   Score will be coming in the near future.  This one is a lot of fun to play.

 

 

 

 

MO

[hansolo77]

Was it better or worse than mine?  Just curious..

[smario]

New score - 183,300

I somehow managed to get hit by the very last glowing ring in the Maoi stage but could recover and reach the second volcano stage. For me, that's the hardest stage, even more so than the enemy base at the end of the game.

[hansolo77]

I tried playing this a little bit more yesterday after work.  I still can't get to the volcano bit on the first stage (prior to fighting the first boss).    This version is so much more difficult for me.  Maybe it's because of the better rendering, keeping me off balance.  Still haven't felt like it was worthy of posting a score though.

Updated OP, DB, RSS

[Mame Offender]

On 6/7/2017 at 7:33 PM, hansolo77 said:

Was it better or worse than mine?  Just curious..

You got me, for now.  He he.