CGC #11: Gradius

[A Black Falcon]

THIS GAME IS HARD! I mean... I love the Gradius powerup system, but the fact that it takes a full level (not missing much of anything) to build up full power sure makes it REALLY hard to recover once you die.... it seems that lives in this game are irrelevant. With no continues, there's really only one way to beat the game -- beat it without dying. Because if you die once, and you aren't at the beginning of level 1, you will almost certainly lose all your lives in that level.

I know I have every time in level 3... I never get as far on the other lives (in this case, since I hit 200,000, I had 5 more lives after losing the first one on the second of the 4 annoying round guys at the end of the level)... I got to those guys once and died on the first one in those 5 tries... NOT fun.

Oh, and when enemies do more damage than your shield can hold so you die instantly instead of being able to activate the shield you've got waiting on the powerup button sure just GREAT!

*sigh*

Its still a great game... just too hard because of no continues.

Still, I like my chances of beating this game without using savestates someday are better than my chances of beating R-Type 1 or 2 with limited continues ever will be...

Uhh... I really do like this game a lot... its just SO FRUSTERATING!