Gradius/YMMV

The following are Subjective Tropes relating to Gradius.

---

• Adaptation Displacement: Most American fans believe that the NES version of Gradius is the first in the series due to the fact that arcade version was renamed Nemesis outside Japan.
• Anticlimax Boss:
  • It may be justified, considering how hard it is to get to Bacterion.
  • Gofer.
  • Zelos Force.
  • Dr. Venom in in Gradius V.
  • Averted with Doom.
  • O.V.U.M.
• Complete Monster: Most of the Bacterians. They take over planets and change the environment to suit the Bacterians, which could potentially kill the other people who can't handle the change environment. In the Salamander OVA series, they indirectly orphaned Stephanie (they kidnapped Stephanie's father, turned him into a cyber brain, and Stephanie had to destroy her father; Stephanie's mother... well the mother died long before the Bacterians' invasion) and were going to make Stephanie a Cyber Brain too. All this with no regret.
  • There maybe an exceptional Bacterian named Tita Nium whose one of the heroes of Otomedius. She may be a Bacterian.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: Gradius contains a large amount, listing them here would take too much space. Examples can be seen on the trope page.
• Demonic Spiders: Those bouncy things that shoot omnidirectional bullet spams, the Bubbles in the titular stage, especially in Gradius IV (where you have bouncing icebergs to dodge as well), the dreaded Option Thief, the goddamned Zubs (who sometimes materialize on top of you), the inflating mini-Moais that the Moai Boss spawns, the fireballs that generate indestructible shrapnel, and the dreaded Cube Rush at the end of the Ice Stage.
• Ear Worm: Aircraft Carrier a.k.a. the boss theme in the first Gradius a.k.a. the first theme of the boss rushes. It is literally only 4 measures that loop over and over again, but god damn it if it isn't catchy.
• Game Breaker: Some of the custom weapon set-ups can be this if the right weapons and option formations are used.
  • The Falchion Beta is this in Gradius Gaiden. The Auto-Aiming at full power covers 180 degrees of the top of your ship, the Gravity Bullet speed kills bosses, and the Rolling Missile both goes in both directions and pierces through weak enemies.
  • E.Laser, R.Option, Reduce Shield and Full Barrier in the SNES port of Gradius III. E.Laser and R.Option combined give you a powerful rotating charged attack that can erase distructable bullets even while charging and can kill most everything in several hits. Reduce shield is the best shield in the series, although it can only negate two hits, it makes your ship, and thus your hit box, smaller, allowing you to slip though most bullets with ease. Full Barrier allows you to refill a partial shield instead of deplete it to bring it back to full.
• Goddamned Bats: Lots of examples. One particularly irritating example the "Strobe Ship" in Salamander's second and fifth stages, which Inferface Screws you with seizure-inducing flashes.
• It's Short, So It Sucks:
  • Gradius ReBirth is in trouble as far as this trope goes, as it's just five stages, although the player does have to beat the game three times in order to actually beat it completely with an ending.
  • Inverted with Gradius V, with some players complaining that the loop length of 90 minutes is far too long for an arcade-style game.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A common criticism of Gradius IV is that many stages are just rehashes of those in Gradius II. For example, Stage 1 is just the sun stage WITH LIQUID METAL! Granted, most games have a rehashed stage or two (usually the volcano stage and the Moai stage), but Gradius IV is seen as especially guilty of it.
• It Was His Sled: The "?" powerup. In the original game, it's function was likely intended to be a mystery that you had to get to the end of the powerup bar to solve. Nowadays, everyone knows what it does (shield/force field), but it's still referred to as "?" for posterity's sake.
• Magnificent Bastard: Paula in the Salamander OVAs. She poses as a boat person from the 5th planet and tricks one of the protagonists into destroying a Moai Statue, which allows the Bacterians, who were repelled by the Moai Statue, to come in and mess up the place.
• Moral Event Horizon: In Nemesis 3, Venom attacked planet Gradius and kidnapped a three-year old James Burton to change history in favor of the Bacterians. His attack has indirectly killed many of Venom's own species due to radiation.
• Narm: Several boss taunts, such as:

"You think you can beat me with THAT? Loser!" --Moai Dimension, Gradius Gaiden Stage 4
"I'm going to scare you like you've never been scared before!" --Doom, Salamander 2 Stage 6

• Sequelitis: Gradius IV is victim to this, due to not adding anything new to the series (the first stage is even a re-hash of the first stage from Gradius II) and for the 3D effects looking rather cheap, even for Playstation standards. It's also a contender with Gradius III for "hardest game in the entire series."
• That One Boss:
  • Big Core MK III and the Moai boss in Gradius III arcade/[PS2], Heaven's Gate in Gradius Gaiden (possibly the hardest in the series), Belial (a suped-up remake of Golem from Salamander/Life Force) in Gradius IV, Bolboros, the twin ships from Gradius Galaxies/Generations/Gradius Advance and most of the bosses in Gradius V, particularly the remake of Beacon from the SNES port of Gradius III.
  • Rolling Core, the boss of Gradius IV's 7th stage, already That One Level in itself due to being a high speed stage. The developers have the nerve to throw a boss with small laser guns filling all the empty space down the flat side facing you, the "donut hole" core aims independantly of the outer shell, so it fires around 10 lasers in one direction and another 4-6 in another... and every time you think you've got his pattern figured out... he throws something new at you, like turning the core sideways and blasting you with a no "other" warning laser blast. And then Konami has the gall to bring this boss back for a rematch in a BOSS RUSH in Gradius V (this one has spinning cores rather than a spinning shield, but also has lasers and guns to go along with the missiles, some of which will explode and create a spreadshot).
  • Doom, the Final Boss of Salamander 2. Yes, he is a Final Boss. However, it's extremely rare for a Gradius final boss to be not a Zero Effort Boss.
• That One Level:
  • The Famicom version of Gradius II has the first stage as perhaps the most difficult one alongside the expectedly-difficult final stage. Said first stage does a reprise of the solar prominence stage from Stage 3 of Life Force, necessitating Trial-and-Error Gameplay to find a safe route. Unlike Life Force, this game uses the Checkpoint system, so if a prominence turns your ship into vapor, you'll have to start the entire section over!
  • The first stage of Gradius III arcade is pretty fun, and provided you played perfectly (you have four options, your laser, and missiles) and keep up a steady stream of fire, the second stage is tense, but enjoyable. It's the third stage where it all goes downhill (ironically, the third stage is virtually a rehash of the first stage of Gradius I only a hell of a lot harder, and appears again in Gradius ReBirth, where it is nowhere near as hard).
  • These get toned down in the SNES port of Gradius III, only to gives up the sudden crash into the brick that is the High Speed Zone due to sudden change in auto-scroll speed. If you don't have at least two speed ups, you will smash into the wall the moment the intro of the music finishes.
  • The third stage in Gradius IV, the bubble stage. It's similar to the one in Gradius III, only now with stationary obstacles and, much more importantly, the smaller bubbles that are produced when you destroy a larger bubble are briefly indestructible shortly after splitting up. You can come into this stage with full weaponry, and the bubbles may still overwhelm you.
• The Woobie: Stephanie in the Salamander OVA.