Retro-styled and challenging arcade shoot ’em up featuring online scoreboards.

Story

The year is 6664. The planet Antichthon has suddenly fallen silent and does not respond on any communication attempts. Dr. Venom, director general of the space science agency reports that a Bacterian infection has been detected on the planet. The government thus has a problem on their hands and decides to send out Gradian defense forces to fight the dangerous infection. The veteran fighter pilot James Burton answers the call of duty and buckles up in the Vic Viper once again.

The Game

Gradius Rebirth is an old-school arcade style 2D side-scrolling shoot ’em up, exclusive to the Wii. This is a highly polished shoot-anything-that-moves style of game in which you’re fighting robots, space ships, monsters, cannon turrets etc. The Gradius series have reached a legendary status among fans over the years, much thanks to its purely skill based, straight-forward and re-playable design. The first and original Gradius debuted in the arcades back in 1985 and there have been numerous re-releases, spinoffs and sequels since then across numerous platforms.
In Gradius Rebirth you play as James Burton as he blasts his way through the galaxy in the renowned Vic Viper fighter ship. The goal of the game is to terminate the Bacterian core located deep within the infected planet.

When you first start, there are three playable ships to choose from, each with their own set of weaponry. Two additional ships can be unlocked for a total of five playable ships. There are similarities between the ships as they all follow the same basic formula: each one can upgrade speed, secondary weapons, lasers, assisting attack pods and shields.
During the game you can collect power-up capsules – the more valuable and powerful upgrades will require you to collect more power-up capsules. What’s more, laser type weapons can not be combined with your standard shot-type weapons. This system gives you the option to choose one weapon over the other, and it may be a good idea to switch weapons depending on what types of enemies you’re fighting – all with the help of collected power-up capsules. This requires active management of your power-ups and it lays another layer of difficulty on an already tricky game.

There are five levels in the game and while it may sound meager there are mechanics in place to keep those few levels exciting for multiple play-throughs. For example, the first level has the ability to change itself into three different variations (depending on how you play), and there are hidden bonus stages to be found throughout the game. Also, depending on what difficulty level you play on, the stages will have different features which is a very rare and cool thing. This means that if you want to master the game fully you will have to master all the difficulty levels.
On top of this, each stage has a boss waiting at the end, and you may need a few tries on them all to learn their tricks and attack patterns.

Gradius games have always been known for their high difficulty level and Gradius Rebirth is no exception. The game is brutally ruthless to beginner players, and even veteran gamers may find themselves defeated by it. So this is a true hardcore game, but it will allow you to scale the difficulty level either up or down. It can be played on five different difficulty levels, and each one is quite unique: the easiest difficulty level will deny enemies the ability to shoot at all. The Easy difficulty level will have enemies shoot bullets that you can counter by shooting them. On Normal, enemies will shoot indestructible bullets. On Hard, enemies will shoot a whole lot more bullets, and on Very Hard, enemy bullets will travel much faster and some enemies will release bullets at you as they die. With that said, Gradius Rebirth is a game in which you must memorize enemy positions and attack patterns in order to stand a chance, meaning that you’d practice the same stages over and over on a trial and error basis.
Also, depending on which difficulty level you play, the game will start on a new loop once you’ve beaten it. This is basically just a difficulty level step-up from the previous loop, but if you’re looking for a top score it is essential to beat as much of the game as possible. It should be noted however, that the easiest difficulty level only consist of one single loop.

When you touch an enemy, a bullet or any solid object you die. One single hit makes the Vic Viper explode, and you’ll lose all your collected weapons. The shield upgrades can eventually save you from this demise, but basically this is a game where you can’t make mistakes and get away with it – in fact, in some cases you have to be able to predict enemy actions before they happen. That’s how tight the action is. Once you die, you’re taken back to the last checkpoint you reached with only the standard cannon. This punishment is typically what drives people away from the game as it leaves you in a tight spot which may be hard to recover from. In previous Gradius games it has been super difficulty to recover from certain checkpoints, but in Gradius Rebirth there’s always a fair chance to collect new power-up capsules and get back on track.

The game can be played on two game modes – the standard mode and the Score Attack mode. The standard mode will allow you to play the game normally, meaning that it allows you to use an infinite amount of credits – when you’ve lost all your lives, you can continue the game from the last checkpoint for as many times as you want. You can even quit the game and return to any reached checkpoint if you want. As such, the standard mode is practically only a training mode for the Score Attack mode.
The Score Attack mode will start you off with three lives, and the goal is to rake in as much points as possible with those lives. Once you’ve lost your lives your final score is recorded onto the score ranking board. Extra lives can be earned in both game modes by reaching a specific score (or picking up extra life capsules).

The main attraction of Gradius Rebirth is thus the Ranking system. Scores from the Score Attack mode are stored locally on your machine, but if you reach a score that’s good enough you will have the option to record it to the online scoreboard. There is one scoreboard for each difficulty level, so you can really choose what league to play in if you want to go for the top spot. The scoreboards make it very addicting to try to best your previous score and compare it to other players.

Gradius Rebirth also has support for saving replays of your endeavors. This could be useful for preserving those proud moments when you manage to outwit the relentless enemies and set a personal record score, or you could use it to improve your score ranking by studying your performance and enemy attack patterns.

Controls

This game can be played with either the Wii-Remote (held sideways), GameCube controller, Wii Classic Controller or with a Wii-Remote and Nunchuk combination. Basically the game uses three buttons: one for shooting, one for missile-type weapons and one that selects power-ups from the weapons menu. There’s also a rapid fire button that automatically fires the main weapon as fast as possible. The game also has support for remapping the button layout for each controller type, so the ball is really in your court in this one. A standard practice is to assign the missile-button together with the rapid fire button as this will allow you to fire all your weapons with one single button press.

It’s worth noting that some of the playable ships have some really stupid weapons. For example, there is a laser weapon that has the ability to go through solid objects. This is fine until you must shoot a Bacterian gooey material (found on level two and the bonus levels) – the laser shot goes right through it, potentially leaving you in an impossible situation.
There’s also a weapon variation that only allows you to shoot vertically, and keeping in mind that this is a horizontally scrolling game, it pretty much leaves you defenseless against anything that comes straight ahead.

The frame rate of the game will slow down when there are abnormal amounts of enemies on the screen. As the game slows down to a certain degree and never below it, its sometimes helpful because you’ll get a few more milliseconds to think about your next move. But the real threat about this is when the frame rate resumes its normal speed – if you’re caught by surprise there, there’s a high risk of death. So yes, the frame rate is an issue but it typically only happens on two of three occasions through the entire game, so it’s not really a big deal.

Graphics

The graphics are colorful, and it fully embraces the retro look of the 1990’s console games. The characteristic 2D pixel art is very detailed, and it is jacked up with some neat special effects, such as clever sprite scaling and particles.
The different levels all have their unique features. The endlessly looping Moai-asteroid belt, the dinosaur skeletons of the desert planet and the heavily guarded space corridors on Antichthon all have something unique and memorable.
The animation of the enemies is smooth and good-looking all across the board. Also the backgrounds are well done. The whole graphical presentation is really inspiring and it certainly breathes new life into the Gradius universe.

Sound

The sound goes perfectly hand in hand with the retro graphical style of the game. The soundtrack is both peppy and catchy, and the sound effects are very much at home too. It doesn’t bring any surprises, but instead just does what it’s supposed to do, which is good enough. There is some voice acting in the mix as well, but it is kept at a minimum. Overall, it’s very charming and plays right into the hands of 90’s arcade game fans.

Summary

Gradius Rebirth is a true gem for shoot ’em up gamers. It relies heavily on the score hunting, whether it is your own personal high score or on the online leaderboards. Without it, you’d just have a five level game that would be over in 20 minutes or so. However, if you’re a fan of Gradius games, there’s no reason to skip out on this one. The action is pretty much solid, and hunting for a better score is very rewarding and even addicting once you get into it. There’s plenty of quality old-school action to be had here – much worth the money.

Developed By: M2
Published By: Konami
Version Reviewed: Wii
Genre: Shoot ’em Up
Players: 1
Released: 2009-07-03