You’ve got to give it to Konami: they’re sure coming back around making actual good games over the last few years. After basically shutting down development and focusing on their many other avenues of business in Japan, it seems like the company has decided not to waste their decades of legendary releases. They’ve been putting out a number of collections that go beyond being mere ROM dumps for old games, but actual historically valuable material.
Developed by M2, who are masters at the craft of bringing back retro games in beautiful and extremely playable fashion, Gradius Origins is impressive as it not only brings together all of the classic 8 and 16-bit Gradius and Life Force games, but also a brand-new title to boot with Salamander 3. Before you ask, Salamander is what Life Force is called in Japan, so with this new collection we get to replay six games and enjoy a surprise entry in what’s considered two of the most traditional shoot ‘em up series in existence in a package that is stuffed with extra content.
Gradius Origins includes the original Gradius and its two follow-ups, Gradius II (subtitled Gradius II: GOFER no Yabou in Japan) and Gradius III (Densetsu kara Shinwa e in Japan), as well as Life Force (Salamander) and Salamander 2, its Japan-only sequel. Salamander 3 is the cherry on top, as it’s an entirely new game designed in the form of an old school arcade release, with all the bells and whistles that seem like they were ripped straight out of 1996.
All the games come packed with multiple ROM versions that not only take you to different territories, but also actual production run models, some of which have never been made available before, wildly varying established norms, such as pre-release or showroom variations, that can easily throw veterans for a loop. It’s neat to see hidden bonuses in the form of even more of these ROMs that come into play when you use a particularly infamous sequence of button presses at the right place. You know the one!
The seven games included offer a number of graphical options to pick from that you are probably used to seeing if you’ve been keeping up with collections such as these, like filters, borders, and special effects. Gradius Origins ups that somewhat by having you fiddle with toggles if you wish, in order to customize your favorite even further, such as how strong you want the blurring to be when using the CRT option, or the number of scanlines, the amount of shimmering moving sprites generate, to name a few. The coolest bit, though, is all the info that is displayed on the sidebars while playing, showing off just about everything about your run, which is something I didn’t know I needed up until now and can’t think of playing without. Crazy stuff, most definitely.
Salamander 3 is the only one of these games that does not give you quicksave and quickload, so if you are aiming to finish it, you’re going to have to do it the old fashioned way. It feels like an entry that was simply shoved into a locker that time forgot, only to be brought back today, and gameplay-wise, it fits in extremely well with the rest of what’s on offer in this collection. The drill is well known if you’ve ever played one of these: grab power-ups and gain levels, drop it all whenever you are taken out, but there’s still a chance to regain your strength if you are quick and skilled enough since the orbs stay on-screen when you respawn.
In a way, admittedly, all seven games share the same structure when it comes to playing them. In fact, Gradius and its sequels in particular might seem to some as the same game with increasingly better presentation elements tacked in the further you get in the trilogy on offer here, while Life Force and Salamander, with their more biological themes tend to show more variety in terms of level design and overall challenge. Safe to say, whichever game you decide to start with, the rest will definitely seem familiar to you.
As with other Konami collections, Gradius Origins is packed with bonus material. It ranges from complete soundtracks with a music player to a glossary of every single sprite present in these games, alongside a gallery that offers a number of graphical materials like flyers and guides to each entry. The concept art included is cool to me as an art nerd, even more so the original sketches for the box art for all of them as Konami was known to have some of the best especially on the NES and Famicom.
Gradius Origins, as with the multiple Castlevania compilations is Konami doing right with their rich videogame history, offering a legal way to play their brilliant classics on modern systems, not to mention giving those who dive into this a completely original game to boot with Salamander 3. If these and releases like Contra: Operation Galuga are to be taken to heart, it seems that Konami is indeed back and I couldn’t be happier about that.
