"Gradius was massively ahead of its time when it came out in the arcades in 1985, much better than other shooters, it was a fantastic game with an excellent power-up system and interesting levels and designs. This is somewhat of a makeshift representation of that game that sort of plays right and sort of looks right, its a bit off but it does still feel like Gradius. On the upside, due to this being based on the MSX version of Gradius this version actually contains an extra stage not found in the original arcade game, it also allows the player to power-up their missiles twice, both are nice additions. On the downside its a rushed feeling product, there's a lot of flicker, you can't play both music and sfx at the same time and at times the game swaps between these two options at random, there is also a new exploit with the bosses where you can just sit still out of harms way while it times out. All in all kind of dissapointing but it still has all the pioneering elements that made Gradius the game it was."
