Gradius Origins doesn’t just revisit the past; it weaponises it. This explosive collection from Konami celebrates four decades of side-scrolling supremacy, bundling seven arcade classics and 18 versions into one pixel-packed package. From the debut of Salamander III to the long-lost AM Show edition of Gradius III, every frame pulses with retro energy and modern polish. Whether you’re dodging death in Gofer no Yabou or chasing high scores in Bubble Ver, Gradius Origins is a turbo-charged time capsule that demands your full attention.

Gradius Origins Review Pros

• Awesome graphics. 
• 3.24GB download size. 
• Platinum trophy. 
• Own in-game achievements. 
• Screen settings – size (normal/fit/full dot by dot), screen position (centre/right/left), choice of wallpaper, cocktail mode (in 2 player, the screen will flip around for player 2’s go), screen flicker, show hit boxes, and tint slider. 
• Screen mode (found in screen settings but deserves its own entry here), custom, sharp 1, sharp 2, smooth 1, smooth 2, CRT style 1, and CRT style 2. Then you get a set of options for – tint scan lines intensity, filter type, and brightness slider. 
• 2D arcade Shmup gameplay collection. 
• Tutorials are the manuals in each game. 
• Ranking registration options – automatically, confirm, and register later. 
• Radius guide is a series of image based manuals for each game and version, showing enemies and how much they are worth. 
• Visual gallery is a trove of concept art, art, manuals, scans of inserts and cards and is just a beautiful collection of history for each game. 
• Sound gallery is also a music player allowing you to create and play your tracklist in the menus from each game’s album. 
• Seven games in one – Gradius, Salamander, Life Force, Salamander 2, Salamander 3, Gradius 2, and Gradius 3.
• Gradius has five versions – JP rom, JP bubble, NA ver, EU ver, and NA prototype. 
• Salamander has two versions – JP and NA. 
• Gradius 2 has four versions – JP early version, JP mid version, JP late version, and NA version. 
• Gradius 3 has four versions – JP old version, JP new version, Asia, and JP am show version. 
• All games boast four game modes: original, easy mode, invincible mode, and training mode. 
• Salamander 3 has an original mode. 
• Full leaderboards support. 
• A full manual for each game with controls and images. 
• The Replay gallery lets you rewatch every saved replay you make and is in each game menu. 
• Every game has a small bit of history on the game. 
• Local two-player co-op support. 
• A pause menu that can be brought up that houses settings, manual, rankings, quick save, quick load, and quit or restart game. 
• You can remap the controls for both player 1 and player 2 in the pause menu at any time. 
• Game settings for – lives, difficulty, extend, demo sound, standardise option behaviour, restart support, stick to right screen edge, and ceiling hit detection. 
• Gadgets options – music name and track appear, blue capsule, equipment info, display controller status, shield durability, remaining lives, score, stage and rank, and game mode. Each can be turned on and off independently in the pause menu. And you can change the gadget locations on screen. 
• Other settings and options – auto Rewind, skip start-up check, and direct start. 
• You can quickly go back to the game selection screen. 
• Each game has different game settings, but usually it’s just worded differently or is explanatory.
• Any game like Life Force that has speech, you have subtitles, and you can choose where the text shows up on screen. 
• Using the rewind feature will disable the leaderboards, and it tells you. 
• After pausing or using the rewind feature, you get a brief ready screen so you can ease back in. 
• You have an insert coin button in each game. 
• Gradius 2 is a Shmup, and you get to choose your ship loadout and shield type. 
• Gradius 3 is a Shmup, and you can choose a default ship loadout or create your own. 
• Gradius is a Shmup that gets straight into the action, and you collect power-ups to get better guns and shields to absorb hits. 
• All the games boast big boss encounters. 
• You can hold down the fire button by default in each game. 
• Salamander 2 is a Shmup that ups the ante with better graphics, more enemy types and pushes it with transitions and a lot more moving parts on screen. 
• Hardcore mode option in Salamander 2 lets you change the game into the unreleased overseas version of the game. 
• Salamander 3 is a Shmup and does a lot of screen effects like the background constantly changing or moving, power-ups have a description of what they are next to them, full voice narration, and you can choose to play as one of two ships, each playing differently. 
• Life Force has hardcore options for shield functionality, and game over on 100 lives. 
• Salamander has hardcore options for – suppress stage four boss attack, and shield functionality. 
• Every game loads lightning fast. 
• A beautiful slice of retro gaming heaven, and it’s really cool to see just how much the games have advanced, but to also play unreleased or different regions’ versions of the games. 

Gradius Origins Review Cons

• The warning of scores not uploading when using rewind is so slight and quick that you can easily miss it or see it too late. 
• As always, you get a lot but are still never happy! Some videos or archival footage are all that’s missing. 
• The collection makes me feel even older than I already feel. 
• No online Co op support. 
• Not a huge number of wallpaper choices in each game. 
• The controller input showing is just a small box in the sidebar amd is easily missed. 

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Gradius Origins

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Developer: Konami Digital Entertainment

Publisher: Konami Digital Entertainment

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