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[Varuna]

Official Playstation Magazine has a review for Gradius Collection PSP (US) in the June 2006 issue.

OPM Score : 2.5 / 5

According to the review, most of the problems with Gradius Collection are a combination of problems with the PSP hardware and control scheme combined with the torturous difficulty of the games themselves.

They say the difficulty is actually ramped up because of flaws in the design of the PSP as well as the shoddy controls. They also say that the PSP screen's notorious problem with dark colors cause the enemies and bullets to be difficult to see. The fact that the picture can be stretched from its normal aspect ratio (4:3) to fill the PSP screen actually exaggerates the visual problem.

As far as the controls, OPM says that the D-pad is more problematic than the analog nub, but the analog nub is not as precise as the D-pad.

OPM says that shmup fans will still enjoy the collection as they are "gluttons for punishment" and the collection is "a shining example of shooter design and old-school difficulty."

I've heard that there is a PSP D-pad mod that works incredibly well and is very easy to install; maybe that would help with the control problem.

 

[Archie]

poor MAF

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

NO, I DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE.

 

[drohne]

bullshit on nearly every count. the psp obviously has a laggy screen and a stiff d-pad, but they don't especially affect gradius -- they affect gradius far less then they affect sfa3, for example. seems like the reviewer is just frustrated with shooters. and has taken his frustration out on the hardware. i'm not sure why an editor found this informative.

some of those games are shining examples of shooter design, though. can't argue with that.

 

[Doom_Bringer]

uh-oh!

 

[Ghengis Cohen]

fuck them.

 

[Varuna]

I'm still buying it.

 

[Matix]

I had the import version of this game, and its nowhere near bad (OPM am cRaZy).

 

[golduck342]

say it ain't so. Now I don't know if I want to pick this up.

 

[Lince]

nooooo!!! I'm not listening to you nananaananan !! nanaan!! I'm not listening!

:'(

don't fear Gradius, I'll be there day one as promised

 

[Ghengis Cohen]

Don't worry they're just weaned on 3D gaming and can't handle a little challenge.

 

[NotMSRP]

You trust gaming journalism?

 

[drohne]

avoiding the game on the the basis of this review would be really dumb. i suppose the "objective" review is a phantasm, but this isn't even a review: it's a handful of petty and irreducibly personal gripes that somehow found themselves on a printed page. i don't like crazy taxi on dreamcast because it cramps my hands and i hate the music, but damned if that's relevant to anyone else.

if you've got a psp, you've probably come to terms with the screen and the pad. and i expect you know how you feel about gradius. FOLLOW UR HEART

 

[Y2Kev]

I bet they say Gradius like "radius."

 

[Varuna]

I just skimmed the D-Pad mod page, and it doesn't look as easy as the shmups forums make it sound.

Check it out here.

 

[Matix]

I just skimmed the D-Pad mod page, and it doesn't look as easy as the shmups forums make it sound.

Check it out here.

If your worried about doing it yourself, you can easily pay $30.00 to have it done for you (plus a included screen cleaning as well).

Anyway, check out this LINK for more info.

 

[Varuna]

If your worried about doing it yourself, you can easily pay $30.00 to have it done for you (plus a included screen cleaning as well).

Nah. I don't have a problem with the analog nub. It got me through Star Soldier just fine.

 

[chaostrophy]

OPM says that shmup fans will still enjoy the collection as they are "gluttons for punishment" and the collection is "a shining example of shooter design and old-school difficulty."

So many reviews talk about shmups (or difficult games in general) being like "punishment" or "pain" and I've never understood why. Do people actually get their feelings hurt if they die in a game, or base their sense of self-worth on whether or not they can get to the end of a game? In Gradius you gradually learn the game's patterns and increase your skill at the game, same as any other title in virtually any genre. So what if this process involves seeing the Game Over screen a lot? Shmups are designed to be restarted over and over: they're short and generally devoid of filler or tedious bits.

I've never been able to one-credit any shmup, even on easy modes, and my high scores have never been worth bragging about on the Internet. But I still like shmups. They engage the nervous system in a unique way that I find extremely enjoyable when I'm in the mood for it. I can't help but wonder if more amateur players like me would try out the genre and end up liking it if mainstream reviewers weren't always crowing about how inaccessible the whole genre is.

 

[SapientWolf]

So many reviews talk about shmups (or difficult games in general) being like "punishment" or "pain" and I've never understood why. Do people actually get their feelings hurt if they die in a game, or base their sense of self-worth on whether or not they can get to the end of a game? In Gradius you gradually learn the game's patterns and increase your skill at the game, same as any other title in virtually any genre. So what if this process involves seeing the Game Over screen a lot? Shmups are designed to be restarted over and over: they're short and generally devoid of filler or tedious bits.

I can't talk about any other Gradius but Gradius III was brutally difficult. It makes DMC3 on hard look like a cakewalk. Yes, your ego will be pulverized. You will get your hopes up only to have them quickly dashed against the game over screen over and over. The big payoff only comes after you beat the game, which may never happen. Games today rarely make you repeat an entire level when you run out of lives. In Gradius III you have to repeat the entire game.

 

[chaostrophy]

I can't talk about any other Gradius but Gradius III was brutally difficult. It makes DMC3 on hard look like a cakewalk. Yes, your ego will be pulverized. You will get your hopes up only to have them quickly dashed against the game over screen over and over. The big payoff only comes after you beat the game, which may never happen. Games today rarely make you repeat an entire level when you run out of lives. In Gradius III you have to repeat the entire game.

From my perspective that just isn't a problem. The shmups that I cut my teeth on didn't really have levels, just waves of enemies. I don't even know if it was possible to beat them at all- to this day I still have no idea if Galaga or Defender even have endings. From my experience the games always ended in death, that was just how they worked, and therefore not frustrating at all. I kept playing for the thrill of it, and to try to get a little bit farther or to get a few more points than I did last time. It's a different motivation than I get with a game like DMC3, where I want to reach the end to see everything the game has to offer.

 

[drohne]

I bet they say Gradius like "radius."

so do i, as it happens -- i know it isn't correct, but that's how i've been saying it since i was a kid. i also mispronounce "raiden." fascinating, i know. :/

anyway, here's what i can say in gradius portable's defense: i perform exactly as well as i do on the saturn, ps1, and ps2 versions. i nearly 1cc'd gradius II while standing in an awful line and being jostled periodically...and i hadn't touched that game in months. gradius isn't really about fine-grain dodging anyway...though sengoku cannon is, and i can play that perfectly well on psp.

 

[mosaic]

I dunno... I haven't played much of it, but the few levels I played at Konami's booth area at E3 seemed just fine to me. I was dodging bullets and hammering away at bosses with no problem... well, except for the fact that I didn't power-up wisely, so it took aaaaages to beat an end-level boss.

 

[slidewinder]

I've had the import since soon after it released, and I'm still playing it.

I use the nub, and it works well enough. PSP's screen hasn't been an issue (with this game) in the least for me.

Did they mention any differences from the JPN/Asia release?

 

[bjork]

People buy OPM for the articles?

 

[Jeff-DSA]

This is terrible to hear. This has been my most wanted PSP title since it was announced. I had heard similar gripes from importers, but up until now I was just hoping that they were being ultra nit-picky.

 

[Balzac]

I imported this a couple of months back. Nicely put together collection, but the PSP's inherent problems just kills any sort of "serious" play. The PSP d-pad is a piece of shit (mine has never been able to pull of diagonals more than 50% of the time), and the analog simply isn't percise enough for navigating close swarms of bullets. Furthermore, being fully powered up (4 options + lasers) produces some of the worst ghosting I've ever seen in a PSP title, to the point that enemy shots become very diffucult to make out.

If you're a casual shooter fan and just plan on credit feeding through it or playing on a difficulty level easier than arcade (which all the games in the collection are set to by default) then this should be a good buy. Anyone that who plays for 1CCs should stay far away however.

 

[Balzac]

I can't talk about any other Gradius but Gradius III was brutally difficult. It makes DMC3 on hard look like a cakewalk. Yes, your ego will be pulverized. You will get your hopes up only to have them quickly dashed against the game over screen over and over. The big payoff only comes after you beat the game, which may never happen. Games today rarely make you repeat an entire level when you run out of lives. In Gradius III you have to repeat the entire game.

Yeah, the reviewers have a legit gripe with Gradius III. Take the hidden difficulty level from the SNES version, take out the copious amount of slowdown, and you have Gradius III on arcade defaults.

Past level 2, it practically feels like a modern day manic shmup. Except your hitbox isn't miniscule. Pure hell.

 

[jj984jj]

I imported this a couple of months back. Nicely put together collection, but the PSP's inherent problems just kills any sort of "serious" play. The PSP d-pad is a piece of shit (mine has never been able to pull of diagonals more than 50% of the time), and the analog simply isn't percise enough for navigating close swarms of bullets. Furthermore, being fully powered up (4 options + lasers) produces some of the worst ghosting I've ever seen in a PSP title, to the point that enemy shots become very diffucult to make out.

If you're a casual shooter fan and just plan on credit feeding through it or playing on a difficulty level easier than arcade (which all the games in the collection are set to by default) then this should be a good buy. Anyone that who plays for 1CCs should stay far away however.

Sort of contradicting the whole thread aren't you?

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

I imported this a couple of months back. Nicely put together collection, but the PSP's inherent problems just kills any sort of "serious" play. The PSP d-pad is a piece of shit (mine has never been able to pull of diagonals more than 50% of the time), and the analog simply isn't percise enough for navigating close swarms of bullets. Furthermore, being fully powered up (4 options + lasers) produces some of the worst ghosting I've ever seen in a PSP title, to the point that enemy shots become very diffucult to make out.

If you're a casual shooter fan and just plan on credit feeding through it or playing on a difficulty level easier than arcade (which all the games in the collection are set to by default) then this should be a good buy. Anyone that who plays for 1CCs should stay far away however.

NO. Shut up. LIES!

*runs away crying*

 

[Chittagong]

I HATE YOU ALL

:,-(

 

[RSP]

I wonder how many of you guys would actually be interested in -new- shooter IP's for PSP or Nintendo DS.

no, this has nothing to do with this thread

 

[MoxManiac]

NO. Shut up. LIES!

*runs away crying*

I wouldn't worry. If drohne says it's good, it's good.

 

[djtiesto]

Is the Gradius III included on the collection the SNES version or the arcade version with its insane difficulty?

 

[kaching]

I wonder how many of you guys would actually be interested in -new- shooter IP's for PSP or Nintendo DS.

I would, but I'll take this in the meantime.

 

[Space Runaway]

Will Capcom's d-pad solve the Gradius d-pad problems?

Screen quality and darkness shouldn't be a problem. I was fine playing Gradius Galaxies on the original GBA. Still sold.

 

[Varuna]

I just found a review in the June 2006 issue of GameInformer.

Score: 8.5 / 10

They don't give any real reasons for the score, only that they are happy to have a portable version of the Gradius games. They make special note of Gradius Gaiden refering to it as "stellar."

 

[Baron Doggystyle von Woof]

well it is a compilation of more then 5 year old games...still those games were good.

 

[replicashooter]

This shouldn't be a problem for the owners of later PSPs as they come with redesigned Dpads that work as well as the modded ones.

 

[Stinkles]

I bet they say Gradius like "radius."

Trivia that almost everyone knows: "Gradius" is in fact a Japanese literalization of "Gladius" - the short Roman sword from which the word "Gladiator" comes.

So if nothing else, that means it's definitely pronounced "Grad-ee-uss" except in Japan, where it would be more like "Gu-Rad-ee-ouss"

 

[jj984jj]

This shouldn't be a problem for the owners of later PSPs as they come with redesigned Dpads that work as well as the modded ones.

I wish. Though it is nicer I wish they'd connect the D-Pad on the portable and make it a bit softer so that it would help the edges feel less painful after a while.

 

[Lord Error]

I've played this collection a bit, and to my satisfaction, Gradius 4 and Gradius Gaiden were the best conversions of the bunch. I could play both just fine (using analog nub) and I enjoyed them a lot. Gradius 3 seemed to suffer from a bit of slowdown, and Gradius 1 and 2 "suffer" from dated graphics, and also the fact that it's tiny bullets can sometimes be a bit difficult to see. I didn't play 1, 2 and 3 all that much though because I only really cared about 4 and Gaiden.

 

[Matix]

This shouldn't be a problem for the owners of later PSPs as they come with redesigned Dpads that work as well as the modded ones.

Really, can you confirm this (awesome if true).

 

[Busaiku]

All lies.
Not a viable source.
Biased.

 

[Matix]

All lies.
Not a viable source.
Biased.

Don't Believe

 

[jj984jj]

Really, can you confirm this (awesome if true).

I believe he is talking about how they leveled it. Remember how bad left was before?

 

[chespace]

Well, my PSP is modded with the SFA3 pad so I think I'm good. Definitely gonna pick this up.

 

[Matix]

I believe he is talking about how they leveled it. Remember how bad left was before?

Yea, tell me about it. My PSP is from the first shipment of the Japanese units, and the D-Pad shit is one of the few issues I've had to deal with (until I got it modded).

 

[M3wThr33]

Trivia that almost everyone knows: "Gradius" is in fact a Japanese literalization of "Gladius" - the short Roman sword from which the word "Gladiator" comes.

So if nothing else, that means it's definitely pronounced "Grad-ee-uss" except in Japan, where it would be more like "Gu-Rad-ee-ouss"

It also means penis.

 

[WalkMan]

Bebpo gives it like a 4/5. So I'd say its fairly good, but it has a limited run I think?

 

[NotMSRP]

So the issues are related to the hardware and not the software itself. Everything will be all right once Ken fixes his perfect beautiful baby.