I had no idea such things were possible. I remember playing this on my ps2 back in the day. I could get to the point where you clicked the two additional speed ups going thru the angled passages. Fuck you’re good man. Fuck!!! I LOVE that you’re this fucking good at this game. I fully appreciate how hard this game is and how skilled you are. The only thing that could have made this better for me to watch is to have your heart rate and blood pressure up on screen in real time. Bravo my friend. Bravo.
I have this Gradius among others on the PSP and will I adore it, trying to play any of the titles on a small screen just makes me angry and unsociable! So being able to emulate on pc and play it on a large screen was a real blessing here, you even see and capture many details not possible on small screen as well. All the later Gradius games from IV onwards can be a nightmare to emulate if you don't know what you are doing...I'd love to play Gradius V someday.
Look for a guy named PEG on this site, he has a nice legit PS2 run of the game. He dies sure, but beats the game on his last life for a 1 credit clear, and he does it legitimately.
@@TBtheking405216 To be quite honest, Gradius is not a hard game at all, and Gradius 2/Vulcan Venture is hard but fair. Its with Gradius 3 and Gradius 4 that the thing goes completely out of Hand. With Gradius Gaiden the difficulty is back to something a normal human can handle.
@@rafaellima83 Gaiden is considered the easiest of the mainline Gradius games. The Game Boy ones aren't too hard either, but not of the mainline of the series.
Now that the first 3 Gradius games are on the Arcade Archives on Switch, its time for Gradius 4 to come to Nintendo Switch on the Arcade Archives line. Arcade Archives Gradius IV Rating Everyone 10+ Fantasy Violence.
This game still has a long way to go in the emulation department. I have a PC fast enough to run it properly, but I'll always play it more on my PS2 Gradius 3 & 4 collection than I will in MAME (I have the PSP Gradius Collection too, but 4 suffers from some slowdown on that for some reason). Matter of fact I own a lot of Gradius and the Parodius spinoffs too.
I own a copy of it for the PS2 and PSP. I can run PS2 emulation smoothly, but have not tried nor tested PSP emulation. Only thing I'd want to emulate for that is Darius Burst.
One of these days perhaps I'll emulate, but so long as my PSP works, and the few games I want for it aren't too expensive (except Burst, that one has never come down in price), I'll stick with the real deal. Only stuff I emulate for the PS2 is stuff I really want to play, but is too expensive, like KoF 02 Unlimited Match, and the PS2 Orochi saga (not buggy like the US version due to different developers working for SNK Playmore doing the games).
Bought a PSP today solely for the gradius collection(1-4 and gradius gaiden) . Was the best 55 quid I spent on 2nd hand system and download...........fucking love gradius
Its considered VERY hard. Only was released in america on 2 versions. PS2 with Gradius III and PSP on the gradius collection. Its a very unforgiving gradius game that in most levels a death equals a end of a run cause you can never recover from that death.
its more like Your reprieve time after revival is a few secs and THAT'S ABOUT IT. The living level is maybe the worst offender of OH you died? Good bye to your run.
Good thing you're a god, huh? I can actually tell you exact specific checkpoints from multiple Gradius games that are not possible to recover from (Gradius II and III being the worst)
This is insanity. I have this for my PS2, and it is impossible. There is a fine line between a hard and impossible game, and to be honest, I think they go a bit too far with both 3 and 4 to the point where it can become just a chore to play. Awesome skills, by the way.
Gradius IV isn't really impossible, it's far friendlier than Gradius III, that is until later loops, where it is said to be more vicious than G3's later loops. Also no skills involved, the longplayers will tell you that themselves. It's all about tool assisting.
To anyone who played through this, how does it compare to Gradius 3 ARC difficulty wise? It still looks pretty hard IMO, I think it suffers from the same problem: being too difficult to be accesible to most people.
It isn't harder than Gradius III, no Gradius game will ever touch the difficulty of that arcade game. Hell no arcade game has ever touched G3's legendary difficulty. The closest was Parodius Da in the arcade, which has a similar difficulty system to G3, the longer you survive, the tougher the game gets, and extra lives are limited.
This is the first time I see this game. Although has nice parts, it is unpolished and has a lot of cheesy effects. Like those 3D morphs are terrible. And the way the stars in the background change between stages (and sometimes mid stage) is quite jarring. The final boss looks literally like a sea cucumber.
@@Nestalgba92023 Gradius 4 actually tops Gradius III difficulty wise come loop 3 and beyond. By that point the bubbles in the Bubble stage are pretty much invincible.
Gradius IV is hard game from what I see it. its never came out in other countries except in japan. (shut up you guys! sometimes japan keeps it foreign some out of japan!)
@@Bloodreign1 hi bloodreign. Did u know that Gradius Collection on PSP was actually released few months before the grand debut of Lovelive School Idol Project?
You say that, but the lore of the games is that the big bads in charge never stay dead. They blow up, pieces of them go flying all over the cosmos, and they start to grow anew. Eventually, one of them wakes up and decides to go on a killing spree.
@FalloutJack Yeah, but there comes a point where it starts to get tiresome and predictable. The real problem is that it was never explained who or what created the Bacterians in the first place and why they want to conquer Gradius, yet they keep failing every time.
Polygons are no replacement for pixel art/2d art (each their own art) and the music I don't know I guess less is sometimes more. I mean take the bubbles, they simply don't animate as well as the sprite ones in earlier games.
Yup, I was thinking the same thing, this just doesn't look as nice as the older games, was just looking this up as someone offered me the arcade board, think ill pass
Not the best looking game in the series no, but pretty much as fun as the earlier games in the series before it. Gradius Gaiden still stands as the peak of the series.
I agree. And I love Gradius IV's music soundtrack. The game really felt like such a downgrade after the then-recent *Gradius Gaiden* on the PS1. Hell, I'll say even a downgrade of Gradius III that came out a decade prior in 1989.... Thankfully the amazing *Gradius V* made up for it and then some. 😊
Gradius has never been known to have final bosses that do much at all, outside of Gradius 2MSX/Nemesis 90 Kai Sharp X68000, and Salamander 2. They tend to be well protected by everything else before them though. Getting to them is the hard part, once you are there, they have no more defenses.
It's not emulated properly is why, otherwise they are identical, and outside of the Credits showing pre game, if you put the arcade board and PS2 version running side by side, and you don't see what is running each one, you'd not be able to tell the difference,